THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2735, 15 August 1906, Page 67

THE NATURALIST.

The Therangrn.

Of the many carious things that first drew me to the Madras Museum, popularly known as the Dead College, the first object that attracted my attention was a glass case in which was imbedded what appeared to me to be a round mass of something, about the size of a shorn cocoanut, having a grey coat of bristling fur all over it. At first I was at a loss to make out what this ball-like object was, whether to take it for a vegetable, or to class 4 it with a stone, having a fungoid growth encrusting it. But being enlightened by the keeper there that it was a living being, I was. tho more astonished, for I saw in it neither a head nor a tail, nor eyes or ears, but only a homogeneous mass of some woolly stuff. What with shouting and shaking, we made it at last assume a living form, and lo! it was not like any creature I had seen before.

The head was like that of a fox, but with larger &nd more prominent eyes ; the arms and legs were so slender that even a baby could break them, and the stomach was protruding in bold relief like that of an over-fed child, and last of all there was not the least sign of a. tail. After moving about on its porch for a few minutes, it deliberately eat in the fork of its perch and caught hold of two of the branches with its hands and feet, rolled itself again into a ball, and concealing its head between its legs, went to sleep again without the slightest notice of us whatever.

Thie happened some years back, since when I have been noting many of its peculiar pranks. It is known among the nathos a3 tbe Thevaugu (slender iiinbs), or among the Europeans as tJits slender XJoriß. It is an inhabitant of many of the South Indian forests, an arboreal creature, and is such a lazy loon that nothing can make it come down from the tree on which it resides. It moves on the tree from branch to branch so slowly as to make it almost difficult to be perceived, and the only part that is prominent in it is its bloated stomach. It is very rarely seen during the daytime, for it spends the major portion of the day in sleep, either in its roost on the branches or in some hole in the trunk of a tree, and comes out only at night and stealthily crawls over the branches in search of some insect or other to feed upon, A pious Hindu, commenting on its diurnal sleeping habit, told tho that it was due to a big sage's curse, time out of mind ; that the Thevaugj was once a great Indian Prince, who was thus transformed for disturbing the great sage's penance, and it spends the day not in sleep, but in earnest prayer to the sage to absolve it from the cruel curse. Whatever this may be, the physical cause is not far to seek. The eyes of the creature aro large, and being unable to control ite pupils, which are proportionately larger, the strong rays of daylight are too much for this poor animal, and it is forced to keep its eyes shut during the day, just as persons suffering from ophthalmia or eye-sore find it very difficult to contract their pupils and thus regulate the amount of light entering the eyes. So the darkness of the night is a great relief to it. And its power of seeing at night is so keen that it can stealthily approach insects that orawl on the barks of trees and catch them up unawares, and it can sight even the approach of distant foes Thus it obtains its food at night, and at peep of dawn it retreats to its hole or goes to sleep in the fork of a branch. Its slender limbs resemble the twigs of a tree, the body a, protrusion in the course of a branch. These, together with its grey colour, enable it to hide itself securely among the branches and to be passed over by ,many a hungry foe. They also form, themselves into companies, com pa nice not for eating or fighting, but for sleeping. At such times two or three perch close to one another, and all lie huddled up together so as to form an indistinguishable round mass.

They are very stupid animate, and allow themselves to be easily caught by man, and are brought in large numbers to the Madras market, where they find a. ready sale, as they aro much valued by native physicians and sorcerers. — Indian Ladies' Magazine.

Long Fasta of Spiders. — Moses and Dr Tanner seem to be msm'e mod-els in the ability to dispense with food. The limits reached by them, however, aro greatly surpassed by certain animals. Some facts as to bpiders' powers of fasting are given in L'lllustration fParit). Ant eminent naturalist, M. J. H. Fabre, recently studying the habits of the Lyooea uarbonensis, noticed that that spider carries its little onos upon its back during beven months, and during this time tho young epiders consume absolutely no food. He concluded from this observation that it is tho solar heat and light that for them directly take the place of nourishment. In other wordp, "the motor heat in these young animals, instead of bping released from the food, might be utilised directly as the sun, source of all life, radiates it."

Ill© Hedgehog. — An interesting fact about hedgehog? that perhaps not many of ue know is that the bites of even the most poisonous serpents have -no effect on them whatever. M. Lenz, a naturali-it, once watched a fight between a .hedgehog and «. viper, and gives a most interesting description of it. Ho says that when the hedgehog 1 came near tho snake she began to smell it, for the tight of these animals, is so poor that they depend almost entirely on the sen«e of smell, and then bhe eeized its head with her teeth. In a. moment the enake had freed itself and, darting at the hedgehog, bit it several times, Tbut the little animal did not seem to mind tho bites at all, and when the tnakc was tired out with its efforts ehe again seized its head, which she ground between her teeth, poisonous fangs and all. Then she devoured almost tho whole of its body. M. Lenz also tells of a pet hedgehog that he kept in his house in a large box. Several i times he put some adders into the box, which the hedgehog did not seem to fear at all, but attacked them fiercely and, as in the case of the other, was never In the least affected by their poisonous bites. Another gentleman who has had a pet hedgehog in his possession for a long time says that he has often eeen it 4hrow ittelf off the top of a wall 14ft in height. Without pausing a moment it ■vyould contract itself into a soft, fluffy ball, and fall to the ground so lightly that almost immediately it would unfold. iieelf. and run. off.~ Brooklyu E»gl(;