NOTES FOR NATURALISTS..

Otago Witness, Issue 1160, 21 February 1874, Page 21

NOTES FOR NATURALISTS..

Mr Frank Buckland, in Land and Water, says that it is a strange thing that sharks are not known to bite submarine cables, but he is told that marine insects get into the gutta-percha and eat it. up. It is said that the Duke of Sutherland has prohibited killing the birds or taking the eggs of the eagle and hawk tribe on his extensive domains in Sutherland, on account of their rapid decrease, but that his keepers have frequent offers from egg collectors of £5 for a golden eagle's egg, and about £2 a piece for the eggs of other rare birds of prey. In ode instance (says the Inverness Advertiser), a golden eagle's egg taken in Scotland, and purchased from the keeper at five guineas, was resold for £10.

In a review of a newly-published book, entitled " Harvesting Ants and Trapdoor Spiders," by Mr J. T. Moggridge, F.LS., the Pall Mall Gazette says :— '•The description of the habits of the trap-door spiders is amusing. These curious creatures make real doors to their dwelling-places, and resent intrusion as though they were coiners or illicit distillers. The doors are fitted with solid hinges, and are generally so placed on a sloping bank that they fall to by their own weight, and shut into the opening like a cork. Some of these spiders even make double doors — the first slight in, texture, and covered with lichen or moss, so as to escape detection ; the second constructed tor serious resistance. For these double doors, one of which shall open, as it were, from without, and the other only from within, there is certainly much to be said, as the experience of both men and women goes to prove. There is something almost pathetic, as well as comical, in the account given of the spider, which— perhaps we ought to say who- when her first door was destroyed and her second threatened, was finally captured at her post with her back set against the door, resisting with all the power of her legs this violation of territory."

The Pall Mall Gazette says:— "lt is perhaps not generally known, even to naturalists, that rats occasionally weep. Th9ir tears are not idle tears of sentiI ment, of which neither they nor any one i else know the meaning, but spring from the depth of a divine despair when they are pursued by a dog or a ferret and find escape impossible. An interesting account of a rat thus overcome by grief was given the other day to a reporter of the Baltimore American, who interviewed a famous ratcatcher of that city, named Reedy, with the view of obtaining from him some information respecting the experiences of his profession. Among many other curious circumstances mentioned by Reedy, he related that a short time ago, when visiting a house on Madison Avenue, his ferret started a large rat, which ran the whole length of the dwelling between the floors until it came to the only hole Reedy had left unstopped, where its progress was arrested by a net. After making frantic and fruitless attempts to escape, the rat, when it saw the ferret approaching it at a, rapid rate, gave way to despair, and finally burst into tears. Reedy, who was standing by, and was a spectator of the scene, counted no fewer than seven large tears trickle down the rat's cheeks and roll over its nose. The story is also corroborated by a boy who was present on the occasion, and vouches for the sincerity of the rat's emotion. It may further interest householders to hear that Reedy state* there are never so many rats in a house as people suppose, and that it is very seldom he finds more than twenty-five rats under one roof. In the present days, however, of high prices, a man should have a tolerable income to support twenty-five rats, in addition to mice, besides his own family."

The Water Committee of the Liverpool Corporation are trying to put a stop to the enormous waste of water in that town. In one pile of buildings the meter showed that, water had passed through the pipe at the, rate of 97 gallons per head pe* day,