Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold. —Keats. T The winter of 1867-68 will count among the severest recorded in meteorological annals. As early as the winter solstice the cold began to make itself felt. In a few days the centigrade thermometer sank to 12° below zero, through the influence of a very keen north-east wind. At Paris, where, on an average, the winter temperature is two degrees higher than in the surrounding country, the Seine was completely frozen for upwards of a fortnight. To meet with a similar phenomenon we must go back as far as 1788. In January 1830, when, on the 17th, the temperature sank down to 17°.3, the Seine was also frozen, but the ice speedily melted. The extreme cold of What are we to think of the supposed influence of the moon upon the weather? This question, so constantly revived, is here not out of place. The exceptionally prolonged cold, during which the thermometer remained for three weeks below zero, the barometer oscillating between 76° and 76°·5, commenced on the 22d of December, three days before the new moon; now, it is on Christmas-day, at 48 min. past 11 p.m., that the moon is found in conjunction,—that is to say, has become completely invisible to us by passing between the earth and the sun. And the thaw, which terminated this period of frost, commenced on the 12th of the following January, just three days after the full moon; the exact moment of its opposition, when the moon reflected upon us the whole hemisphere of its borrowed lustre, took place on the 9th, at 2 min. past 11 in the evening. It is then in the neighbourhood of the syzygies (conjunction and opposition) of the moon that we must place the commencement and termination of the cold period to which we have been alluding. We should not have thought of recalling these coincidences, The work which Toaldo did for the climate of Padua, Pilgram had already executed for that of Vienna. But the result at which he arrived, after five-and-twenty years of observation (from 1763 to 1788), was the contrary to that of Toaldo: namely, that the new moon is the least active of all the phases in reference to changes of weather. What, then, are we to conclude? That the problem is one of extreme difficulty, and that there are probably several elements necessary to its solution, which at present escape us. Then, too, we ought to have a clear understanding of what is meant by "changes of weather;" we must eliminate all vagueness from the word, and not allow it to be governed by any preconceived theory. The Snow. Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious womb A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along, And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends; At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow. —Thomson, The Seasons. The earth is covered with snow; it is enveloped, as the poets say, in a shroud of white. But this phrase, poetical as it may appear, is, in reality, inadmissible. A shroud is used to wrap round a dead body, a corpse, whose elements, since they are no longer maintained united by the undefinable principle of life, go to form other compounds,—more permanent and lasting,—which will mingle with the earth, the water, and the air. But the earth which the snow covers preserves, on the contrary, the germ of life in the seeds and roots of plants; it rests itself, only for the purpose of communicating, at the return of spring, a new impulse to the sap, whose circulation sleeps during winter. The moment is propitious for studying the snow: come, then, let us examine it. And, first, what is snow? Put a little into the hollow of your hand, and see what transpires. It melts, and leaves nothing but water as a residuum. Snow, then, is frozen water,—water which existed in the atmosphere in the state of vapour, and which, to speak It was once a wide-spread opinion that snow is favourable Snow forms crystals. To observe them clearly, you must examine the snow which falls in very cold and dry weather. It then appears to be a dust composed of little thin plates. Look at the small flake which has fallen on your coat-sleeve; it is isolated; hasten to examine it before it melts, or before other flakes become amalgamated with it. What a graceful star! (Fig. 6, a). It is formed of six regular rays. There are others which have only three, four, or five rays. But on inspecting these more closely, you see that many of these rays are broken or abortive, and that, when finally analysed, each star possesses the same number of rays. Why are there continually six rays? Why are there never more nor fewer than this number? One might suspect in nature a peculiar affection for the number six; as, for If you interrogate geometry, it will reply to you that, of all the polygons inscribed in a circle (Fig. 6, c), there is but one whose sides are equal to the radius of that circle; and this polygon is exactly that of the bee and wasp's cell. Here, then, is a very singular coincidence. If you afterwards examine very minutely the work of the bee, you will find in each cell of the honeycomb a pyramidal base, composed of three equal rhombs, whose angles solve a grand geometrical problem, that of giving the maximum of space with the minimum of matter. The papier-machÉ combs of the wasp are formed of a single row of cells, each of which has a nearly level bottom. This is all that is required; for these cells are destined, not for the reception of honey, but only of the larvÆ, the offspring of their architects. Do not think that you have but to pick up a thumbful of snow to procure your crystals! These change their form very quickly, and it is almost impossible to detect it in snow which For the accurate observation of the crystallisation of water which precipitates itself in the air, we have at our disposal a means as simple as convenient—a pane of glass. All we have to do is to arrange everything in such a manner that the congelation shall be both slow and certain; on this condition alone can we obtain well-defined crystals. A cold room is best adapted for this kind of experimentation; and thus you will frequently see deposited upon the window-glass, in an uninhabited chamber, some exceedingly graceful designs, as follow. These are asteriÆ,—arborescent, and leaf-like crystals,—imitating the beautiful foliage of ferns and mosses. The severer the cold, the more regular, be it understood, is the formation of these crystals. Owing to its dazzling whiteness, snow is a great reflector of Before quitting this subject, let us remember that both snow and frost are of great utility to the husbandman. The latter, by expanding the humidity with which the hard clods are penetrated, crumbles them into powder, and renders stiff land porous, friable, and mellow. It also clears the soil from the plague of insect life, which, if it increased without so powerful a check, would probably prove a terrible injury to the crops. Moreover, it so hardens in winter the moist soft ground as to permit of the necessary field operations being carried on. Snow, as Dr Child remarks, In the polar regions (we quote from Dr Child) snow supplies the ever-ready material out of which the Esquimaux construct