The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-08-30
New Nature Studies

| Tnose persons who profess to Scorn
nature stories because they are all
| alike" are missing something. There
| Is more variety and Improvement in
this line than has been shown in a
summer season for years. Read this
story from the Columbus (Ohio) Dis
patch of the COW Fannie, owned by
Farmer Harvey Brown of Yelverton,
| in that state:
During a thunderstorm Brown dis
covered that a bolt of lightning had
struck his only COW. Was he down
hearted? No. Not after he found
that as result of the lightning
Fannie yields milk of a light blue
| color, which because of its novelty,
| now commands 10 cents a quart in
stead of the cents which was all
that buyers in this section will pay
| for white milk. In the morning she
yields blue milk and at night white.
| A 1udicious admixture of the two col
ors produces a quality of milk which
| Is so good that Frederick c. Boynton,
proprietor of the st. Charles hotel,
| has ordered all he can get of it,
There is much in this Ohio episode
that the struggling dairyman might
consider earnestly.
How different the snake stories
| from the days when it was merely q
question of the size of the reptile.
For instance, a 6-inch moccasin that
concealed itself in the rat" worn by
| a young woman Of Richmond, Va,
and stung her all the day long i'm
pressed the lesson that girls either
should not wear rats, or if they did
they should not leave them lying
| around in hammocks for little snakes
to conceal themselves in. In Saluda,
s.. c., is an aged negro woman who
seems to have found the secret of
eternal youth in rattlesnake steak.
| She has outlived generations of friends
and remained fat and jovial and full
OF the spirit of youth on this mex
pensive diet. which she has never
failed to secure, "as by an intuitive
faculty she was enabled to find the
game within its lair Another inter-
esting fact that may go far to settle
a long-standing dispute comes from
Bloomsbury, Pa:
State Zoologist Surface says rattle
| snakes can't climb trees. Ralph and
Frank Cox of Catawissa say they can.
Driving in Beaver township, they
came upon cherry tree, and were
picking cherries from one of the low
er branches when they espied rattle
| snake lodged above. Ralph Fox
| climbed the tree, dislodged the snake
! and as it reached the earth his brother
started in pursuit and killed it."
| The same improvement may be OBJ
served in narratives regarding fish. No
one any longer reports the weight of
his fish, for there is always some other
| angler who had made a bigger catch
at the same place. That fish which
| caught hold of a mans coat tail and
| pulled him out of a launch off the
south California coast was merely q
| base imitator, and the feat was not
worthy of the attention 1t attracted.
An oregon fisherman's explanation of
his failure to deliver promised catch
to a friend is worthy of some consider
alton. He had really caught the fish,
| a gigantic salmon trout, had put it
| in a tub at his home, had turned on
the water, and then forgot all about it.
| The tub filled, the room filed and the
| fish escaped through the window. 1t
| travelled across lots, along q highway,
and jumped back into the river at the
very place it had been caught. Two
boys added their testimony; they saw
| the fish, but it was so large and was
travelling so fast they did not dare to
| attempt to recapture it.
The northwest furnishes another ex-
ample of the great power of large
fish. When the stone foundations of
the piers of northern Minnesota
bridge were found unsafe a county
official was sent out to make an ex-
animation. He reported that the
| stones had bee, worn away by big
carp butting their noses against the
masonry on their way up the stream
To those who doubted, the worthy Of
fetal merely pointed out the crumbling
bridge piers and the river full of fish,
ring every day, 10 can really believe
that nature study is losing its interest?
New York Sun.