Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/296

284 dog in Cork was annoyed by a cur. He took the animal, threw it over the dock, then plunged in himself and saved its life. Another Newfoundland dog was sent back by its master with a key which was needed at the house. It was attacked on its way by a butcher's dog, but went on about its business, paying no attention to the interruption. The key delivered, it stopped, on its way back to its master, before the butcher's shop, till the dog came out, then attacked it and killed it The story has become an old one of the elephant that cracked a cocoa-nut on the head of a man who had cracked one on its skull, and killed him. Of another elephant—and he was called "the fool"—it is said that a quartermaster threw a tent-pin at him. A few days later, the animal came upon the quartermaster, lifted him up in his trunk, and put him in a large tree, to get down as best he could. Another elephant was treated to some nuts by a visitor who ended by giving him some so hot that they burned him. In his agony, he drank six pails of water, then threw the pail at the visitor. The two met a year afterward, when the joker offered his nuts again. The elephant ate with relish till the hot nuts appeared, then took the joker by the coat-tails and held him up till the cloth gave way and the man fell to the ground. The elephant proceeded to eat the nuts in the coat-pockets, then tore up the coat-tails and threw the pieces after the owner. The last story is of a monkey, which, being caught stealing a friar's grapes, had to wear a weight on its tail. Afterward, while the friar was performing mass at the church, the monkey climbed to the roof of his cell, and with the weight on its tail broke all the tiles.

Egyptian Funeral-Wreaths restored.—Dr. Schweinfurth writes that he has examined the wreaths which were deposited within the coffin of Aahmes I, King of Egypt, of the eighteenth dynasty, whose mummy is now in the museum at Boolak, and has found them to be composed of the flowers of the Acacia Nilotica, the Nymphæa cerulea (isolated petals), the Alcea ficifolia, and a Delphinium, or larkspur, which he supposes to be orientale. The wreaths of the other kings, whose mummies were associated with that of Aahmes, contained flowers of Carthamus tinctoria and leaves of the Mimusops kummel. Leaves of the watermelon were found in one of the coffins. A number of the flowers and leaves have been restored to their shape by moistening them, dipping them in alcohol, and spreading and drying them; and by this means has been obtained an herbarium of thirty-five-hundred-years-old specimens. The color of the chlorophyl, violet in the larkspur, green in the watermelon-leaf, is preserved to a remarkable degree. The Egyptian willow, of the twigs of which the framework of the wreath was composed, the Acacia Nilotica, and the Nymphæa cerulea, still grow wild in Egypt as well as in tropical Africa. The Mimusops kummel has been observed in modern times only in Abyssinia, while the larkspur (Delphinium, orientale) is diffused all over the East, but is cultivated in Northern Africa as an ornamental plant. The Carthamus is still cultivated as a dye-plant in the East and in Egypt. Besides the wonderful preservation of delicate flowers and their colors, this "find" affords new examples of species, both wild and cultivated, which have suffered no variation during a long series of ages. Aahmes I, on whose mummy most of these flowers were found, reigned about 1800

Insect Organs of Smell.—Gustav Hauser, of Erlangen, has made the organs of smell of insects the subject of his studies. That they are related to the antenna is shown quite clearly by several experiments. Glass rods dipped in oil of turpentine or acetic acid, when brought near to insects, caused them to move their antennæ and turn quickly around; but, when the antennas were cut off, the same insects showed no signs of sensation, although the substances were brought close up to them. Flies with their antennæ cut off paid no attention to putrid meat, although they had previously been strongly attracted by it. Varnishing the antennæ with paraffine was followed by a similar insensibility. Herr Hauser's conclusion is that the organs of smell of most insects consist, first, of a stout nerve proceeding from the brain-ganglion, and running along the antennæ; second, of a perceptive terminal apparatus, represented by