their houses, and hardy explorers extemporise the huts in which they find shelter when absent from their ships on distant expeditions. Nor are the ships themselves considered "snug winter quarters" until their sides have been banked up in walls of snow, and the roof raised over the deck has been thickly covered with it. Snow huts are warmer than might have been expected. If built upon ice over the sea, their temperature is sensibly influenced by the heat of the unfrozen water below, which is said seldom to fall much under 40° F. in any part of the ocean. Even where the external temperature has sunk to 20° or 30° below zero, sufficient warmth is produced in Red Snow. As if it had been ordained that there should be nothing absolute in nature, snow itself, the very type of whiteness, sometimes exhibits the most curious colouring. Who, for instance, has not heard tell of red snow? Its existence was even known to Pliny, the great Roman naturalist, and he attributed it to a dust with which the snow became covered after it had lain several days on the ground. "Snow itself," he says Benedict de Saussure was the first who described red snow like a naturalist. The learned Swiss naturalist found this red snow on many other mountains, and during a certain period of thaw, subjected it to various experiments, which led him to the conclusion that it was a vegetable matter, "a dust, or pollen, of the stamens of plants." Slightly odorous, it exhaled, during combustion, a scent not unlike that of sealing-wax. Ramond met with red snow in the Pyrenees, at an elevation of 7800 feet. He discovered in it, when burnt on incandescent coals, the odour of opium or of chicory. He supposed that the little deep red lamellÆ which coloured the snow were mica, and looked upon the mica as a product of the decomposition Let us continue to examine the difference of opinion between naturalists. De Candolle declared the red snow of the polar regions to be identical with that of the Alps, after having carefully compared the two. But he saw in it a genus of cryptogams, differing from the genus Uredo. In the opinion of the observers whom we have cited, the colouring corpuscles of the snow belong to the vegetable kingdom. This opinion was supported by numerous adherents, and soon acquired so great an authority, that, in an assembly of naturalists at Lausanne, De Candolle overwhelmed with sarcasm a communication from Lamont, Prior of the Hospice of St Bernard, on the "animality of red snow." And yet this last hypothesis was not so rash as might have been supposed; for Dr Scoresby, to whom we owe a profound study on the crystalline forms of snow, had already attributed to an animal matter the colouring of the snow and polar ice. Now-a-days, however, it may be regarded as finally settled that this phenomenon is due to the immense aggregation of minute plants belonging to the species called Protococcus nivalis; The Eternal Snows. The epithet "eternal" or "perpetual," applied to snow, would appear to savour of the ambitious, if not of the profane. Can we say of anything which belongs to earth that it is "eternal?" Assuredly not. The earth has not always worn the aspect which it now wears, and, at a period not far distant from its origin, could not in any region have been covered with snow. Now, whatever has had a beginning cannot be eternal. Many authors have, for this reason, substituted for the word eternal the word perpetual. But the latter is equally inapplicable. Who will venture to affirm that our globe or its system will endure perpetually? This difficulty, however, is one which need not particularly embarrass us. We have been long accustomed to look upon language as a simple mask, or, at least, as a very dubious interpreter of thought. And we shall, therefore, continue to use indifferently the words "eternal" and "perpetual." Let us suppose that two travellers set out from the equator, that plane of separation between the northern and the southern hemispheres. Let us also suppose that each proceeds in a diametrically opposite direction to the other, pursuing his route along one of those meridian lines which divide the earth into longitudinal portions, like the slices of a melon (to compare
After having crossed the tropics, one of our two travellers will enter the North Temperate Zone, bounded by the Arctic Polar Circle—the other, the South Temperate Zone, bounded by the Antarctic Polar Circle. Having passed the polar circles, they will find themselves speedily arrested by ice and snow which never melt—by eternal ice and snow. These inhospitable regions compose the two frigid zones, which cover, like two immense hoods (forming the 0·82 parts of the terrestrial In their progress through these various climates, our two travellers will arrive at a very curious comparative result,—that the southern hemisphere is colder than the northern. This difference becomes especially recognisable below the 50th degree of south latitude; so that, after passing the Antarctic Circle, the ice opposes the voyager's course with nearly insurmountable obstacles; while, in the northern hemisphere, the whaler frequently penetrates to Spitzbergen, situated much nearer to the Pole than to the Polar Circle. This is a general fact; we confine ourselves to putting it forward. Let us now suppose that our two travellers, always ready to compare the results of their inquiries, accomplish the ascent of a very lofty mountain situated under the Equator, such as Chimborazo. In the course of their ascent, they will traverse the same climates and the same zones which had marked the stages of their journey from the Equator to the Poles: at their starting-point they will find themselves in the Torrid zone, then will come the Temperate and the Frigid zones, the latter rendered inaccessible by glaciers and eternal snows. These vertical zones of the mountain are characterised by vegetables and animals whose types are found in the corresponding horizontal zones of the terrestrial surface. But what is most Such is the general view-point which we must adopt for the clearer comprehension of the details of observation. Of course, when speaking of the limit of the eternal snows, we refer only to the lower limit, that is to say, to the greatest elevation attained by the snow-line in the course of a single year. As for the upper limit, it entirely escapes us; for the summits of the loftiest mountains do not reach the atmospheric strata which, by virtue of their refraction, cannot contain any vesicular, aqueous, or condensable vapour. The line of eternal snow which, at the poles, is found on the level of the ground, gradually rises as we approach the torrid zone, where it attains its maximum of elevation, from 13,000 to 17,000 feet. This phenomenon does not exclusively depend upon the geographical latitude, nor on the mean annual temperature of the locality: it is the result of an aggregate of diverse circumstances which we have not the space here to enumerate and discuss. We shall content ourselves with placing before the reader a table which will show the remarkable differences existing in the height of the perpetual snow-line in various places. The Line of Perpetual Snow.
