heat, cold and dessication. Many instances have been cited, some nearly
incredible. In 1846, for example, a desert snail from Egypt was fixed
to a paper tablet in the British Museum in London. Four years later
it was observed that he had discolored the paper in his attempt to
get away. Finding escape impossible he had again retired. This led to
his immersion in tepid water. The creature again came to life. He was
“alive and flourishing” a week later.
There are snail harpists and even singing snails. The former were
described by Rev. H. G. Barnacle, British missionary-naturalist, in a
scholarly paper written in 1848: “When up in the mountains of Oahu, I
heard the grandest but wildest music as from hundreds of aeolean harps
wafted to me on the breeze and a native told me it came from singing
shells. It was sublime. I could not believe it but a tree close at
hand proved it. Upon it were thousands of the snails. The animals drew
after them their shells which grated against the wood and so caused the
sounds. The multitude of sounds produced the fanciful music.”
The singing snails in Ceylon’s blackish Lake Batticaloa were described
by the British naturalist Sir Emerson Tennent: “Sounds came up from
the water like gentle thrills of a musical chord or like the faint
vibrations of a wine glass when the rim is rubbed by a moistened
finger. It was not one sustained note but a multitude of tiny sounds,
each clear and distinct in itself. On applying the ear to the woodwork
of the boat the vibrations greatly increased in volume. The natives
said they were made by singing snails.”
_Vision-Producing Plants_
Among the plants used by California Indians for food, medicine, and
magic is wild tobacco. It is smoked in a hollow elder stick, about
eight inches long, from which the pith has been removed. A few
inhalations of the smoke early in the morning are enough to overcome
the smoker so that he is unable to stand on his feet. He inhales until
extreme dizziness is achieved and then he touches tobacco no more
for the rest of the day. Indians can give no good reason for this
concentrated form of smoking. It is simply the way of their ancestors.
A mixture of plants, the honey of bumblebees, and the red scum off an
iron spring constitute a popular love charm. The mixture is placed
in a buckskin bag and carried under the arm. When the favor of some
particular maiden is desired it is necessary only to secure something
associated with her and add it to the charm. The easiest to get is
a pinch of soil upon which the lady has spat. This is used not only
by lovers but also by husbands wishing to secure the return of errant
wives.
Almost equally as important as tobacco in the life of these California
Indians is a vision-producing plant closely related to the common
garden trumpetflower and to the deadly nightshade. The leaves from
the east side of the plant are smoked; this brings about a state of
exaltation in which various animals are seen to come and offer their
help to the dreamer. Leaves from the west side are never smoked. It
would mean certain death; the Indians associate the west with death.
Much the same effect is obtained by drinking a blue-frothy decoction
of the root. It not only produces visions but acts as a powerful
anesthetic. It is highly poisonous, however, and only those Indians
who know the proper dosage make use of it. The plant is known as
“grandmother,” because of its comfort-bringing qualities.
_The Abominable Snow Man_
Mysterious beast of the high Himalayas is the “abominable snow man,”
so-called by natives. It is evidently a four-footed, five-toed mammal
that weighs from 150 to 200 pounds and lives in family groups. This
much, at least, can be deduced from its tracks in the snow, according
to Dr. Edouard Wyss-Dunant, leader of the Swiss Mt. Everest expedition
of 1952. He found the footprints in a snow covered frozen lake at an
altitude of about 15,000 feet.
Although the tracks are bear-like, the animal apparently has a quite
unbearish ability to leap from crag to crag in migrations from one high
valley to another. The snow prints were first reported by Himalayan
explorers to be ape-like, or even almost human, and this led to
speculations that some still unknown type of big ape might have evolved
in the high mountains.
The tracks, says Dr. Wyss-Dunant in his recent report to the Royal
Geographic Society, are undoubtedly those of a large “plantigrade
animal”—that is, one that walks on the sole of the foot with the heel
touching the ground. This is the way of both bear and man. The sole of
the foot is from four to five inches long by the depth of the tracks,
compared to those made by men of known weights. Some smaller footprints
were found, believed to be those of young animals. Three of the tracks
showed imprints of claws. Small triangular markings on the heels of two
of them were attributed to tufts of hair that grows on the bottom of
the feet.
