Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1898 — Natural History [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Natural History

Within the antarctic circle there has never bech found a flowering plant. Scarlet flowers are said to stand drought better than any others. A horse will live twenty-five days without food, merely drinking water. The oyster Is one of the strongest of creatures and the force required to open it Is more than 1,300 times its own weight.

A horse will eat In a year nlnfe times his own weight, a cow nine times, an ox six times and a sheep six times. According to Nilsson, the zoologist, the weight of the Greenland whale Is 100 tons, or £24,000 pounds, or equal to that of eighty-five .elephants, dr 440 bears. An organist says that a cow mooes In a perfect fifth octave, of"-tenth; a dog barks in a fifth or fourth; a donkey brays in a perfect octave, and a horse neighs in a descent on the chromatic scale. Live bees are sometimes shipped on Ice, so as to keep them dormant during the Journey. This Is particularly the case with bumble bees which have been taken to New Zealand, where they are useful In fertilizing the red clover which has been introduced Into the colony.