The Inhabitants of the Eternal Snows. If men have the faculty of living under all climates, they make use of that faculty, as we know, with extreme reserve. They have never permanently inhabited the polar regions and the perpetually snowy summits of the mountains: it is only at intervals that a few pioneers have temporarily ventured thither. Starting from this fact, it was long believed that the Well, observation and research conjointly, have erased this article of faith from the scientific code. It has been demonstrated that the icy regions, which man visits only at rare intervals, and where he sojourns but for a time, are the home of a certain number of animal species, more or less allied to the human species. The scientific exploration of these regions dates only from our own time. Spitzbergen, and the summit of the Alps,—such are our points of comparison. It is difficult to conceive of anything more interesting than the historical exposition of the limited Fauna glacialis. First, let us take the discovery, comparatively recent, of a small rodent of the mouse order. The Arvicola Leucurus, or Arctic Vole. On the 8th of January 1832, a Swiss naturalist, M. Hugi, started from Soleure to study the winter condition of the classic glacier of Grindelwald. The undertaking was in many respects a difficult one; the sides of the Mettenberg, bordering on this glacier, were covered with an uniform stratum of hardened snow; a pathway had to be cut out with the pickaxe. M. Hugi and his companions did not arrive at the Stierreg until towards evening. Fig. 9.—Among the Alps. A goatherd lives there during the summer. They sought around and about for his little cabin, but, on the uniform white carpet of snow which covered everything, no sign of it could For a picture of the poor victims we are indebted to M. Hugi. "These little rodents are of a yellowish gray, and very slender; from the head to the tip of the tail they measure about nine inches. The hind paws are of a length wholly disproportionate to the fore paws. The tail and ears are naked; their transparency is remarkable.... This animal," adds M. Hugi, "appeared to me completely unknown, and I do not remember to have seen it in any zoological collection." After determining its genus and species, the intrepid explorer of the Alps was entitled to have given it a name; but this honour escaped him. The same little rodent has since been found in many other parts of the Alps; notably among the rocks of the Grands-Mulets, some 12,500 feet above the sea-level. Desirous of comparing the climate of Spitzbergen with that of the summit of the Alps, M. Martins established himself, in 1841, with his friend, A. Bravais, on the Faulhorn. "While," he says, "we were engaged in our experiments, we often perceived It was the same animal which M. Hugi had discovered nine years before. The ice was broken, and names, both generic and specific, afterwards fell like hail on the body of our poor little rodent. Some would have had it called—
Others, and fewer in number, preferred the designation of "White-tailed Vole,"—
Others again, "the Lebrun vole,"—
Which of all these names shall prevail? We cannot say, and it matters very little to us. Perhaps the nomenclators may in time agree among themselves upon the appellation of the genus. However this may be, we know—and it is an important fact—that a mammal exists at altitudes where men could not live, and that he is found in the Alps, above even The Marmot. Who, in the wide world of London, where so many waifs and strays are drifting with the great current of human life, has not observed the Savoyard wanderer with his dancing marmot? If the man did not attract our notice, his curious companion would. In form he belongs partly to the bear, and partly to the rat. Naturalists have, therefore, expressly created for him the genus Arctomys,—a Latinised Greek name, signifying "The Bear-Rat." In fact, the marmot resembles Harlequin's cloak, or rather, if it be permissible to compare little things with great, the Austrian Empire,—a composite of territories and races; and Buffon has described him very aptly. He has, he says, the nose, the lips, and the shape of the head of the hare; the hair and nails of the badger; the teeth of the beaver; the cat's whiskers; the eyes of the dormouse; the feet of the bear, with a short tail and truncated ears. Add to this that the marmot—he is a little larger than a rabbit—is omnivorous like man and the bear, with whom he shares his aptitude for dance and sport. While he eats any and everything, he nevertheless prefers vegetable food to all other kinds; and with his orange-coloured incisors gnaws the bark of shrubs. He rarely drinks, but when he does drink takes a hearty draught; is particularly fond of milk; drinks it by raising his head at each mouthful, like a hen, and giving During the summer the marmots inhabit the snowy summits of the Alps. At the beginning of autumn they descend to a lower level, for the purpose of excavating the burrows in which they pass the winter, completely benumbed by the frost. This is the time when the hunters easily capture them; they have nothing to do but to dig (creuser is the technical word); and frequently they are found as many as ten or twelve in the same burrow, rolled up like balls, and buried in a litter of hay. Their sleep, says De Saussure, is so profound, that the hunter deposits them in his sack and carries them away without awakening them. The Chamounix hunters, he adds, have already entirely expelled or destroyed the goats formerly so abundant on their mountains; and it is probable that, in less than a century, we shall see neither chamois nor marmots. This prophecy of De Saussure's is on the point of being realised. Still, even at the present day, marmots are not very rare in the Valais and the canton of Ticino (du Tissin), where they are called Mure montane (mountain rats); a phrase from which is derived, without doubt, the appellation marmot. They prefer as their abode the stony islets which rise here and there in the midst of the rocks. The ears of travellers who venture into the barrenest recesses of the Alps of the Bernese Oberland are sometimes struck by a very sharp For a considerable period only a single species was known—the marmot properly so called (Arctomys marmotta, Gmelin); but four others must now be added:—1st, The marmot of the Caucasus (Arctomys musicus), still imperfectly known; 2d, The marmot of Canada (Arctomys empetra), who clambers up the trees like a cat, and is distributed throughout all North America, particularly in Hudson's Bay, and Alaska, on the north-west coast; 3d, The Arctomys monax, who appears to be peculiar to Maryland; 4th, The Russian marmot (Arctomys citillus), of the size of a field-mouse, and of a brown colour, spotted with white; 5th, The marmot of Siberia (Arctomys bobac), smaller than the common species, of a yellow gray, and building vast burrows shaped like a funnel. Will the reader permit us an allusion, in passing, to a question which we do not see discussed in books of natural history? Formerly among the treasures of ancient druggists figured a kind of panacea, called "Graetz's balls." What were these "Graetz's balls," at one time esteemed as a universal medicine, but no longer included in our pharmacopeia? This was their origin:—The subterranean dwellings which certain species of marmots construct with so much skill, are each composed of two galleries, which unite together