Tracks of one animal were followed until they came to a rock several
feet high over which it was necessary for the creature to jump. On the
other side imprints of three feet were found close together. Apparently
the animal had landed on these three feet. The tracks of the fourth
foot were some distance ahead, indicating preparations for another
jump. Beyond, Dr. Wyss-Dunant picked up other trails. Three were coming
out of a deep valley. The fourth came off the side of a glacier. These
paths joined and thenceforward continued as a single set of tracks. The
animals apparently step in each others' footsteps while they proceed in
single file. This is a customary procedure for mountaineers crossing a
glacier where there is danger of falling into crevasses.
Nepal mountaineers have been familiar with the mysterious tracks for
years but nobody has been found who claims to have seen the animal.
They call it a “yeti.”
“I could find no trace of meals, nor of excrement,” the Swiss explorer
declared. “This confirms my opinion that the animal only passes through
and does not frequent these heights. We should at least have found a
place of refuge, if not a lair, if the yeti was living and hunting in
the neighborhood. I rather think it passes between adjacent peaks only
when, having scoured one valley, it tries to reach another. This animal
is a wanderer, avoiding zones inhabited by man. It probably is not a
carnivore since there is very little other animal life even in the high
valleys upon which it could feed. It obviously is an animal of quite
superior intelligence to subsist at such high altitudes and to have
kept itself hidden from humans so long.”
_Fish That Sing in the Moonlight_
There may be a fish that actually sings—that is, utters melodious
sounds with a perceptible rhythm or beat which can be recorded in
simple musical notation. This “singing” fish, which nobody actually has
been able to identify, is one of the curiosities invariably called to
the attention of visitors in the Batticoloa province of eastern Ceylon.
It frequents only one deep lagoon and can be heard when the water is
calm. Moonlight seems to draw the organism closer to the surface. On
dark, calm nights the music still can be heard, but it seems to be
coming from greater depths.
The “singing” sound at least, is a verifiable fact, according to the
Rev. J. W. Lange, a Jesuit priest in Batticoloa who has tried for
several years to determine what sort of an organism is responsible.
It is certain, he contends, that the sounds are made by something under
the water. They are heard best when the head is held under the surface.
By lowering a hydrophone attached to an amplifier into the lagoon, he
was able, to record the sounds. From this record a friend familiar with
musical notation was able to put them on paper.
It has been established that several species of fish in the lagoon make
distinctive sounds. One, a large black fish with a yellow belly and
four whiskers on each side of its face, expresses sounds like a baby’s
fretful crying. A large chocolate-colored fish found among the bottom
rocks makes a sound “like the distant echo of a large firecracker.”
There is a curious little scaleless fish found in schools of 100 or
more; as the school moves through the water it produces a chorus of
tinkling sounds. A phosphorescent light comes from inside the throats
of these animals. Among all his catches Fr. Lange has found nothing
which can be identified with the singing fish, but he is convinced the
music comes from a living organism.
That fish can and do make sounds now is well-known. This was
demonstrated conclusively by U. S. Navy investigators during the late
war. They determined the characteristic sounds made by a large variety
of sea creatures whose chatter was interfering with underwater sonic
devices.
_Brazil’s Vicious Glow Worm_
One of the most unusual of all luminous creatures is an insect larva
found by farmers ploughing damp soil in Brazil and Uruguay. It is a
reddish-brown little worm with rows of green lights on both sides and
a vivid red lamp on the front of its head. The red light is actually
red—not white light shining through a reddish skin. Adult females
of the species retain the same luminous pattern. Male adults have
only feeble, yellow lights. The larva are extremely vicious little
creatures, predators on white grubs which infest the soil.
_Grasshoppers Like Chameleons_
There is a jet-black grasshopper that turns sky-blue at sunrise. The
curious creature is found on the summit of Mount Kosciusco, highest
peak in Australia, where snow lingers into late summer and nights are
bitter cold.
