FROM NATURE'S BOOK.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2786, 27 September 1910, Page 6

FROM NATURE'S BOOK.

lEAL SEA SERPENTS. In New Caledonia, sea serpents are freq';n y seen and sometimes captured. Thy are curious creatures, the head being very small and scarcely .is in .uishible from the body, and the ta 1 being formed like an oir. ':i length they are generally betwe n three and four feet. In the ia'.v th re are tiny glands containin j pi oi, but, as the mouth Is \ ery sm 1, it is difficult for them to ii e, and the natives handle them tearlessly. M. Kermogant, a Euroiean travel'er, recently witnessed an experiment at Noumea which sho s un'er certain conditions the sea se pnt can do deadly work. A rat was caught in a trap, and its t njre was grasped by a pair of pincers and placed in the mouth of a Eea rerpent. The serpent immediately lit it and the rat died in four minutes. A BIG BIRD CAGE. A very unique institution in the New York "Zoo" is what is known as "The Flying-bird Cage." This mign ficent aviary is the largest of its kind in the world, being 55 feet high, 72 feet wide, and 150 feet long. Large oak and other trees grow in this ego, and the birds live within its wie netting bounds in the utmost f eedom. The frame of the cage is b lilt of iron pipes, which are covered over with thin meshed netting. DISAPPEARING LIONS. Lions have disappeared totally from many of their old haunts in India. The King of beasts is no longer to le found in the country of Pajkot, cr on the hills of Barda, and it is rad their total extermination from the forests of Gir in Kathiawar must soon be accomplished. In the hope of preventing this, however, ths Rajah of Kathiawar has prohi ited the hunting of the "King of beasts," for six months. Not long ago Europeans rarely dared to venture in'o this region, which was infested w'th fever and bandits, but as the forests are being cleared, fever and bandits are also vanishing, and the lions as well.

DOLPHIN AND FLYING-FISH. A shio was lying at anchor at Boca Grande (says the "Punta Gorda Herald") lately, when the crew observed a dolphin chasing a flying fish, both coning directly towards the ship. On nearing the vessel the fyer arose in the air and passed oer the bow, just abaft the foremast. As it did so, the dolphin went i nd'r the ship, and, coming up on the othr side, sprang from the water and caught the flying fi3h on 'the fy," just as it was curving gracefully down in its descent to the wat.r. JUMPING BEANS. The Jumping ,Bean (botannically styled Carpocapas saltitans) is the product of a peculiar tree discovered in a morass, half a mile square, in the neighbourhood of Alamos, Mexico. The fruit, as it grows upon the tree, is of triangular shape, divide! into three equal portions. A small black seed is found in two of these and a small worm in the other. According to one authority, when the fruit is ripe it falls to the ground and splits, and the portion conta'ning the worm at once starts off, jumping in an extraordinary manner away from the tree from which it has fallen. The beans ripen in July and August and go on jumping till the following May. BE IS' STINGS, AND WASPS'. The sting of a bee is often more virulent than that of a wasp, and, with sone people, attended with very violent effects. The sting of a bee is larbed at the end, and, consequently, always left in the wound; that of a wasp is pointed only, so that thsy can sting more than once, which a bee cannot do. When any persen is stung by a bee, let the st nz, in the first place, be instantly pul id out, for the longer it remains in the wound the deeper it will lie ce. owing to its peculiar form, end tm'it more of the poison. The sting is hollow, and the poison flows thro'ifh it, which is the sole cause of the pain and inflammation. WEATHER FROGS. T ny tree frogs, not more than an fn h long, are imported from Gerran 7 and other parts of Continent 1 Turope, to be used as foretellers of we tlnr changes. They have the jroptrly of seeming to take the coloar of whatever object they may te rating on—brown for wood, gre n if on the leaf ; placed in a blue glass jar they will become bli'e. They may be heard but not seen, so closely in colour do they resemble whatever they may have perched upon. They are called weather frogs because at the approach cf rainy or changeable weather they jump into the water, and at the approach of clear weather they come out again. In captivity the weather fro? is usually kept in a glass jar or glo l e, which is covered at the top with a wire screen. Water is put in the bottom of the jar, and at a convenient height is placed something f-r the little frog to jump up on. Tin weather frog in captivity is fed on fiics in the summer, and in winter on rival worms,; its food must leal ve.