like the arms of a Y, and terminate in a cul-de-sac. There are found the globules of clay known as "Graetz's balls." They are an industrial product of our rodents, as M. Oscar Schmidt The Chamois. "Even so This way the chamois leapt." Must we omit this graceful ruminant from the number of mammals inhabiting the eternal snows? No; for it is not of his own will that the chamois has taken refuge upon the snowy peaks of the Alps. If we meet with him there, it is because he seeks to shelter himself from the destructive instincts of man. The chamois is one of those animal species which, before a century, perhaps, will have disappeared; his bones will then figure in the palÆontological museums by the side of the skeletons of extinct species. There, too, will be displayed the famous chamois balls, each of the size of a nut, covered with a shining substance resembling leather, of an agreeable odour, and seeming to be a morbid dejection, composed of roots and other undigested matter. These balls, the bezoars of the old physicians, were regarded as a remedy against every ill the human flesh is heir to; it was even professed that they rendered soldiers invulnerable, and were a better defence against bullets than the finest armour ever wrought by the smiths of Milan. How precious a remedy for this epoch of civilisation, when man—is he much wiser than his supposed The birds inhabiting the inhospitable region of the snows are more numerous than the mammals. Let us briefly refer to a few of the more important. The Eagle and the Wren. In speaking of the eagle, Tennyson's noble lines to that "imperial bird" will occur to every reader, from the force and clearness of the picture which they present:— "He clasps the crag with hookÈd hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. "The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls." The affection of the eagle for his "mountain walls" may be easily understood. This giant bird, with his carnivorous instincts, is endowed with a remarkable tenacity of life, and can exist in habitats wholly inaccessible to man. But it is strange that a bird, which is as common a type of humility as the eagle is of ambition, and which we almost always cite as a contrast to the eagle—we mean, the delicate little wren—should also be found among the snow and ice, the silence and solitude, of the loftiest mountain regions. To study the flight of the eagle, we should repair to Alpine highlands. When he has reached a certain altitude of the atmosphere, the royal bird descends obliquely, as upon an inclined plane, with a rush and a din of wings, "A society of tourists set out from Corri to climb the StÜtzerhorn, which is 8400 feet in height. From the summit they perceived an enormous eagle, which, having taken his flight from Calanda, beyond the Rhine, directed his course towards the StÜtzerhorn, for the purpose of halting, after a certain inflection, on the side of the Rothhorn." The duration of the flight was five minutes; the interval between the starting-point and the point of arrival, two French leagues and a half. In three hundred seconds, therefore, the eagle must have traversed a space of 3000 Swiss feet, which is equal to a speed of forty-five yards per second. Hence, the swiftness of the eagle's flight is nearly equal to the velocity of sound. One of the most admirable descriptions of the habits of this bird with which we are acquainted, is furnished by the well-known naturalist Macgillivray:— "There he stands"—on his lonely crag—"nearly erect, with his tail depressed, his large wings half raised by his side, his neck stretched out, and his eye glistening as he glances around. Like other robbers of the desert, he has "Suddenly he raises his wings, for he has heard the whistle of the shepherd on the crag, and bounding forward, he springs into the air. Hardly do those vigorous flaps serve at first to prevent his descent, but now curving upwards, he glides majestically along. As he passes the corner of that buttressed and battlemented crag, forth rush two ravens from their nest, croaking fiercely. While one flies above him, the other steals beneath, and they essay to strike him, but dare not, for they have an instinctive knowledge of the power of his grasp; and, after following him a little way, they return to their home, vainly exulting in the thought of having driven him from their neighbourhood. "But on a far journey, he advances in a direct line, flapping his great wings at regular intervals, then shooting along without seeming to move them. In ten minutes he has progressed three miles, although he is in no haste, and now disappears behind the shoulder of the hill. But we may follow him in imagination, for his habits being well known to us, we may be allowed the ornithological license of tracing them in continuance." Homeward bound,—Mr Macgillivray continues,—after having supplied his own wants, he knows that his young must be provided with food. Therefore he sweeps across the moor, at a height of two or three hundred feet, bending his course to either side, his wings wide-spread, his neck and feet retracted, now beating the air, and again sailing smoothly along. Suddenly he halts, poises himself for a moment, stoops, but recovers himself without touching the ground. The object of As he passes a tall cliff overhanging a silent lake, he is attacked by a fierce peregrine falcon, which darts and plunges at him, as if resolved to deprive him of his booty, or drive him headlong to the ground. A more formidable foe is this than the raven; and the eagle, with a scream and a yelp, throws himself into postures of defence, until, at length, the hawk, perceiving that the tyrant has no intention of plundering his nest, leaves him to pursue his course without further molestation. Over dense woods, and green fields, and scattered hamlets, the eagle speeds; and now he enters the long river-valley, near whose upper end, cradled in mist, rises the rock of his eyrie. About a mile from it he meets his mate, who has been abroad on a similar design, and is returning with a white hare as her spoil. With loud strident cries they congratulate each other, cries that alarm the drowsy shepherd on the green strath below, who, remembering the lambs carried off in spring-time, discharges at them a volley of maledictions. Their nest is of considerable size, but rudely constructed; Independently of the species which, like the Pandion haliÆtus, and the Aquila nÆvia, inhabit the lower regions, the eagles which visit the Alps are very remarkable. Thus, the species of GypaËtos, which the inhabitants designate under the name of the Lammergeier, or "Lamb-slayer," is the European The Steinadler, which, like the preceding, belongs to the inaccessible mountains of the cantons of Glaris, Schwyz, the Grisons, Appenzell, and Berne, would seem to be a variety or sub-species of the Aquila imperialis. The inhabitants of Eblingen, a village on the borders of the Lake of Brienz, hunt him vigorously. Finally, some eagles there are which only sojourn in the Alps temporarily; they appear to be astray; such are—
