Natural History.

The remarkably attractive Number of the Magazine of Natural History for the present month enables us to checker our sheet with a page or two of facts which will be interesting to every inquiring mind.

Hail at Lausanne.

"At Lausanne, on the 14th of July, 1831, about 8 P.M., we witnessed one of those hail-storms which, every summer, cause such ravages in the south of Europe. A great proportion of the hailstones were as big as hen's eggs, and some even bigger: seven nearly filled a common dinner plate. They were mostly oval or globular; but one piece, brought to us after the storm, was flat and square, full 2 in. long, as many broad, and three quarters of an inch thick, with several projecting knobs of ice as big as large hazel nuts. This mass exactly resembled a piece of uniformly transparent ice, but the oval and globular masses had the same conformation as has often been described in these hailstones, and on which Volta founded his ingenious but untenable theory of their formation. In the centre of each was a small, white, opaque nucleus, the size of a pea, and evidently one of the hailstones usually seen in England, to which the French give the name of grésil, confining the term gréle to the larger masses of ice now under our observation. This nucleus of gresil was enclosed in a coat about half an inch thick of ice considerably more transparent than it, but still somewhat opaque, as though of snow melted and then frozen again, and externally the rest of the mass was of ice perfectly transparent, and as compact and hard as possible, resounding like a pebble, and not breaking when thrown on the floor. The inhabitants of Lausanne, aware that the cinereous and puffed up appearance of the clouds charged with this tremendous aerial artillery portended more than a mere thunder-storm, had adopted the precaution of closing their Venetian shutters; but such windows as were deprived of this protection had almost every pane broken: and much damage was done to the tiles of all the houses, and to the gardens and vineyards; but less than might have been expected, owing to the short duration of the storm, which did not last longer than seven or eight minutes, and to the circumstance of the hailstones not being very numerous."—(W. Spence.)

Cedar Wood.

"The cedar has been recommended, among other woods, for the purpose of constructing drawers for cabinets of insects. Let the inexperienced collector be warned that this is, perhaps, the very worst wood that can be employed for the purpose; a strong effluvia, or sometimes a resinous gum, exudes from the wood of the cedar, which is apt to settle in blotches on the wings of the specimens, especially of the more delicate Lepidóptera, and entirely discharges the colour. The Rev. Mr. Bree once had a whole collection of lepidopterous insects utterly spoiled from having been deposited in cedar drawers; and he has understood, also, that the insects in the British Museum, collected, he believes, chiefly by Dr. Leach, have been greatly injured from the same cause. Possibly, however, cedar wood, after it has been thoroughly well seasoned, may be less liable to produce these injurious effects."

Habits of the Common Snake in Captivity.

A Staffordshire Correspondent writes thus familiarly:

