Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/864

842 Professor Semper had a rare art of attaching his students to himself. His manner of meeting and greeting them attracted them. His intercourse with them was friendly and cordial, and was not confined to the hours of instruction. The students of the Würzburg Institute, Dr. Schuberg says, when Professor Semper was in the height of his power as a teacher, constituted a family, of which he was the head. He knew how to pick out the students inclined to independent thought, to draw out their peculiar traits, and to prompt each of them to develop his individuality, or cultivate his habit of independence. Hence, although he had many students, he formed no "school."

in the London Spectator, visiting the Zoölogical Gardens in Amsterdam, was much interested in the colony of nesting cormorants on one of the small canals crossing parts of the grounds, where the "domestic side of cormorant life could be seen at close quarters." The birds carried on there their daily work of "fishing, nest-building, sitting on eggs, rearing the young, quarreling for 'stands' for future nests, or basking in the sun within a couple of yards of the path. At the time of the writer's visit there were five nests built close to the water. They were made of large sticks piled to a height of from two feet to three feet. One held a pair of young cormorants, covered with close, black down. In the second were three birds of rather larger growth. On a third nest an old hen bird was still sitting on her eggs, while the cock kept guard on the ground in front. The compact and glossy plumage of both shone with gleams of black and purple luster, set off by the pale yellow skin on the cheek and bill. The cormorant is not usually credited with beauty, but, like the starling, it is a lovely bird in the breeding season, when the sight of the old cock rushing to battle with all intruders, exchanging rapierlike thrusts of the beak with his enemies, croaking, swelling his throat, and even throwing himself on the ground to prevent access to the nest, makes a pretty illustration of bird courage. All this fuss and excitement is confined entirely to the male birds. The hens are quite ready to see a little company when sitting; and two were seen sitting side by side on eggs laid in a joint nest."

publication of his theory of microcephalism caused great offense in certain circles in Germany, and even the children in the streets would sometimes call after him "Affenvogt." William Vogt relates in his Vie d'un Homme that, desiring to examine a specimen of microcephaly in a strictly closed convent at Eger, Carl took advantage of the doors being opened for General de Gablenz, and attached himself to his party. They were all received cordially and given the freedom of the house. The friar pastor exhibited as the greatest curiosity of the convent "a real man-monkey," a microcephal, which Vogt examined at great length. While he was measuring its angles, the monk exclaimed: "A real man-monkey, isn't it? Wouldn't that pestilent monster of a Carl Vogt be happy if he could see it! I am not malicious, but if he should come within a league of this place he would be lost!"