The tawny-headed vulture (Vultur fulvus), and the ashy vulture (Vultur cinereus), with gray-brown mouth, and a brownish collar round his bare neck, are extremely rare in Switzerland. But we now take leave of the eagle, and turn our attention to the lowly wren, whose charming but simple music has been described in charming but simple verse by Bishop Mant:— "The quick note of the russet wren, Familiar to the haunts of men; He quits in hollowed wall his bower, And through the winter's gloomy hour Sings cheerily; nor yet hath lost His blitheness, chilled by pinching frost, Nor yet is forced for warmth to cleave To caverned nook or straw-built cave,— Sing, gentle bird! sing on, designed A lesson for our anxious kind, That we, like thee, with hearts content"—— The wren here referred to is a British species, the common wren, or Troglodytes vulgaris, one of the smallest of our British songsters; a restless, lively bird, which twitters about the hedgerows in summer, and about the garden and shrubbery in winter, and chanting his mellow song even under the gloomy sky of December. Allied to this familiar bird is the Gold-crowned Knight, Our crowned knight is very partial to the society of the tits, and, like them, he is easily caught with birdlime. During the severe cold of the winter of 1867-8, we saw our knight—a very rare circumstance—haunt the vicinity of our houses, though he prefers the green shade of the forests, and especially of the forests of pine and fir. He who has seen him pecking at the bark and leaves of these trees, while the ground was covered with snow, and during a frost of 10° below zero (C.), will feel no astonishment at meeting him upon the snowy summits of the Alps. Yet this pet bird of ours, this Lilliputian warbler, does not weigh more, with all his feathers, than a quarter of an ounce, or the two thousandth part of an eagle. Away with the hunter who would attempt such tiny game! A bird so small that he glides through the meshes of a net,—so delicate, that if you would not irreparably injure your "specimen," you must shoot him with a few grains of finest shot,—a bird of such frail appearance, withstanding all climates, and distributed over the entire surface of the globe,—here is a subject worthy the meditation of man, who pretends to be the "lord of creation!" The Snow-Bunting—(Emberiza plectrophanes nivalis). This is the snow-lark-bunting of Macgillivray, and a species of the genus Plectrophanes. In Scotland, he is frequently called the Snow-flake, and, in other parts of Great Britain, the Snow or Oat-fowl. His weight does not exceed an ounce and a half. His bill and legs are black; his forehead and The snow-bunting's favourite localities, where he loves to The snow-bunting rarely descends into the wooded region. Of a very sprightly disposition, he spends nearly all his life in the midst of the snows and the ice. His song somewhat resembles that of the finch, which he also resembles in size and social instincts; for he may frequently be seen in numerous bands hovering above the highest mountains. The snow-bunting is also met with in the northern districts of Asia and America. The Red-Billed Crow—(Corvus pyrrhocorax). The familiar cry of this bird, who resembles the thrush,—the krapp-krapp of the red-billed crow (la corneille des nieges),—agreeably falls on the ear of the traveller, when wandering through solitudes devoid of any other living being. By their cries and their presence these birds animate the denuded rocks which rise like promontories in seas of ice. They are easily distinguished from other species by their coral-red bills; If caught when young, these birds are easily domesticated. M. Tschudi, in his "Life among the Alps," relates the history of one who had been tamed. He would himself go in quest of the bread, cheese, and fruits which composed his repast; then, holding in his claws the prize he had coveted, devour it with avidity. What remained of his meal he carefully concealed in paper, and would gallantly defend the hidden treasure against whomsoever dared to approach it, against dogs as well as man. Fire had a singular attraction for him; he would extract from a lamp the burning wick, and swallow it without sustaining any injury; he would swallow even the dÉbris of the charcoal as he fluttered about the chimney. He showed an excessive joy at the sight of smoke, and loudly clapped his wings. Whenever he caught sight of any burning coal, he did not fail to pick up immediately all the paper, rags, or twigs he could lay his claws on; these he would place in the stove, and amuse himself by watching the smoke they gave forth. If a stranger entered the room, he gave vent to the most deafening cries, though he was exceedingly gentle and familiar towards persons with whom he was acquainted. His friends and favourites he distinguished in a peculiar manner; Reptiles. Close to the line of perpetual snow a black variety of vipers has been met with; but none of the serpent race ever cross that line. The only reptile found within the boundaries of the snowy region is a kind of lizard (Zootoca pyrrhogastra), the only one, perhaps, of all the vertebrata which could live at an elevation above the sea-level of more than 9500 feet, buried in the snow for upwards of ten months. During the few bright summer weeks, he feeds upon some rare insects and spiders. The frigid zone is so far the natural habitat of these lizards, that they would rather die of hunger than live in the more genial regions to which men have wished to transplant them. In length they nearly equal our common lizards, but they are not quite so big; their back is of a chesnut brown, marked with black streaks and dots; the throat is bluish; the belly of the male is of a greenish blue, spotted with black, while that of the female is of so lively a red as to have suggested the name of the species, Pyrrhogastra; just as the name of the genus Inferior Animals. Our information is still very incomplete so far as relates to the molluscs, the arachnida, and the insects which inhabit the frigid zone. The Alpine snail (Helix Alpicola), so remarkable for its transparency, appears to be the sole mollusc which, in certain localities, attains to an elevation of 7000 feet. It is, however, surpassed by the earthworm, which is not only distributed over the surface of every country, but ascends to the snowy summits of the loftiest mountains. Few animals have their geographical distribution so extended both horizontally and vertically; and only some species of spiders and millepeds keep company with the earthworm. Among the other inhabitants of the snows have also been observed a dozen species of butterflies,—nearly all diurnal,—for the phalÆnÆ (?), or nocturnal Lepidoptera, appear to be much more sensible to the cold. M. Agassiz saw the "Little Vulcan" (Vanessa urticÆ) fluttering in the snowy desert which borders on the glacier of Aar, as if it were completely in its element. The wings of the majority of these butterflies are sombre-coloured; their caterpillars live upon the auriculas, and seem to accomplish their metamorphoses in regions uninhabitable to us. The leaf-wasp (Tenthredo spinacula) appears to deposit its larvÆ, at a height of nearly 10,000 feet, in the galls The coleoptera have also numerous representatives in the region of perpetual snows, with this difference—equally characteristic of other animals—that, upon the southern declivity, they ascend 1000 to 1500 feet higher than on the northern. We may mention, as specially distributed in the topmost zone of the Alpine world:—
