Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/152

 thinks that the tubes of the tongue connect with the lungs rather than with the digestive passage. These interesting observations were abruptly terminated one day by the coming of a third "hummer"—a male—who drove the others from the window, and, in a fit of rage, darted at one of them, and thrust his bill well through its body; both then fell to the ground dead.

Wines as Intoxicants.—Supposing two wines, a white wine and a red, to contain the same proportion of alcohol, may the one be more intoxicating than the other? That such is the case appears from a communication to the London "Spectator" by Samuel James Capper, who declares it to be an incontestable fact that in all white wine districts, and of course in all cider producing countries, drunkenness is much more prevalent than where red wine is grown. Mr. Capper quotes the observations of a lady who was in the habit of spending six months of the year in a château on the Loire, while the other six months were spent on an estate near Dinan. "She assured me," writes Mr. Capper, "that the difference in the matter of sobriety was most marked between the peasants on the Loire, whose habitual beverage was red wine, and the Normans and Bretons, who drink cider, to the exclusion of everything else, even water." He adds that "in the Pays de Vaud the abundant supply of white wine is admitted by all thoughtful inhabitants to be a great curse. Very few laboring men attain old age, their nervous systems breaking down entirely, through their intemperate use of the product of the smiling vineyards that line the shores of Lake Leman. An hotel proprietor of great experience assured me that he found it better in every way to supply his servants and laborers with a cheap red wine from France than to let them drink the white wine of the country." Mr. Capper accounts for the difference in the effects of red and white wine by the fact that the former is very rich in tannin, which is absent in the latter. The tannin exercises an astringent influence, and clones the pores of the stomach, thus preventing the alcohol from going straight to the brain, as it does in the case of white wine.

Grief in a Chimpanzee.—That the chimpanzee is capable of feeling grief, regret for the death of a companion, Mr. A. E. Brown holds to be proved by the behavior of the surviving one of a pair of those animals kept for some time in the Zoological Garden of Philadelphia. The animals had been very much attached to each other; they never quarreled, and, if occasion required one to be handled with any degree of force, the other was always prepared to take its part. After the death of the female, her consort made many attempts to rouse her, and when this was found to be impossible his rage and-grief were piteous. Tearing the hair, or rather snatching at the short hair on his head, had always been one of his common expressions of extreme anger, and he was now seen to do this frequently; but the ordinary yell of rage which he set up at first finally changed to a cry before unheard by the keeper, and which may be represented by hah—ah—ah—ah—ah, uttered somewhat under the breath, and with a plaintive sound like a moan. He made repeated efforts to awaken his dead companion, lifting up her head and hands, pushing her violently, and rolling her over. After the body had been removed from the cage he became more quiet, and remained so as long as his keeper was with him, but, catching sight of the body once when the door was opened, and again when it was carried past the front of the cage, he became violent, and cried for the rest of the day. The day following he sat still most of the time and moaned continually; but this gradually passed away, and from that time forward he has manifested a sense of a change in his surroundings only by a more devoted attachment to his keeper and a longer fit of anger when he leaves him.

Sensibility of the Eye to Light.—A highly interesting series of experiments on the sensibility of the eye to light is described by Charpentier, in a communication to the Paris Academy of Sciences. With the aid of a special apparatus for graduating at will the intensity of the incident rays, he finds that if the intensity be gradually increased from zero the sensation is developed after a certain minimum degree has