The insect is of peculiar interest because of a temperature control
mechanism otherwise unknown in nature. Several animals, notably
chameleons and some fish, can change color, usually to match their
environment. The changes are brought about by certain hormones,
released by stimulation of the eyes, which activate different color
cells in the skin. But in this grasshopper every one of the outer layer
of cells of the body is a color cell. On the surface are granules
of black pigment, underneath granules of blue. These change places
in response to temperature changes. At approximately 25 degrees C.
the blue granules rise to the top, displacing the black. At 15 C.
the reverse happens. This displacement can be brought about only by
temperature change. Australian entomologists have in vain tried every
other sort of stimulus, including illumination with various wave
lengths of light.
The phenomenon probably is protective. Seemingly because it is very
cold at night on the high mountaintop the black pigment absorbs and
retains all the heat available. It is as if the grasshopper carried
a woolen blanket. With sunrise an abrupt change takes place; and the
days often become intensely hot. If the black coat were retained, the
grasshopper would become overheated and probably die. The blue reflects
much of the heat.
With the first streaks of sunlight grasshoppers which have slept all
night at the foot of grass stalks begin creeping slowly upward. There
apparently is no nervous control of the color change. Each color cell
seems to act independently. The same reaction takes place in dead
grasshoppers when the temperature changes, affecting even fragments of
their bodies. It is possible to get a grasshopper half black and half
blue by heating one end and cooling the other.
_Beetles That Helped an Army_
During the invasion of Normandy in 1944 Army jeep drivers prohibited
from using headlights of any sort, were able to follow winding country
roads on the blackest nights by rows of millions of flashing green
lights which outlined the roadsides.
Wingless, wormlike female beetles, (Lampyris hoctiluca, the European
glow worm) were trying to attract their winged, lightless mates. Their
nocturnal lovemaking as they clung to roadside weeds and bushes was a
far from insignificant factor in the Normandy operations. The worms
indicated not only the direction but the width of the roads, thus
forestalling fatal accidents and preventing drivers from going astray
into hostile territory. However, they doubtless proved of equal value
to the enemy. These accommodating creatures, unknown to soldiers from
across the Atlantic, should not be confused with our familiar fireflies.
_Worms in Medical History_
Earthworms have an important place in folk medicine, especially in the
Near East. Muzhatu-L-qylut of Hamd Allah, an ancient Persian natural
history, states: “Earthworms are red worms living in the damp earth.
Baked and eaten with bread they reduce the size of stones in the
bladder. When dried and eaten they cure the yellowness of jaundice.
In difficult labor they bring on delivery immediately. Their ashes
applied to the head with oil of roses make the hair to grow.”
Says a seventeenth century English medical treatise: “Earthworms are
hot of nature and of them are a pressious oyntment made to close
woundes; and if they be sodden in goose greece and styned it is a good
oyntment for to drop into a dull hearing ear. Earthworms stamped are
good for payned teeth. The oyle of earthworms be greatly commended for
comforting of sinews, jointes, vaines and goute. They must be washed
in white wine and the oyles of verbascum or cowslopes, of roses, of
lilies, of dil, of chamomill, all sodden together. When it is cold put
in your erthwormes, stoppe your glass, let it stand xl days in the
sunne, then straine it. It will make an excellent oyle against ache,
sciatica, goute, etc.”
_Toads That Make Poison Gas_
Among the weirdest of American amphibians are certain of the giant
toads of southwestern United States and northern Mexico which, when
frightened or in pain, diffuse a deadly gas which will kill objects
some distance away.
A very large toad found almost everywhere throughout the Panama Canal
Zone can squirt a poison which may permanently blind a man if it hits
the eyes. Nobody would bother it except that from its skin is made of
the softest and most expensive of all leather.
Most toads have skin covered with warts which are more closely grouped
on the sides of the neck than elsewhere. These, together with the
paratoid glands situated behind the eyes, secrete a milky, poisonous
fluid whenever the animal is molested. The secretion is an acid
irritant, causing pain in cuts and producing a bitter, astringent
sensation in the mouth.
_Plants That Thrive on Ice-Bloom_
There are plants that grow in ice and snow. This phenomenon—known to
botanists as cryovegetation—has been the subject of intensive study at
Mt. McKinley National Park in Alaska.