Special mention must be made of the Snow-Flea. Do not think we are referring to an insect of the same species as our common fleas: the snow-flea approximates much more closely to the lice family than to the fleas, though it hops like the latter. The history of its discovery dates back as far as 1839. At this epoch, M. Desor, a learned Swiss naturalist, had undertaken some researches upon the glaciers. Accompanied by some friends, he set out from the hospice of the Grimsel, and arrived in the vicinity of the glacier of the Lower Aar. "I recognised with extreme joy," says M. Desor, "the little creatures whose loss I had regretted a year before. They are not pretty, but, on the contrary, very ugly. However, they showed, in opposition to the opinion of Agassiz, that they really inhabited the glacier, and were not merely chance visitors. We found them by thousands under other stones. ... Our guide, with whom the glaciers were old acquaintances, had never seen them before, and the tiny creatures excited his astonishment. What surprised us most was the rapidity with which they penetrated into even the most compact ice, till they resembled blood-corpuscles circulating in their vessels. This fact shows that there exist, in the hardest and most transparent ice, certain capillary fissures which escape an unskilled eye: it also proves that the glaciers, on their surface, and down to a certain depth, are by no means incompatible with the development of organised beings." The tiny insect in question was at first baptized by the name of Desoria saltans (order of the ThysanourÆ of Latreille), but has since received definitively the name of Desoria glacialis. It belongs to the family of the PodurÆ, singular creatures These are its generic characters:— The body elongated, cylindrical, garnished with long setiform hairs, and composed of eight segments, six of which are perfectly distinct, and two (the two latter) very short, and scarcely perceptible; four-jointed antennÆ, longer than the head; long, slender, cylindrical feet; forked tail, silky, and transversely wrinkled; seven eyes, laterally grouped at the base of each antenna; body without scales. The Desoria glacialis, a species at present unique, is of a velvety black, and about one-sixth of an inch in length. The Podura plumbea (or "Spring Tail"), common enough in England, and found under all kinds of stones, will give the reader an idea of the flea of the glaciers. On comparing these two species, we remark, first, that the Podura plumbea is somewhat longer and thicker in body than the flea of the glaciers (see Fig. 16; a, natural size; b, enlarged); but it is more particularly by the length of its antennÆ that we distinguish it. It owes its specific name of Plumbea to the livid blue or leaden colour of the scales which cover its body. These scales resemble those of butterflies; only they are much smaller, more finely situated, and very Our podurÆ have also the faculty of leaping, and cling by thousands to humid places, especially to mosses and the under-surface of stones. The mechanism of their leap is explained by the presence of a forked, flexible, and elastic appendage, lodged in a kind of ventral groove beneath the last segments; by projecting this rapidly behind, the whole body of the animal is thrown forward. At the slightest contact the insect folds up its caudal appendage under its belly, and you would then suppose it did not possess one. This circumstance explains why, in many books of natural history of good repute, the podurÆ, and especially so common a species as the Podura plumbea, are represented without this characteristic instrument. Herbaceous Plants which best endure the cold of Winter. The "way to look at things," which is the true foundation of science, varies, not only according to a man's degree of intellectual cultivation, but according to his social condition or profession. The herborist has eyes only for the plants in which he deals,—the "simples" which, as we read in old Gerarde, wrought such wonderful cures in the days of our This sounds exceedingly well. Disinterested words, from whatever quarter they come, always produce—perhaps, on account of their comparative rarity—an admirable effect. But what is their real value? To ascertain it, the listener must be able to seize, like so many luminous threads, all the emotions which are acting upon the heart and tongue of the speaker. But we are very far from having arrived at this degree of perfection. Shall we ever attain to it? Yes, because we can conceive its possibility. But, until that golden epoch, the pure love of science will always remain a myth, and we shall not have universally understood the necessity of seeking in the profound study of nature the grand destiny of man. It is among the weeds and noxious plants that we shall find the species capable of enduring longest the cold of The best answer which we can make to it is this: Everything invites us to work. Labour is imposed even upon him who least desires it. Earth will yield a return only in proportion to the care we bestow upon her. If, after having toiled and sown, we had nothing to do but to gather in the harvest, every person would become an agriculturist. But a soil which is not manured will soon grow exhausted; and if it be neither ploughed nor harrowed, instead of barley or vegetables, it will soon be covered with tares; rank weeds will flourish in every field. Such is the chastisement reserved for sloth,—the true "original sin" of the human race. Well, then, it is among the weeds, everywhere so common, that we meet with the plants best able to brave the rigours of frost. The Dog Mercury. The annual Dog Mercury (Mercurialis annua) is one of the most tenacious. It attracts the passer-by, if he condescend to bestow a glance upon it, only by its extreme abundance; it propagates very largely, though it is by no means partial to all localities. For instance, it avoids the woods as persistently as its congener, the common Dog Mercury (Mercurialis perennis) seeks them. It prefers the vicinity Of the Mercurialis perennis Mr Sowerby writes:—"This plant was formerly used in medicine, but has long been abandoned as a remedy. It is extremely acrid, and even poisonous, though recommended in some old books as a good pot-herb, probably from being confounded with the annual species. When steeped in water, the leaves give out a fine blue colour resembling indigo. This colouring matter is turned red by acids, and destroyed by alkalis, but is otherwise permanent; it might possibly prove valuable as a dye, if any means could be discovered of fixing it, and the herb has been introduced into this work with the view of drawing the attention of chemists to the subject; no experiments seem to have been lately made upon it." Let us now advise you how to distinguish our medicinal plant from the "ill weeds" with which it loves to associate. Its ovate, rough, irregularly-dentated, and petiolated leaves would not give it a sufficiently marked character, had it no other features peculiar to itself. But observe the yellowish-green glomerules, arranged, like millet, on a long frail spike. (Fig. 18, a.) They exhale, as your nose will inform you, a peculiar aroma, like that of spiced bread: no other plant but our Dog Mercury is gifted with this odour. Now, bring your magnifying-glass to bear upon it; with the point of a knife or a feather open one of the grains which form the glomerules of the spike; out of it will leap, as if impelled by an invisible spring, a large number of stamens, easily distinguished by their elastic thread-like anthers, covered with tiny yellow beads. Each greenish grain is a flower; the calyx, which also serves as the corolla, is represented by three little