THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2159, 11 July 1895, Page 49

THE NATURALIST.

Struggle for Life. SOME HARDY ANIMALS.

A French professor haß been making experiments which prove that of all animals the iabbit can bear the greatest cold. He •hut one up all night hi a block of ice, and the next morning the animal seemed to be very comfortable, and not to know that anything nnnsual had been going on. One would expect the wild creatures to be the hardiest,, and as a matter of fact some of them do show almost miraculous tenacity of life. A Canadian trapper found not long ago that one of his' traps had disappeared. A month afterwards some people 90 miles distant from the place where the trap had been set killed a wolf with that very trap attached to bis leg. The animal ms reduced almost to a skeleton. That he should have been able to drag the trap abont for a month through 100 milea of forest shows how hard it is to kill a" wolf. Going down lower in the brute' creation the power of clinging to life seems to increase. Bv&ry one knows how hard it is to kill a snake, and the old superstition about the pieces living till sunset seems to have | been quite justified. Other reptiles show even more wonderful powers. It is" sometimes very hard, to kill a common tortoise, j A writer tells of one that lived six months » after its brain was taken oat, moving its limbs and walking as before. - Another lived 23 days after its head was cut off, and the head itself opened and closed its jaws a quarter of an hour after it was separated from the body. Next lower in the scale of creation come the fishes, and no fisherman need be told that they will flop about in the liveliest way hours after, they have been pulled out of their natural habitat. But the champion of all fish in this respect is the shark. It is so hard . to kill sharks that they .often live whan life would stem impossible. A shark was once caught by the sailors on the French ship Rosaignoi, and was split open and cleaned as one would clean an ordinary fish, hit heart and all his other internal organs being taken out. Tbe body was then thrown overboard, when, to the astonishment of all, it swam away and was soon out of sight. Of course, ' it could not have lived long, but it is wonder- I f ul that it kept so much life in its body as to be able to swim at all.

A Cubioub Tube.— One of the most curious natural productions of the West Indies is, according to Mr W. Bowers, the famed vegetable fly, an insect about the size and colour of a drone bee, but without wings. In the month of May it buries itself in the earth and begins to vegetate. By tbe beginning of June a sprout has issued from the creature's back and made its appearance above tbe surface of tbe ground. By tbe end of July tbe fly tree has attained * itß full size, being then about 3in bigb, but a perfect tree in every particular, much retiemblicg a delicate coral branch. Pods appear on its branches as soon as it arrives at its'full growth. These ripen and drop off in August. Instead of containicg seeds, aa one ] would naturally suppose, these ' pods have from three to six small hard worms in tbe. interior. — Home Paper. I Tricking a Crab — In Africa there exists a certain member of tbe crab genus commonly known as the •• great tree crab." This peculiar shellfish bas an offensive trick of crawling up the cocoa nut trees, biting off tbe cocoa nuts, and then creeping down again backwards. The theory is that the nuts are shattered by the fall, and the great tree crab is thus enabled- to eojoy a hearty meal. Now the natives who inhabit regions infested by this ill-conditioned crab are well aware that the lower portion of the crab'u anatomy is soft and sensitive, and they believe that tbe " bivale " was thus constructed in order that he might know when he had reached the ground, and wben, consequently, be might with safety release bis grasp of the trunk. So what they do in order to stop bis depredations, which often ruin tbe cocoa nut crops, is this : While the crab is engaged in nipping off the cocoa nuts, they climb halfway up the trees and there drive in a row of long nails right round tbe tree, allowing an — inch or so of the nails to project. The crab has no knowledge of disaster nor yet of tbe fitness of things. As be descends, the sensitive part of his body suddenly touches the nails. Thinking that he has reached the ground, be naturally lets go. Instantly he falls backwards and cracks bis own shell on the ground.