The plants are responsible for the strange phenomenon of ice-bloom.
Ice fields at various seasons take strange colors. The plants are very
minute members of the almost universal algae family which are among
the most primitive forms of life on earth. They are able to extract
the nourishment they require from the surface of a glacier as it melts
slightly under the glare of the Arctic sun. The phenomenon has been
reported by Arctic explorers for many years but until a few years ago
very little was known of the responsible microorganisms. They are a
striking demonstration of the fact that life has spread to all possible
habitats on earth in some form or other, even to fields of solid ice.
While nobody is likely to stake out a few thousand acres of glacier for
a farm, an Hungarian botanist, Dr. Ersebet Kol, has made first-hand
studies of the conditions under which the minute plant organism could
live and multiply, including the acidity of the ice. Concerning the
Columbia glacier, one of the largest in the Alaska ice-fields, Dr.
Kol reported to the Smithsonian Institution: “When I stepped on the
ice, I saw for the first time a phenomenon to be seen only on coastal
glaciers. The surface of the ice was covered for miles and miles with
light brownish-purple algal vegetation called ice-bloom. This effect
is produced by immense quantities of minute plants called Ancyclonema,
a characteristic plant of the permanent ice. It can never be found
elsewhere, even on permanent snow. It belongs to the green algae
first found on the coast glaciers of Greenland. Since that time, the
microorganism has been found in several localities in Europe, and I
have found it occasionally on the glaciers of the interior but never in
sufficient quantities to form the ice-bloom of the coastal glaciers.
“Here I had an opportunity of studying another striking phenomenon of
the permanent snow regions of Alaska—colored snow, especially red snow.
Above Valdez, around the Thompson Pass, the snowfields glitter with a
reddish color in the beginning of August. The snow was red not only
on the surface, but also to a depth of several inches and even in one
place to a depth of two feet, caused by the presence of millions of
tiny plants, Chlamydomonas nivalis. The snow on Thompson Pass looks as
though it has been sprinkled with red pepper, differing in this respect
from the red of other snowfields, which is usually a light raspberry
red.”
_Poison Arrow Frogs_
There is a green frog, about the size of a half dollar, that is one
of the most virulently poisonous creatures on earth—but only after it
has been roasted alive. It is common at the Smithsonian Institution’s
tropical wild life preserve in the Panama Canal Zone. When living it
is quite harmless, at least to human beings although some believe it
can poison other frogs. When it is roasted over a slow fire, however, a
toxin is exuded from its skin which is a potent nerve and respiratory
poison. It once was used by the Choco Indians to poison the arrows with
which they hunted game and Spaniards.
The poison arrow frog is a delicate creature which is confined to a
narrow temperature range and probably never has reached the United
States alive. A ground and tree-dwelling animal, it is quite elusive.
A close relative is a brilliant scarlet frog, a denizen of the treetop
of the dense Panama rain forest. From its skin also is exuded a
virulent poison. One of the two jungle canopy frogs, it is less than
an inch long. Its body has deep scarlet both above and below; its feet
are black and its thighs are flecked with metallic green on the rear
and metallic blue on the front. It is found only on the Atlantic side
of the isthmus near the mouth of a small bay where Columbus once landed
for fresh water. Outside its narrow range the creature has never been
seen in its gorgeous colors. In captivity it probably would die very
quickly. Placed in a preservative, it quickly turns to a drab, uniform
black.
The animal is a remarkable and peculiar climber. It ascends a tree
trunk by a series of short jumps, catching its toes in rough spots on
the bark. (Other tree frogs have suction disks on their feet by means
of which they can walk up a tree in leisurely fashion.) It makes its
way unerringly from the ground to its treetop home, a pool of water in
the axil of a bromilead or “tank plant,” a tree of the pineapple family.
_The Seal That Can “Lose” Its Head_
An animal that can pull its head almost completely into its neck has
recently been added to the mammal collections of the Smithsonian
Institution. This is the Ross seal, one of the rarest of all the seal
family in the Antarctic.
