Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/400

378 scorpion as he would to a cat. When, therefore, the scorpion came within range, the mouse gave a squeak and bit him on the back; the scorpion at the same moment planted his sting well between the mouse's ears on the top of his head. The scorpion then tried to retreat, but could not, for one claw had got entangled in the fur of the mouse. The mouse and scorpion then closed, and rolled over each other like two cats fighting, the scorpion continually stabbing the mouse with his sting, his tail going with the velocity of a needle in a sewing-machine. When the scorpion got tired, the mouse got hold of his tail with his teeth and gave it a sharp nip. The mouse seized the opportunity, and immediately bit off two of the scorpion's side-legs. He then retired, and began to wash his face. I had expected, of course, that the poison of the scorpion would have killed the mouse, but he didn't seem a bit the worse for it. When I examined him the next morning he was quite lively and well, and had nearly eaten up the whole of the scorpion for his breakfast. Of course I rewarded the mouse for his plucky conduct by giving him some milk, and by letting him go in a place where it was not likely the cat would find him."

Labor at the South African Diamond-fields.—The exploitation of the diamond-fields of South Africa promises to exert a mighty influence on the native populations living north of Griqualand. No sooner had the demand for labor arisen at the diggings than vast numbers of the races known as Mahawas, who live between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth parallels of south latitude, poured down from the country bordering on the Limpopo, and eagerly took service with the diggers. "They came in large bodies," says Mr. J. B. Currey, secretary to the government of Griqualand West, "often as many as two thousand in a month, arriving in a wretched state of emaciation." They wear no clothing save a cincture round the loins. They stay about six months, and then they are sleek, well-made, and often powerful men. They are very thrifty, and generally have from eight to ten pounds in money when the time for their departure arrives. This they expend in purchasing guns, powder, and lead, old military uniforms, beads, brass wire, and perhaps a little food, and set out for their own country, each man staggering under his burden. From the Mahawas the tidings of work and pay at the diamond-fields spread to other tribes living farther north, and in the early part of 1874 appeared groups of Makalakas from the great plains in latitude 20°, a race said to be without chiefs or laws or organization of any kind whatever. Still, degraded as is their condition, they seem to possess some remains of a more civilized state, and to show signs of an intelligence superior to that of the Mahawas. Parties of these people continued to arrive during 1874 and 1875, and in the middle of the latter year came the first party of the Maschonas, large, powerful, jet-black men, from latitude 18° on the southern bank of the Zambezi.

Remarking upon this curious movement of the natives, Mr. Currey observes:

Natural History of the American Antelope.—From an interesting paper in the American Naturalist, by Judge Caton, we select the following notes upon the natural history of the American antelope: The animal is not a native of the Old World, and is confined to a very limited portion of the New. In size the prong-buck, or American antelope, is considerably smaller than the Virginia deer, the adult male rarely exceeding four feet in length from tip to tip, and three feet in height to the top of the shoulder. The hairs of this animal differ from those of most of the hollow-horned ruminants,