THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1852, 20 May 1887, Page 35

THE NATURALIST.

Do Bieds Flit Down?— This query has recently been made a subject of some considerable discussion among the scientists and observers. Mr C. F. Holder writes as follows in St. Nicholas:— l see, in a back number of St Nicholas, that one of your correspondents appeals partly to me in regard to birds flying down. , But all who have written seem so well posted that I doubt if I can add anything to their knowledge. However, I have seen a California quail, a wooddove, ani a humming-bird flying, downward; but in slow flyers, with large wings and heavy, bodies, the wings are used more or .less as parachutes in going down ; in other- words, the birds spread their wings and rely- upon gravity. This I have noticed in the 'sandhill cranes in their migrations along the Sierra Madres. A flock, of say a hundred, • will mount upward in a beautiful spiral, flashing in the sunlight, all the while uttering loud discordant notes, until they attain an altitude, of nearly a mile above sea level. Then they, form in regular lines, and soar away at an angle that in five miles, or so, will bring, them within 1000 feet of the earth. , Then they will stop and begin the spiral upward movement again until a high elevation is reached, when away they go again, sliding downhill, in the air, toward their winter home. It is very evident that a vast .amount of muscular exertion is saved in this way. Insome of these slides that I have watchedthrough a glass, birds would pass from three to four miles, I should judge, without flapping the wings. " ,t..., t ... „, i Sense of Smell in { Dogs.— At a recent, meeting of the Linnean. Society, Mr G. J. Romanes read a paper "On the sense, oh smell in dogs," in the course of which he, related his own experiments with -a setter., The experiments show that not only the feet,, but likewise the whole body of a man exhalea peculiar or individual odour, which a dog' can recognise as that of his master amidst a crovd of .other persons; that the individual quality of this^ odour can be recognised at' great distance to windward, or in calm weather at great distance in, any direction;, and that this odour is not overcome by aniseed. Luminosity of the Ocean.— This pro'ceedsfroma great variety of marine organisms, some soft and gelatinous and some minute,' shelly animals. They mostly shine when -excited by a blow or by agitation of the: water, as when a fish darts along, or; oar dashes, or in the wake of a vessel when the water closes on its track. There are few subjects of study more interesting to passen-5 gers crossing the Atlantic than the luminous i lappearance thus presented by the sea. • That ,'water, the great extinguisher of fire, sheuld be turned into flame ; that the darkness of night should be illuminated by the luminous; glow which bathes every rippleand breaks on every wave, or that lightning flashes should coruscate no less hi the billows of the sea than in the clouds of the air, are facts which seize on the imagination. Nor is the ; •interest lessened by the knowledge that all •tkese phenomena are produced by animals whose home is in the great waters ; that not only the fiery bodies of large animals give out steady patches of ligljt, but that qf the " myriad animalpulre with whjch the sea teems, like motes in a sunbeam, each contributes its tiny scintillation, the aggregate forming a , soft and Iqvely radiance. ' '