"This has been a remarkably good season, both for vegetables and animals. It has been a singular time for adders, snakes, and lizards; I never saw so many as I have seen this year in all my life. I have been trying, a great part of this summer, to domesticate a common snake, and make it familiar with me and my children; but all to no purpose, notwithstanding I favoured it with my most particular attention. It was a most beautiful creature, only 2 ft. 7 in. long. I did not know how long it had been without food when I caught it; but I presented it with frogs, toads, worms, beetles, spiders, mice, and every other delicacy of the season. I also tried to charm it with music, and my children stroked and caressed it; but all in vain: it would be no more familiar with any of us than if we had been the greatest strangers to it, or even its greatest enemies. I kept it in an old barrel, out of doors, for the first three weeks: during that time, I can aver, it ate nothing; but, after a very wet night, it seemed to suffer from the cold. I then put it into a glass vessel, and set it on the parlour chimney-piece, covering the vessel with a piece of silk gauze. I caught two live mice, and put them in to it; but they would sooner have died of hunger than the snake would have eaten them: they sat shivering on its back, while it lay coiled up as round as a ball of worstep. I gave the mice some boiled potatoes, which they eat: but the snake would eat neither the mice nor the potatoes. My children frequently took it out in their hands, to show it to their schoolfellows; but my wife, and some others, could not bear the sight of it. I one day took it in my hand, and opened its mouth with a penknife, to show a gentleman how different it was from that of the adder, which I had dead by me: its teeth being no more formidable or terrific than the teeth of a trout or eel; while the mouth of the adder had two fangs, like the claws of a cat, attached to the roof of the mouth, no way connected with its jaw-teeth. While examining the snake in this manner, it began to smell most horridly, and filled the room with an abominable odour; I also felt, or thought I felt, a kind of prickly numbness in the hand I held it in, and did so for some weeks afterwards. In struggling for its liberty, it twisted itself round my arm, and discharged its excrements on my coat-sleeve, which seemed nothing more than milk, or like the chalkings of a woodcock. It made its escape from me several times by boring a hole through the gauze; I had lost it for some days at one time, when at length it was observed peeping out of a mouse-hole behind one of the cellar steps. Whether it had caught any beetles or spiders in the cellar, I cannot say; but it looked as fierce as a hawk, and hissed and shook its tongue, as in open defiance. I could not think of hurting it by smoking it out with tobacco or brimstone; but called it my fiery dragon which guarded my ale cellar. At length I caught it, coiled up on one of the steps. I put it again into an American flour barrel; but it happened not to be the same as he had been in, and I observed a nail protruding through the staves about half way up. This, I suppose, he had made use of to help his escape; for he was missing one morning about ten o'clock: I had seen him at nine o'clock; so I thought he could not be far off. I looked about for him for half an hour, when I gave up the hunt in despair. However, at one o'clock, as the men were going from dinner, one of them observed the rogue hiding himself under a stone, fifty yards from the house. 'Dang my buttons,' said he, 'if here is not master's snake. He came back and told my wife, who told him to go and kill it. It happened to be washing-day: the washerwoman gave him a pailful of scalding soapsuds to throw on it; but whether he was most afraid of me or of the snake is still a question: however, the washerwoman brought it home with the tongs, and dropped it into the dolly-tub. It dashed round the tub with the velocity of lightning; my daughter, seeing its agony, snatched it out of the scalding liquid, but too late: it died in a few minutes. I was not at all angry with my wife: I had had my whim, and she had had hers. I had got all the knowledge I wanted to get; I had learned that it was of no use for a human being, who requires food three times a day, to domesticate an animal which can live weeks and months without food: for, as the saying is, 'Hunger will tame any thing;' and without hunger you can tame nothing. I have also learned that the serpent, instead of being the emblem of wisdom, should have been an emblem of stupidity."

"The stench emitted by the common snake, when molested, is superlatively noisome; and is given off so powerfully and copiously, that it infects the air around to a diameter of several yards. This I witnessed on observing a bitch dog kill a rather large snake; in which act two points beside the odour effused were notable. The coils of the snake formed, as it were, a circular wall; and in the circular space between it, the snake sunk its head, as if for protection. The dog's efforts were to catch and crush the head; and, shrivelling up her fleshy lips, 'which all the while ran froth,' she kept thrusting the points of her jaws into the circular pit aforesaid, and catching at and fracturing the head. During the progress of these acts, she, every few seconds, snorted, and shook off the froth, of which she seemed sedulously careful to free herself, and barked at the conquered snake. The dog was a most determined vermin-killer, and in rats, &c., quite an accomplished one; but snakes did not often come in her way."—J.D.

CURIOUS FACTS IN VEGETATION

(From Part xiv. of Knowledge for the People, or the Plain Why and Because.)

Why is it improper to consider the turnip a real bulb?

Because it is an intermediate stem which swells into a bulbous form. Turnips have not been cultivated in England, in fields, more than a century; but this agricultural practice now yields an annual return which probably exceeds the interest of our national debt.—Sir Walter Scott.

Why is the Cauliflower so named?

Because of its origin from caulis, the stalk of a herb. Colewort is of a similar origin.

Why are the stems of the Cabbage tribe considered wholesome food?

Because their acrid flavour is dipersed among an abundance of mucilage. Cabbages were commonly used among the ancients, and Cato wrote volumes on their nature. The Indians had so much veneration for them, that they swore by cabbages, and were therein as superstitious as the Egyptians, who gave divine honours to leeks and onions, for the great benefits which they said they received from them.—Lemery on Food.

Why do Cabbages emit a strong animal odour?

Because they contain a great quantity of azote or nitrogen, one of the ultimate elements of animal matter, and strongly characterized in the destructive distillation of horn, hoofs, or bones.

