The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-08-31
ALMOST INCREDIBLE.
The Strange But True Stories That
Naturalists Tell Us.

Wonderful Feats of Strength Performed by
Small Creatures = Astonishing Facts
About Seeds and Their Produots-Long
Lived Fish That Do Funny Things.
There are many surprising things in
plant and insect life, especially when COM
Parsons are used to call attention to
them. For instance, Delisle tells us of a
lily that ran nearly three inohes@nd made
40 steps in half a second, This is about
equal to mans running 30 miles
minute. The flea leaps 300 times it's own
length. AT this rate man six. feet tall
would bound at one effort a distance of
/, 900 feet. The mite in the cheese is only
Dne- fourth of an inch in length, yet it can
take the tip of it's tail in it's mouth, and
then, letting go with a sudden jerk, jump
out of bowl six inches in depth To
equal this man should be able to jump
out of a vertical shaft in mis9e IA feet
In depth.
A beetle placed under glass tumbler
will push the tumbler around on table,
70 match this man relatively should be
able to walk off with a small lighthouse
The brain of a canary is larger than the
brain of an elephant "Oh, that can't be
true'' you exclaim. Remember we mean
proportionately.
President Clark of Amherst college
some years ago made a series of expert
ments upon the growing force of squash
When it was IS days old and measured 81
inches in circumference, he Enclosed it in
a sort of iron and wooden harness, with
long lever attached to it. The latter was
weighted according to the growing power
of the squash. Beginning with 60 pounds
on the twentieth day of its existence, on
the ninetieth day it lifted 8, 600 pounds
A peculiar plant is found in the states
of Oregon and Texas. 1t is known as the
compass plant, the polar plant and the
pilot weed, owing to the polarity of it's
leaves. The radical leaves present their
Edges north and south, while their faces
are turned east and west. This popularity
has long been known to hunters, who ON
dark nights easily get their bearings by
feeling the direction of the leaves An
other guide to hunters is the moss on the
trees. 1t grows more thickly on the north
side of the tree than ON any other side.
The seed of the globe turnip is not larger
perhaps than the twentieth part of an inch
in diameter, and yet in the course of few
months this seed will be enlarged by the
soil and the air into 81, 600, 600 times its
original bulk, and this in addition to
considerable bunch Of leaves. DIR. Des-
guliers made some experim ents, proving
that IN an average condition turnip
seed may increase it's own weight 5 times
in a minute. By an actual experiment.
made on peat ground turnip5 have been
found to increase more than Is, 900 timer
the weight of their seeds day 3
There is shellfsh called the coat Of
mail, which has it's eyes not on its body,
where we would naturally look for them,
but on it's she'll. They glisten like crystals
in their calcarous settings. As well might
we expect to see eyes on the she'll of tor
toise or on our finger nails. This discov-
cry, so new in science, has led to a closer
inspection. In one specimen $50 eyes were
counted, "a rows with an average of Is in
each row. Another shell, in which the
eyes were very small, had 8, 500 eyes on it.
Fish live to wonderful age. Professor
Baird tells us Of pike in Russia whose
age dates back to the fifteenth century
In the royal aquarium at St. Petersburg
there are fish that have been there for 146
years. They live on without seeming to
arrive at maturity. There are also some
very queer crabs in the world. The soldier
crab of Bermuda carries heavy shells up
the hills. A shore crab in the Cape Verde
Islands may s'be seen running along like
piece of paper blown by a strong wind
In Ascension island there are crabs that
steal young rabbits from their nests, while
the famous robber crab of the Philippines
cracks cocoanuts and eats them
Perhaps not one boy in 90 while digging
worms for bait stops to wonder why
worms were made or how many there are
in the ground The attention of Darwin,
the eminent naturalist, was attracted to
the subject when q boy, and one of the
last articles that he wrote was treatise
on the vast Importance of the earthworms
to the human race. The scientific world
was astonished at what he had to say on
the subject. The fertility of our soil is
due to the labors of these insignificant
creatures. By penetrating the earth in
every direction and depositing their own
remains therein the fertility of the soil is
not only kept up, but is largely improved.
Their number is surprisingly large. In
old pastures in England the worms are
estimated at 49, 900 to the acre and as
many as 50, 600 in richly cultivated gar
ldens. Mr.. Urquhart estimated the mum
Der of worms in the rich pasture lands
near Auckland at from 400, 0G0 to 800, 900
to the acre. Were it not for the earth
worms soils would become barren and half
of the world would die of starvation
Frank Ell. Stauffer in Philadelphia Times
He Got the Position.