Mr. Andrew Fuller of Ridgewood, New Jersey, according to the article above quoted, had an interesting experience with a pair of Rocky Mountain ground squirrels. After missing them for a month he accidentally found them curled up under some straw, apparently frozen stiff. He brought them to the house to show his wife the misfortune that had befallen his pets. Soon they seemed to thaw out and scampered about as lively as ever. No sooner were they put out in the cold than they resumed their sleep, which continued all winter, their bodies maintaining a fairly constant temperature, seldom falling below three degrees above the freezing point of water. They came out in the spring as chipper as if they had been asleep but one night. Many hibernating animals will if wakened by being placed in a warm room, eat eagerly, but they soon show a desire to resume their nap. The Loir, a peculiar little native of Senegal, never hibernates in its native clime, but every specimen brought to Europe becomes torpid when exposed to cold. The common land tortoise—wherever he may be and he is a voracious eater of almost anything—always goes to sleep in November, and wakes some time in May. Just as in the north numerous animals hibernate upon approach of cold, so in the south there are species that may be said to estivate during the hottest weather. While the northern animals curl up so as to retain heat, his southern cousin straightens out as much as possible to allow the heat to escape from all parts of the body. But it was not my intention to write an essay upon hibernation and allied phenomena, but merely to speak of it as a subject that should be investigated. What a splendid arrangement it would be for the poor, the sick, and the melancholy folk if they could just hibernate for six months occasionally. I will merely speak of the light of the so called lightning bug, with its over ninety per centum efficiency and no heat and no consumption of fuel to speak of. Why doesn’t some genius learn her language and find out how she does it? She has been trying for centuries to demonstrate it but we are too stupid to learn her secret. Rowland Watts. THE GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE. (_Quiscalus macrourus._) The Great-tailed Grackle belongs to a family of birds that is “eminently characteristic of the New World, all the species being peculiar to America.” It is the family of the blackbird and oriole, of the bobolink and the meadowlark. It is called the Icteridae, from a Greek word ikteros, meaning a yellow bird. The majority of the one hundred and fifty or more species that are grouped in this family make their home in the tropics where their brilliant colors are emphasized by the ever green foliage and the bright sunshine.