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AUGUST 22, 1&}1.] Jeitutifi£ �uttri£an. 121

COLOR OF SNAKES AS AFFECTED BY CLIMATIC black, with white rings, and a fifth has, strange to say, siderable apprehension among those interested in our INFLUENCES. a white groundwork, with jet black circular spots. forests. They think that wood pulp is capable of be BY O. R. O'REILLY, This same superiority of the colors of mountain ing put to so many uses that the time will come when The ophiologist well knows that the cok>ring of snakes may be noticed in many countries. Perhaps the cutting of trees for its manufacture will be of such snakes is not a sure guide to specific difference of not of snakes alone is it true, but of other animals also, magnitude as to deplete our forests. At the present variety. that after a long sojourn in their home they bear stage of the industry this is hardly to be feared. as This is well understood. but perhaps it is not so well photographed on their skins the reflection of their many mills use the large trees in their vicinity, giving known that the pattern or distribution of coluring is surroundings. the smalier one� an opportunity togrow. Even where constant in the same species. Now this is well shown . 1. I • trees are cut down indiscriminately, there is not in the specimens of Both1'Ops atrox and Bothrops Our 'Vood Pulp Industry. as much harm done as in some places where the trees lanceolatus figured in a recent issue of the SCIENTIFIC The vastness of our wood pulp industry, which is but are cut down for lumber. Stiil, this indiscriminate AMERICAN. and of the two specimens of Xi cutting by wood pulp mills will have similar phosoma hOTtulanu, illustrated on this page. results to lumbering operations, and the two There the laba1'1'i or Bothrops atrox from the in time will, if continued, strip the country of dark woods of South America is seen to have one of its greatest resources, its immense fores the same pattern, but a much deeper coloring try. As trees from thirty to thirty-five years than his brother, the Fer de lance from the old are the most suitable for wood pulp, it sunny canefields of Martinique and St. Lucia. will take one generation, with proper culture, The former harmonizes in shade with the black to grow a new supply for the industry.-Com. rotting leaves of the frequently inundated Bulletin. river bank in the dark forest, while the latter ••••• in color reminds us of the yellow and reddish �ecJamatlon of the Sahara. soils of the often plowed canefield. Of the The most remarkable example of reclamation two specimens of Xiphosoma hortulan a hereill by meaus of artesian well water is found in shown, the darker one COllies from the gloomy the desert provinces or departments of Algeria ravines of the forf'st·clad mountains in the under the French rule. The area, officially island of Grenada, while the lighter one, a given, of French Algeria is 184,465 square purely yellow snake, is an inhabitant of the miles. The outlying portion is put at 135,000 open and comparatively sunshiny mangrove �quare miles. In this total of over 329,415 swamp of Caroni, in the island of Trinidad. If square miles one-half belongs to the Sahara or any olle will examine the snakes of this specie�, desert. The European population in 1887 was he will be astonished to see how much they about 250,000; the natives and naturalized vary in shade, and still will notice that the pat were 3,328,549, making a total of 3,578,549. tei'll in all is traced in a formation of rings Cultivation by the means of flowingwell waters along the sides more or less regular. has been sedulously fostered by the French The diamond rattlesnake from the sunny THE PUFF ADDER. colonial government for both political and eco plains of Guiria, in Eastern Venezuela, where nomic reasons. Such wells as a means of recla the soil is of a �eddish color, is reddish in his dorsal comparatively a few years old, is probably not realized mation began systematically to be bored in 1857, the marks and muc._ lighter than his fellow from the dark l by people not directly interested in it. At first, wood French engineer, M. Jus, having demonstrated in 1856 woods of swampy Demerara. pulp was used entirely in the manufacture of newspa- that. the desert was endowed with large supplies of From this it would seem that the coloring is largely 1 pers, but now it is employed for manifold purposes. under-ground water. The total n um ber of wells that modified as regarc!s shade by the nature of the light I Its use bids fair to be large for mouldings, and it is be have been bored since that date in the departments reflEction in whi�h the animal lives. In a certain sense I ing made into barrels, tubs, pails, wash boards, water of Algiers, Oran and Constantine is stated at 13,135. the color of his surroundings is photographed on his pipes, doors, caskets, carriage bodies, floor coverings These wells range from 75 to 400 feet in depth, and the skin. It is said that mountainous districts are favor- and furniture, imitations of leather cloth and silk have low pressure common to the majority of them forces able fer poetic genius, and that few poets are natives been made from it. Successful experiments have been the water over the small bored casings to a distance of of level. monotonous countries. If this is true as re- made wherein it has been used in the manufacture of about two feet above the ground. The waters are gards vividness in the human imagination, as certainly armor plates. then collected in small ditches, which con vey them to seems to be the case, it is none the less so with the color- Thus we see the usses to which wood pulp can be the vineyards, date trees and fields of durra, millet,