petals, forming the external envelope of the little flower. (Fig. 18, b.) But something essential is still wanting; in the centre of the stamens you do not find any pistil. Why is so important an organ wanting? Because our little rounded flowers, with their spice-bread odour, have but one sex, are unisexual; they are male flowers, since they are furnished But you are sure to find the female flowers in the immediate neighbourhood of the stems with the male flowers. They are easily recognised by their larger and darker leaves (Fig. 18, c); and especially by their little twin pods, green, wrinkled, and pedicellate, In the Historia Naturalis of Pliny, who was at once so acute and so credulous an observer, we first meet with the name of Mercurialis. "The plant is so denominated," he says, The description which Dioscorides Both species of the Herb or Dog Mercury belong to the family EuphorbiaceÆ. Our attention must now be directed to another point. It is a fact, that in winters of moderate severity the Mercury continues to infest our gardens and cultivated fields. It only succumbs to a frost equal to six to ten degrees below freezing-point; then its congealed stem totters, and grows black, and its leaves mingle so completely with the soil that it is difficult to discover any vestiges. How singular a contrast! The plants most destructive in our kitchen gardens are frequently the most useful in medicine. There are no drugs more popular than the weeds which we call Herb Mercury, Garden Nightshade, and Dog's-tooth grass. All belong to families whose properties are strongly marked. As already stated, the Mercury ranks among the The Garden Nightshade. Fig. 19. If you have seen—and who has not?—the flowers of the potato-plant, you will immediately recognise the flowers of the Garden or Black Nightshade. (Fig. 19.) This noxious herb—noxious in some, but useful in other respects, and, therefore, not to be visited with too hasty a condemnation—flowers and fructifies throughout the year. Its fertility is extreme; only the severest winter-frosts can crush out its prolific life. The fruits which succeed to the flowers are smaller berries or "apples" than those of the potato. (See Fig. 20.) In the history of botany, and even in that of philosophy, Where were the eyes of those great botanists? The corolla of the nightshade, like that of all the SolanaceÆ, is plainly and obviously monopetalous,—that is, composed of a single piece; to assure yourself of this, you have but to open it out. (See Fig. 21, b.) It was the sharp-pointed, ovate divisions of the limb which imposed on the old observers; a fresh proof that seeing and observing are two very distinct things. Our vision enters into full exercise from earliest infancy; observation is not acquired until after much labour and many years. Do not forget to add, that the five stamens are brought very closely together by their elongated anthers, as is also seen in the flower of the potato-plant. (Fig. 21, a.) The same botanists who took our solanum for a plant with a polypetalous corolla, considered the Bitter-sweet (Solanum dulcamara) to be a metamorphosis of the Garden Nightshade! The former they christened the red-berried solanum (Solanum baccis rubris), and the latter, the black-berried solanum (Solanum baccis nigris). But if we once launch into the hypothetical, we shall be unable to stop half-way. If the species of one and the Thus we should arrive, step by step, at an unique type, not only for the vegetable kingdom, but for vegetables and animals, including man himself, and realise, to some extent, the ideal of the Greeks,—unity in variety. Be it acknowledged, however, that we have no desire to rise to so lofty an elevation. The potato-plant—unknown to the ancients, inasmuch as it is a native of the New World—has not been found to lose its character since its introduction into the ancient continent; its congener, the nightshade—an old native, like every bad herb—accompanies it everywhere; but its fibrous roots are absolutely virgin of every farinaceous tubercule. Though the nightshade is common everywhere, Tournefort was the first to describe it with complete accuracy. That great observer even specifies various peculiarities which most of our botanists omit from their descriptions. Thus, he rightly remarks, that the peduncles branch out so as to form a kind of umbel, and do not emerge, as is usually the case, from the axils of the leaves, but a little below, from the very branches of the stem. He was also the first to note—and it was a veritable discovery—that the white flowers of the nightshade, grouped in threes to eights, are each formed of a single cup-shaped leaf,—in other words, that the corolla is monophyllous, and slightly bell-like or campanulated. Nor does he forget to describe the disposition Like all plants found by the wayside, and among heaps of refuse, the nightshade loves to vary its form, and of its various forms some nomenclators have made as many different species. The typical variety, the Solanum nigrum, has glabrous stems and leaves, that is, they are covered with short, but hardly visible hairs; its berries are black. The smooth variety, or Solanum villosum, is rather rare, and has swollen or bulging leaves and stems; its berries are red or of a reddish yellow. The two varieties seem able, by sowing, to be transformed into one another. A sub-variety of the Solanum villosum has been described as a peculiar species, under the name of Solanum miniatum, so named on account of its vermilion-coloured berries. The Solanum ochroleucum and Solanum luteovirens, the first with yellowish, and the second with greenish berries, are simply varieties, and the same may be said of the dwarf form, known by the name of Solanum humile. But the physician is more interested in the solanum than either the gardener or botanist. For him it is no useless or noxious weed, but, on the contrary, is an eminently precious herb. And, in fact, if it possessed only one-half the virtues Listen to our authorities even if you do not respect them. CÆsalpin asserts that the decoction or juice of the nightshade is a sovereign remedy for complaints of the stomach and the bladder, and regards nightshade-water, mixed with an equal quantity of absinthe-water, as one of the best sudorifics. Tragus, a physician and botanist like CÆsalpin, recommends the juice of the nightshade as anti-choleraic, as well as efficacious in inflammation of the liver and stomach. And yet, at the same time, he grows emphatic in reference to its poisonous properties. "Do not," he says, "employ this herb immoderately, lest it should happen to you as, in 1541, I saw it happen to an inhabitant of Erbach, near Hohenburg. After having eaten a few nightshade-berries, he was seized, on the following day, by a furious monomania, which led his neighbours to believe him possessed of a devil. After having uselessly employed every kind of exorcism, they sent for me. I made my patient swallow some very strong wine; he fell into a profound slumber; and, when he awoke, was cured." Withering affirms that a couple of grains of the dried leaves will act as a powerful sudorific, and that they have also been found useful in some cutaneous disorders. Here is another authority, before whom naturalists are accustomed to give way. We make use of the Solanum Tournefort did not confine himself to simple botanical descriptions; he did, what our modern botanists neglect doing,—he made experiments, both