Gazette, a notice of the occurrence of Orobanche minor in New Jersey. Dr. A. P. Garber writes in the October number of South Floridan ferns, while Mr. J. G. Lemmon writes in rather a gushing way of the big trees of California.

ZOOLOGY.1

BREEDING HABITS OF CORIXA. In Bulletin No. 1 of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History, I called attention, three years ago, in a paper on the Crustacea of Illinois, to a breeding habit of Corixa, which seems to have escaped the notice of the entomologists; and as my note has also been generally overlooked by those most interested, I repeat the observation here, especially as it affords a very curious illustration of natural selection, unless I wholly misunderstand the matter.

In temporary ponds of this region, which fill up every spring and dry out in midsummer, Corixa alternata Say, is an abundant insect, and Cambarus immunis Hagen, is the commonest craw-fish. In seining some of these ponds, three years ago, in June and July, I noticed that the backs of many of the crawfishes were covered with a moss-like incrustation, which, upon examination proved to be the eggs of insects, stuck fast by one end as close together as they could be placed. Sometimes only a few would be found on a crawfish, and sometimes the upper surface would be nearly covered. They were just hatching when first observed, and it took but a little time to determine that they were unmistakable Corixas. Careful search of the water weeds and other submerged objects failed to discover other eggs, and I was led to conclude that the Corixa purposely selected this remarkable place for oviposition. Since then I have found these eggs also on the shells of pond molluscs, and on the carapace of Cambarus acutus Gir., another wide-spread and common crawfish.

I can account for so strange a habit only by supposing that it is a "provision of nature" to guard against the waste of eggs otherwise resulting from the drying up of the ponds. The crawfishes mentioned are distinctively aquatic species, and as one pond dries up they migrate to another, or to a neighboring stream, bearing on their hospitable backs, as the shepherd bore Edipus from impending destruction, the hopes of the distressed water bugs. If this is a fixed habit of a species or variety, and not a local accident, it ought to be heard of elsewhere.-S. A. Forbes.

SNAKES AND COLD VICTUALS.-It is a popular notion that serpents never eat what has been killed by any agency except their own; and, though naturalists know this belief to be false, very few of the one hundred and thirty-two species of North American serpents have been proved by actual observation to have eaten any animal which they have not captured alive.

The departments of Ornithology and Mammalogy are conducted by Dr. ELLIOTT COUES, U. S. A.

As the common black snake, B. constrictor, is not, to my knowledge, among the number already accredited with a propensity for cold victuals, an account of a black snake's dinner which recently came under my observation may be of some interest to those herpetologically inclined:

During the latter part of last June I killed a garter snake, Eutania sirtalis, and the next day, happening past the place where I killed it, I came upon a black snake with about an inch of the tail of a garter snake protruding from its mouth. As I could see nothing of the dead snake left there the day previous, I immediately suspected the one inside his constrictorship to be the same. On removing the garter snake this proved to be the case, as was evidenced by the wounds I had made on the snake's head and body. The length of the black snake was a little short of three and a half feet, and that of his dinner, twenty-two inches.-F. I. Cragin

A SKUNK EATEN BY TURKEY-BUZZARDS.-Some years ago, while residing in Chester county, Penna., having set a steel-trap for a ground-hog (Maryland marmot), I found a large skunk caught by a leg. Though a very unwelcome prize, there seemed no alternative but to kill it, which was done. This was about 8 o'clock in the morning; immediately a number of turkey-buzzards commenced their usual gyrations over the dead body, and by 10 o'clock nothing remained of the unsavory animal but its well picked skeleton.-William Kite.