Why do not the leaves of the Cabbage remain wet, after being immersed in water, and again taken out of it?

Because they are powdered with a slight layer of resinous matter, similar to that which covers certain fruits, and, in particular, plums and grapes. Their sea-green colour is also attributed to this resinous layer.

Why is Quassia so called? Because it was named in honour of a negro, Quassia, a drunken doctor, who discovered the virtue of the wood in curing malignant fevers.

Why is the Ice plant so called?

Because its stem is covered with soft tubercles, or excrescences, which have a crystalline appearance.

Why do the leaves of some trees fall very early?

Because they are articulated to the branch; that is, they do not unite with it by the whole of their base, but are simply fixed to it by a kind of contraction or articulation; as in the maple and horse chestnut.

Why do leaves fall at the approach of winter?

Because a separation takes place, either in the foot-stalk, or more usually at its base, and the dying part quits the vigorous one, which is promoted by the weight of the leaf itself, or the action of the gales that blow in autumn on its expanded form. M. Richard explains the cause more philosophically: "Although the fall of the leaves generally takes place at the approach of winter, cold is not to be considered as the principal cause of this phenomenon. It is much more natural to attribute it to the cessation of vegetation, and the want of nourishment which the leaves experience at that season, when the course of the sap is interrupted. The vessels of the leaf contract, dry up, and soon after, that organ is detached from the twig on which it had been developed."

Why do some trees, as the Oak, the Beech, and the Hornbeam, retain their leaves to a late period of autumn?

Because the life of the twigs on which they grow is not sufficiently vigorous to throw them off, after the brown colour indicates that they are dead.

Why have some plants been termed the Poor Man's Weather-glass?

Because they shut up their flowers against the approach of rain. Linnaeus, however, thinks, that flowers lose their fine sensibility, after the anthers have performed their office, or when deprived of them artificially. Sir James Smith also observes, that some species are sometimes exhausted by continued wet; "and it is evident that very sudden thunder showers often take such flowers by surprise, the previous state of the atmosphere not having been such as to give them due warning."

Many flowers have a regular time of opening and shutting. We have already mentioned the Marigold; the goat's-beard is vulgarly called "John go-to-bed at noon," from its closing at mid-day; and at the Cape of Good Hope there is a "four o'clock flower," because it invariably closes at that time. The common daisy is, however, a readier example, its name being a compound of day's and eye—Day's-eye, in which way, indeed, it is written by Ben Johnson. It regularly shuts after sun-set, to expand again with the morning light. Thus,—

Leyden sings of moist or rainy weather foretold by daisies. Thus we may examine a whole field, and not find a daisy open, except such as have their flowering nearly over, and have in consequence lost their sensibility.

The daisy is one of the pet flowers of the poets. Chaucer is ecstatic in its praise, and calls it his "owne hartes' rest;" Burns, "Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower;" and Wordsworth, in beautiful and touching simplicity, has addressed several poems to "the poet's darling."

Appended to Richard's valuable "Elements," is the Horologium Florae, (timepiece of Flora,) or a table of the hours at which certain plants expand and shut, at Upsal, 60 deg. north latitude. The earliest Meadow Salsafy opens from 3 to 4 A.M.; and closes from 9 to 10 A.M. The latest A.M. is the Mesembryanthemum Modiflorum, (used in the manufacture of Maroquin leather,) which opens 10 to 11 A.M., and closes at 12 P.M. The latest opening P.M. is the Cactus Grandiflorus, 9 to 10 P.M., and closing at 12 P.M., thus remaining open only two or three hours. Other flowers, we may add, are so peculiarly delicate, as scarcely to bear the contact of the atmosphere.

Forster, in his "Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena," notices several prognostics of the weather by plants. Thus, Chickweed has been said to be an excellent weather-guide. When the flower expands freely, no rain need be feared for a long time. In showery days the flower appears half concealed, and this state may be regarded as indicative of showery weather; when it is entirely shut, we may expect a rainy day. If the flowers of the Siberian sowthistle remain open all night, we may expect rain next day. Before showers, the trefoil contracts its leaves. Lord Bacon observes, that the trefoil has its stalk more erect against rain. He also mentions a small red flower, growing in stubble-fields, called by the country people wincopipe, which, if it opens in the morning, assures us of a fine day.