Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1898 — Natural History [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Natural History

The organs of smell in a vulture and a carrion crow are so keen that they can scent their food for a distance of forty miles. Hummingbirds are domesticated by placing in their cages a number of paper flow’ers of tubular form, containing a small quantity of sugar aud water, which must be frequently renewed. Of this liquid the birds partake and quickly become apparently contented with their captivity. The Uuitdfl States fisheries commission has investigated the Florida alligator and reported that unless steps are taken to protect this water animal from hunters it will soon be as completely exterminated as Is the American buffalo. The alligator is hunted for Its skin and for sport, and its combined enemies have greatly reduced the number of animals seen annually in the waters and marshes of Florida. It is estimated that not many years will pass before tho Florida alligator will disappear entirely, unless the government Interferes.

In the old days of wooden ships the boring insects which live in wood were their chief foee. Teakwood acquired Its reputation as a ship-building material because of its supposed immunity from these vermin. Steel ships suffer from barnacles, which foul their bottoms much more rapidly than they do wooden ones. These strange marine growths are sometimes as big as one’s fist aud adhere to the metal plates with tremendous force, and, liesides Impeding the ship themselves, they catch sea grass and other rubbish and drag it through the water. When a dry dock Is not awailnble metal ships have to have their bottoms cleaned by divers. When the battleship Massachusetts was recently cleaned barnacles and grass covered her hull to such an exteut that she could not have made more than ten and one-half knots an hour.