ANTHROPOLOGY.1

A VESSEL OF GLAZED POTTERY TAKEN FROM A TUMULUS IN FLORIDA. The peculiar egg-shaped vessel surmounted with bulbous-shaped mouth, a description of which is here given, was found, associated with some much-decayed human bones, and a single arrow head chipped from reddish flint, in a burial mound near the south shore of Santa Fe Lake, Florida. The color of this unique piece of pottery is a dull shade of buff or drab. It is formed of yellowish clay, like that found in the neighborhood, perhaps mingled with marl; but without any admixture of crushed stone or shells being used in its construction. Its height is eleven inches, and its greatest exterior diameter 8.40 inches. It weighs six pounds, and holds over one gallon of liquid, or exactly four and one-third quarts, being perfectly water tight. Its base is too rounded to permit of its standing without support. The peculiarity of its construction is that it is built spirally from the bottom upward with one continuous cylinder or rope of clay, giving the vessel a ribbed or corrugated surface; there being twenty-four rounds or circuits of the cylinder. The entire inside is glazed with a decided but somewhat thin glazing of a pale yellowish tint. The bulbous-shaped mouth is

1 Edited by Prof. OTIS T. MASON, Columbian College, Washington, D. C.

also covered on the outside with a coating of the same preparation, which extends for the depth of about one inch below the neck, over which is a second and thicker coating of glaze of a cream color with greenish cast. With this exception the outside is unglazed. In applying the glazing, some of the material has streamed down the side of the vessel, which is also spotted in several places with drops of the vitreous substance. The glazing is in an excellent state of preservation, though marked with the reticulation of fine cracks such as may be seen in even our modern pottery when it has been in use for a considerable length The entire workmanship of the specimen is of a much rougher and ruder character than the fact of its being glazed would imply. On the outside, at a point 2.30 inches below the contracted neck, occurs an annular indentation, the greatest diameter of which measures 0.54 inch, its least diameter being 0.52 inch. This, which, with the exception of the border of glazing around the neck, is the only attempt at anything like ornamentation in this piece of pottery, has some indication of being the personal stamp or brand of the maker.

It is believed th t this is the first vessel of glazed pre-historic pottery taken from a mound in Florida, or perhaps from one in any other part of the United States, or at least the first east of the Rocky Mountains, of which any account has been given. Wyman makes no mention of such, though he speaks of having “found indications that some at least of the vessels were made by coiling up long cylinders of clay, and afterwards pressing and welding them together." Dumont, in his elaborate account of the manufacture of pottery by the Indians of Louisiana, though accurately describing the forming of vessels by spirals made with cylinders of clay, is silent as to glazing. And so also with other writers. Some, indeed, make mention of glazing; but it is evident from their own explanations that simply a polishing and painting of the articles is meant, and not the vitreous coating to which the term in general is understood to apply.

It only remains to say that it is probable that the glaze on this peculiar vessel was produced by the use of salt. At least it is not of a calcareous nature, the test of acid failing to provoke effer

vescence.

Since writing the foregoing, my attention has been called by Mr. E. A. Barber to his interesting account in the AMERICAN NATURALIST for August, 1876, of the Pueblo pottery of the Far West, some of which is finely glazed, and which is found scattered over the surface of the country for hundreds of miles, though chiefly in the vicinity of the old mural ruins. A comparison of this highly advanced and probably much more modern pottery with the vessel here described, taken from an ancient mound in Florida, is not without its suggestiveness. Particularly is this the case from the fact that it is known that the modern Pueblo Indians

construct pottery by spirally coiling cylinders of clay, as has been above described in the case of the Florida pottery, though Mr. Barber states that they have lost the art of glazing.

Further details are given in a paper on the subject, read before the St. Louis meeting of the American Association, August, 1878.-Henry Gillman, Waldo, Florida.

AN INDIAN BURIAL-FUNERAL CEREMONIES AT LOWER LAKE, CALIFORNIA. After the grave (a round hole of about five feet in diameter and the same in depth) had been prepared under a brush house, adjoining the cabin of the dead Indian, the body was carefully carried out in a blanket and quilt, and placed alongside the opening. The medicine man then began the funeral rites, which, in part, consisted of blowing a small whistle, and the shaking and rattling of split sticks, which made a peculiar noise like nothing but itself. After this had been kept up for some time, accompanied with the low, plaintive wails of the squaws who were sitting around the grave, and the louder lament of those in the house, the medicine man then pronounced a eulogy upon the dead, and exhorted the living. His language was accompanied with expressive gestures. He pointed to the sky, to the ground, to each of the four cardinal points, and, finally, into the grave itself, conveying the idea that after we had lived and enjoyed the things of this world, and wandered far and near over the earth, the time would come when a final separation of body and spirit must take place; and while the spirit ascended to regions above, the body must go into the ground and remain there, at least for a time. He then took the small whistle used by him and placed it in the mouth of the body, after which, with closed eyes and uplifted hand, he engaged in an invocation of some kind.

