Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/295

Rh and forcing houses the Germans have another substitute glass called Fensterpappe, which is a tough, strong manilla paper which is soaked in boiled linseed oil until it becomes translucent and impervious to water. This paper costs wholesale in Germany about 19s. 6d. per roll one hundred metres in length by one metre in width. It admits sufficient light for growing plants, does not require to be shaded in hot sunshine, is light, durable, and practically secure against breakage, and is said to be a hundred times cheaper than glass. There is a new product recently patented and placed on the German market, called Hornglas. It is very similar to tectorium in appearance and properties, the two advantages claimed for it being greater transparency and less liability of softening under a hot sun.

Animal Traits.—Among the birds in the "Zoo" at the Hague not commonly found in menageries is the "rhinoceros bird," or "buffel pikker," from the Transvaal, which is described by the natural-history writer in the London Spectator as a bird of remarkable habits and unusual plumage. Small flocks of these birds accompany most, of the large antelopes, the buffaloes, and the rhinoceroses in South Africa, and run all over the creatures' bodies, picking off flies and insects. When an enemy approaches, the "buffel pikkers" sit in line with heads raised on the back of the animal they are attending, like sparrows on a roof ridge, and signal the alarm. The plumage is close, uniform, and compact, giving the bird an appearance of being covered with polished satin rather than with feathers. The monkeys have an outdoor house, floored with loose sand, exactly suitable for a playground agreeing with their natural habits, which communicates with their cages by holes through the wall. The holes fairly represent the rock crevices in the animals' native hills, and the monkeys slip through them to the sand, which they can turn over in search of insects, as they do at home. When thirsty, they go to the stone water troughs set in the runs and drink, standing on all fours, sucking up the water as a horse does. The elephant in this Zoo has had to sacrifice his dignity and come down to playing tricks. It earns small coins by blowing a mouth organ with its trunk and grinding a coffee mill. It plays dominoes "with laborious care," lifting each piece from the table and depositing it next that placed by the keeper, with a very audible noise.

Canon Core on Evolution and the Fall.—In a lecture recently delivered at Sheffield, England, Canon Gore examines the contradictions between the Christian doctrine of the sudden fall and the scientific doctrine of the gradual rise of man. "According to the theory of evolution," he said, "man began his career at the bottom, emerging from purely animal life, and slowly struggled upward to his present level of attainment. According to the Christian doctrine, on the contrary, he was created perfect, and then subsequently fell into sin and accompanying misery." Intellectually, however, the Bible does not represent primitive man as perfect. His faculties at the beginning were in a childish state, and his mastery over the arts and sciences was a gradual acquirement. But it maintains that man from the first was endowed with a perfected moral feeling for right and wrong, and that his one act of disobedience not only affected his own life but also tainted with lawlessness his after-comers. Canon Gore maintains that according to the third chapter of Genesis man was at first in direct relation to a divine will, and could have followed the path of development pointed out to him. He thereby would have spiritualized not only his own nature, but by the simple law of heredity would have fathered a race moving in an altogether higher moral sphere.

Marsupials and their Skins.—The marsupials (the pouch-bearing animals) of Australia, the opossums, wombats, kangaroos, and wallabies (smaller kangaroos), are among the fur-bearing animals killed in the largest numbers. They have been looked upon as pests, and a premium put upon their heads by the Government, so that now they are exterminated in many parts of the country. Their skins are not at all estimated at their proper value, being mostly made up into cheap rugs, or used for sole leather and japanned boots, or the hair is scraped off and manufactured into felt. Yet they would be a valuable addition to the European fur trade, were the