A frozen specimen captured by the Navy’s polar expedition in 1956
arrived at the U. S. National Museum in Washington in excellent
condition. This seal—about 8 feet long—dwells exclusively on the
drifting ice pack of the Ross Sea. So far as is known it never comes
on land or on the ice shelf. It apparently feeds almost exclusively on
cuttlefish and squid, which are abundant in Antarctic waters. To judge
by the nature of its teeth it undoubtedly is not a fish-eater. It is
yellowish-green on the underside and blackish-brown on the top, the fur
often being marked with pale streaks along the sides.
On the drifting pack it has fearsome enemies—notably the killer whale
and the writhing, snake-like sea-leopard, most savage of the seal
family—which may account for its relative scarcity. The outstanding
peculiarity of the creature, probably unique among mammals, is the
thick bloated neck into which the head can be withdrawn. This may be a
protective characteristic although it could hardly serve the creature
against its fierce enemies. On the other hand, withdrawal of the head
may be a comfortable habit in a very cold climate.
_The Delectable Horned Viper_
All along the Nile and the Red Sea coast is found the horned viper
which lives buried wormlike in the sand with only its eyes and the
upper part of its head visible. Its horns are said to look like barley
grains and to entice birds. It is found often in rodent holes. This
horned viper is extremely tenacious of life. It has been kept alive in
a glass jar, without food, for two years. It can hurl itself forward
as much as three feet. A full-grown specimen is about 18 inches long
and quite poisonous but Egyptian magicians have been seen eating the
animals like stalks of celery.
_Flying Snakes, Frogs and Toads_
There are flying snakes as well as flying frogs and toads. Such
reptiles and amphibians should be considered expert parachutists rather
than actual flyers.
The tree snakes dendrolaphis and chrysopelea leap from high limbs,
stretched out lengthwise and both flatten and broaden the body so that
it presents a concave surface. They glide to earth slowly, at an angle
to the vertical, and land apparently without injury.
Frogs of some species have enormous webs between the fingers and toes
which serve as parachutes. A Brazilian tree frog has been observed to
drop from an altitude of 100 feet and land 90 feet away uninjured.
Since other frogs of the same size were killed when dropped vertically,
parachuting must be considered a distinct trait of this particular
species, developed over many generations of life in treetops.
In the course of experiments a South Carolina lizard, frequenter of
bushes and fences, landed ten to twelve feet away from the place where
it was dropped, at a height of 37 feet, and hopped away unhurt. It took
a rigid posture when dropped, limbs outstretched and stomach taut. It
fell vertically a third of the distance to the ground and then started
to glide. A lizard of another species from the same habit wriggled all
the way down.
_Eagles Build Log Cabin Nests_
The white-headed eagle became the national bird of the United States
by act of Congress on June 20, 1782. For nearly two centuries it has
remained the American symbol of fearlessness and freedom. The same
bird—Haleoletus leucocephalus and not the more familiar golden eagle
found in the West—had been the supreme totem animal of the Six Nations
of the Iroquois from whom many institutions of the new republic
indirectly may have been derived.
This eagle still is fairly abundant in the fringes of forest around the
Great Lakes, its fishing grounds. Its nest, almost always at the top of
a tall sycamore or hickory which is dead or dying, is almost literally
a log cabin. The bird sometimes uses sticks six feet long for the outer
walls. It grasps large dead branches in its talons, breaks them off by
sheer force, and flies away with them. A recently observed nest was
nine feet high and six feet in diameter.
_The Predatory Mantid_
Why does the “praying mantid” pray? The prayerlike pose of this near
relative of the cockroach is its normal position both for seizing its
victims and for defending itself.
For their size mantids are among the most predatory animals in
existence. They are also among the least known of the insects. There
are more than 1500 species in the world, mostly tropical. Only 19 are
known in the United States which is on the northern fringe of their
normal habitat. One of the most remarkable features of the mantid is
its front legs, which bear sharp spines and fold in a curious hinged
fashion enabling the insect to reach forward, seize a fly or some other
victim, and bring it to its mouth. This is the explanation for the
seeming attitude of prayer.