At the close of this, Rosa, the wife of the dead man, came from the house and cast herself full length upon the body. She removed the covering from Joe's breast, and, after she had laid her head upon it the covering was replaced, and her voice could be heard in low tones, as if bidding the departed a last farewell. After this a feather bed was brought out from the house and laid in the grave, the body was placed upon it in a half-sitting position; his gun, hat, shoes, some food, a basket containing silver coin, Indian money, beads, and feathers, were also put in with him. On top of all was thrown a straw bed. Rosa again began her lamentations, and, with a loud scream, tried to throw herself into the grave, but was withheld by a stout young squaw, who held her in her arms until the grave was filled. The first few handsful of dirt were thrown into the grave by the squaws; the men, then, with shovels, filled it up. After the dirt had been replaced, one of the squaws, with her hands, smoothed it over and obliterated all the tracks made by the workers. The medicine man again circles the grave three times, stopping each time at the

cardinal points, turning completely around, and finished by blowing the breath from his nose and mouth upon it.

Before digging the grave a number of chickens belonging to the dead man' were killed and placed at intervals around the spot selected for sepulture, at a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet from it. The body was clothed with a new shirt and pantaloons, the forehead and eyes covered with a badge made of white beads, and a crown, or head-dress, of feathers above all. The cries and lamentations of the women were so plaintive, and their grief seemed so sincere, that there were but few dry eyes among the white bystanders who had come to see the last of old Joe Potoke. Before the company of mourners left the ground everything belonging to Joe was brought out from the house and broken up. Dishes, cooking utensils, knives and forks, buckets, and furniture sharing the same fate.-Lower Lake (Cal.) Bulletin.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL NEWS.-The second number of the American Antiquarian, edited by the Rev. S. D. Peet, contains the following articles: A Comparison of the Pueblo pottery with Egyptian and Greek ceramics, by Edwin A. Barber; Traditions of the Deluge among the tribes of the Northwest, by Rev. M. Eells; Description of an Engraved Stone by Jolin E. Sylvester, M.D.; Prehistoric Ruins in Missouri; Gleanings, by S. S. Haldeman; Sketch of the Klamath Language, by Albert S. Gatschet; The location of the Indian tribes of the Northwest territory, by Stephen D. Peet; Remarkable Relics-Leaf Shaped Implements, by Prof. M. C. Reid. The paper of Mr. Barber is profusely illustrated, and shows considerable reading, but surely no one acquainted with the evolution of the art idea on our continent supposes that the Egyptians had anything whatever to do with it. With reference to Mr. Eells paper, and all ethnic stories of the same class, we shall have to lay down this canon, As to matters of fact tradition is a tolerable guide to truth, while regarding matters of opinion it has no value whatever." The engraved stones, or tablets, seem to be the tender point with our western brethren. Dr. Sylvester's papers, backed up with affidavits, looks like the report of a Congressional committee. There is no doubt that much less temper would have been evoked by these objects if some of their admirers had not insisted on seeing in their rude lines symbols of something which never entered into the minds of those who manufactured them. Dr. Haldeman's gleanings consist of short notes on arrow-heads, tomahawks of honor, blunt arrowheads, knives of cane, shaving, caves, charcoal, funerals, etc. The sketch of the Klamath language is by a master hand. The location of the Indian tribes by the editor is a contribution to a most important work. The author of these notes is gathering from every source, under the patronage of Major J. W. Powell of the Geographical Survey, materials for a classical dictionary of all the North American tribes. The information sought is the tribal