ing of snakes. Take the South African puff adder put are almost unlimited. The great consumers of wood wheat, etc .• which comprise the chief products. In (Clotho arietaus) for instance. The puff adner, which pulp at present are the paper manufacturers, who con all, about 12,000,000 acres have been reclaimed in this is figured above, is a short, thick, broad-headed black sume about ninety per cent of the total production. way. The government bores are at least 1-10 of the Itnd yellow deadly snakE:. Snakes of this specieR from Most paper made to-day, from the woody newspaper whole n umber. As an illustration of the reclamat,ion the lower lands near t.he sea are dull in color. The up to the fine grades of writiug paper, contain more or brought about by this well irrigation, the following yellow is pale and the black figures from a report made in dirty looking, like an old 1885 will be of val ue, but they dress coat coming to its last relate solely to the culti\'ation days on the back of a tramp. of the grape for wine-making But the mountain puff adder purposes. In the province of is very different. He is ar Algeria there are 60,322 acres; rayed in a gorgeous dress of in Constantine, 25,021 acres; golden yellow and the deep in Oran, 26,114. Under this est black velvet, And it is species of cultivation Algeria only natural that while his is becoming a great wine hume for ages has been in the growing country. It sent to land of sunny rocks and dark France during eleven months some shadows, he should of 1886, ,10,513,966 gallons of bear photographed in his wine; and uf cider in the skin with nature'� own pho same year, 219,277,124 gallons tography tile reflection of were made. The date palm these objects. is the largest product of the The lora of Venezuela desert 0 a s e s proper. The U1haetulla lioceTca) shows total area under colonization the same difference. On the or settled occupation in 18 87 mountains he is arrayed in is given at 49,400,000 acres; g r e en of the most vivid under cultivation by irriga brightness, along each side is tion in wheat, barley, oats, a band of gold, and the scales vines, olives, dates, tobacco, of his under parts are of a etc., at 17,041,133. The forest. mother-of-pearl white, while plantations cov<,r 5,000,000 his brother of the plains ap acres.-R. J. Hinton. pears dirty all over. In July, ...... last year, the writer caught a young boa constrictor on the Heavy Woods. lowlands of Quebranta, near There are 413 �pe�ies of Guiria, in Eastern Venezuela. trees found within the limits He was covered with lI!ark TREE SNAKES (XIPHOSOMA HORTULANA). of the United States and ings of light gray and dark Territories, sixteen of which, gray. In September, .i. got when perfectly seasoned, will sink in water. The one of the same size from the hills of Arouca, in Trini less of this ingredient. The indu8try naturally is heaviest of these is the black ironwood (Condalia dad, and he was, of course, the same in pattern, but enormous. At present there are fully 238 mills in the (errea), found only in Southern Florida, which i� more black I\nd white. Boa constrictors from the dark country and quite a nUlllber building. The total ca than 30 per cent heavier than water. Of the other forests of the plains of Chaguanas, in the same island, pacity of these mills is about four !nillion pounds per fifteen, the best known are the lignum vitre (Guaiacum are not nearly so clearly marked as those from the day, at which rate they consume one million cords of sanctum) and the mangrove (Rhizophora mangle). hills of Zoco, twenty miles to the northeast. And wood a year. Texas and New Mexico lands, full of queer, creeping, some time ago I had one from the hills of Brazil much These figures show an increase in the busineRs of crawling, walking, and inanimate things, are the more brightly marked than any I have yet seen. about five hundred per cent in the past eight years, homes of a species of oak (Queraus grisea) which is There are now in my collection in the Central Park and the same time in the future bids fair to see even about one and one' fourth times heavier than water, several fine specimens of Xiphosoma hortulana, which greater strides than this. It is but four years since and which, when green, will sink almost as quickly as well illustrate this variation of shade. One is yellow, sulphite wood pulp has been made, yet now there are a bar of iron. It grows only in mountain regions, and so pale that the pattern is not perceptible. A second twenty-nine mills manufacturing it and twelve in has been found westward as far as the Colorado is red, with yellowish ring-like markings. A third is a course of erection. desert, where it grows at an elevation of 10,000 feet. reddish brown, with the saine marks. A fourth is jet Yet this grand and growing industry is causing con-