physiological and chemical, on the plants employed in medicine. Thus, he began by tasting the different parts of the plant. "The root," he says, "is almost insipid; the leaves taste like a saltish herb; there is something sharp and vinegary in the fruit; the whole plant has a narcotic odour. The leaves do not redden turnsole, We admit that these data leave much to be desired from a chemical point of view. We may well ask, for example, how the illustrious philosopher ascertained the presence of sal-ammoniac in nightshade? But it is not fair to criticise the science of the past, by judging it through the deceitful prism of the science of to-day. We must adopt the methods of our predecessors, when discussing natural productions from all the view-points of their applications. Dog's-tooth Grass. In clearing an uncultivated field we uproot a great number of herbaceous plants of different families; but those of the GramineÆ, or Grasses, invariably predominate. They are the trailing roots, or rhizomes, of certain species which have been included under the general denomination of Dog's-tooth. These tenacious and vigorous roots,—so wholesome in various maladies, so injurious to cultivation,—are, whatever certain botanists may say, far from tracing their origin in all cases to the Triticum repens (couch-grass) and Panicum dactylon—those terrible enemies of the corn-field, which, once established in the soil, are with difficulty extirpated, and prove very injurious to the "golden crops." Nearly every grass which puts forth rhizomes will furnish the Dogs-tooth. We may cite, for instance, several species of Festuca (as Festuca rubra and Festuca pinnata), or fescue grass; at least two kinds of meadow grass (Poa compressa and Poa pratensis), a species of wild-oats (Avena elatior), to say nothing of the weeds Arundo phragmites and Arundo epigeios. The long rhizomes of these How shall we distinguish these plants from one another? Their leaves have almost exactly the same configuration; they There is even a perianth, or calyx, represented by a couple of tiny membraneous scales, scientifically known as glumellulÆ; then at the base of each spikelet, composed of one or two of these bright green lilliputian flowers, are two other and larger scales, called glumellÆ: they represent an involucre. Let us now see, more closely, the two plants which, according to the botanists, furnish the root of the Dog's-tooth. When walking along the sandy bank of a river, you must frequently have trodden under foot a low, almost crawling herb, remarkable for its violet-red spikes, which, three to This glaucous-leaved herb is the Panicum dactylon (i.e., fingered-millet) of LinnÆus. The long trailing rhizomes, joined to some less prominent characters, have been sufficient for some botanists to create a special genus, Cynodon, or Kynodon (a Greek word, signifying literally "Dog's-tooth"), and to change the Linnean denomination of our grass into Cynodon dactylon. It is seldom met with in cultivated land; but in such a locality as we have already described, and sometimes on open sandy shores, where the summer sea comes with a gentle ripple and a subdued music, it may frequently be found. Its long, tough runners creep through and over the loose soil for many yards, rooting at every joint, and furnished with flat, rather short leaves, of a glaucous hue. The flowers grow in narrow, linear spikes, arranged at the top of a short leafy stem in the form of But if the Cynodon dactylon is rare in cultivated fields, the Triticum repens—commonly called couch-grass, but, in our opinion, the true and genuine dog's-tooth—is particularly abundant. (See Fig. 23.) Its long subterranean stems increase with astonishing rapidity, and if the smallest fragment be left in the soil, it will vegetate, and speedily extend itself, until it becomes almost impossible to extirpate it. It is a kind of wild barley, with stiff leaves of a moderate length, and of a bluish tint, and a double spike, composed of clusters of four to six flowers, each crowned by a narrow ridge. We must not confound the Triticum repens with the Elymus caninus of LinnÆus, which has no trailing underground roots like the former. It differs also from the latter in the roughness of each side of its leaves,—only one side of the leaf of the Triticum repens being rough,—and in the crests which rise above the flowers. Was the dog's-tooth known to the ancients? Undoubtedly, for the dog's-tooth flourishes in all climates,—is truly cosmopolitan. But it is difficult to decide whether their Agrostis and their Gramen apply to the above-mentioned species. According to Diodorus, the primitive Egyptians lived upon herbs. "They also eat," he says, The Agrostis of Diodorus would apply to all the GraminaceÆ whose stems and roots contain nutritive and saccharine principles. Let us here remind the reader that the sugar-cane belongs to the same family as barley and the dog's-tooth. Pliny is much more explicit. What he says of the Gramen (or grass), the "commonest of herbs"—inter herbas vulgatissimum—and of the geniculated spaces between its knots (geniculatis serpit internodiis), applies with tolerable accuracy to our Triticum repens. He also speaks of the diuretic properties of a decoction from its trailing roots. Dioscorides is quite as explicit as Pliny. What the latter names Gramen, he, however, calls Agrostis. After having particularised the nodosities of the stem—a feature common to nearly all the GraminaceÆ—he describes very clearly the long creeping roots put forth by the said stem; and he does not forget to mention the sugary savour, so characteristic of the rhizomes (???a? ????e?a?) of the Triticum repens. The Cynodon dactylon is, at the present day, very common in Greece, where it is specially partial to low grounds, which are somewhat damp and sandy. The inhabitants call it Agriada, a name derived from ??????, "wild." But if we may believe Fraas, the author of a Flora Classica, the genuine dog's-tooth, Triticum repens, is, on the contrary, very rare in the land of Socrates. This is a curious fact, if a fact, for geographical botany. Throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the eighteenth century, were confounded, under the generic name of Gramina, Tournefort Instead of mocking us with such fantastic analyses, which can only excite the laughter of our modern chemists, Tournefort and Bernard de Jussieu would have deserved better of science if they had applied themselves to the task of introducing light and order into the cloudy chaos of the GraminaceÆ of the botanists of their age. But winter is passing away, and the time for the singing of birds is at hand. Already the earth is awakening from her prolonged lethargy; the hedgerows are green with budding leaves; the purple crocuses shine in many a sheltered field; on bank and brae, in glen and vale, the glory of the primrose makes glad the heart of man; the wood anemone hangs its delicate head in the woodlands; and it seems as if a gladder feeling animated the universal nature. And the heart and the brain and the soul sympathise in this apparent delight of material things; the heart beating more freely, the brain feeling a stronger working power, and the soul rising to purer views of life and its duties:— "Oh, who can speak the joys of spring's young morn, When wood and pasture open on his view, When tender green buds blush upon the thorn, And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew!" |