NATURE NOTES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3660, 23 October 1912, Page 3

NATURE NOTES.

BEARLIKE SHEPHERD DOGS.

It has already been noted by scientists that certain mountain dogs have shapes and assume attributes resembling those of a bear. Among these dogs the sheep dog of the Pyrenees bears a closer resemblance to the Dear than most others. _ Although he is seldom over twenty inches high., his bones are very massive and Ins nvuscles exceptionally developed. liis fur is thick, consisting of long, fine, silky hair, either black, dun-colored, or grey. His head is large and the nose tapering, the eyes small but sharp and lustrous, his ears always “attentive.” The toes and the base of the feet are elongated and flat. The tail is very short, or eten entirely missing, and by his manner of climbing the abrupt mountain slopes in quest of some strayed member or his flock, he may easily be mistaken for a young bear.

CHUMMY STONES

“Travelling stones,” from the size of a pea to six inches in diameter, aro found in Nevada. "When distiibuted on a floor or other level surface, within two or three feet of one another, they immediately begin to travel towards a common centre, and there lie huddled like a clutch of eggs in a nest. A single stone removed to a distance of three and a half feet, upon being released, at onco started with wonderful and somewhat comical celerity to join its fellows. These queer stones are found in a region that is comparatively level and little more than bare rock. Scattered over this barren region are little’ basins, from a few feet to a rod or two in diameter, and it is in the bottom of these that the rolling stones arc found. The cause for the strange conduct or these stones is doubtless to be found in the material, of which they are composed, which appears to be loadstone, or magnetic iron ore.

A CURIOUS CHANGE. A remarkable transformation of a cat’s fur by temperature has been reported. A black cat was accidentally shut- in the refrigerating chamber of a mail steamer in Sydney harbor, and was not discovered until about thirtytwo davs later, when the ship was off Aden ' The eat was scarcely recognisable, the fur having become long and thick, changing to white on the back. Brought out into the intense beat of the Red Sea, the heavy white coat rapidly fell out and the normal coat was restored.

THE CUNNING WEASEL

The weasel has a peculiar wav of carrying things by placing the object under its chin. A weasel was noticed to be carrying something in this manner, pressed against the slender neck, as it crossed the public highway from Jerburgh one morning, under the eyes of a party of people whom it had not in the least suspected of being there. A collie dog. belonging to one of their number, made a. dasli for it. and the weasel, thereupon, softly dropped its treasure, .slipped under the roadside hedge into the woods, and disappeared. When the onlookers went to see what it had left behind it, tliey found a hen’s egg, safe and unscratehed. As the nearest poultry-run was three hundred yards away from the spot, the weasel must have carried its prize all that distance m safety.

CANNIBAL SNAKES

An example of the fact that certain, snakes onc-e they have sunk their teeth in their prey cannot let go was shown at the London Zoo recently. Two king snakes (who will eat any other species of serpent hut their own) were in the same house. The two friends both selected the same rat for a meal and started, amicably enough, on opposite ends. Inevitably, the heads of the two diners met somewhere about the rat’s waist-line. Their teeth are inclined backwards/ like a python’s, and they could not relax their grips, so there was no turning back for either. It became a contest as to which could yawn the widest. The bigger snake won. and continued the meal alone /until the tip of his late companion’s tale had vanished. The survivor showed no ill-effects from his large meal.