Science.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 409, 10 March 1904, Page 7

Science.

GOOD FOOD AND BAD. ■HEBE ia bo more wholesome food amoag fish than a mackerel, yet close along the backbone of that • Bame edible there lies a strip of flesh which may bring yon to death's door, even if it fails to kill yon. Ton may eat it a hundred times and it will be as wholesome as the rest of the fish, but the hundred-Bad.first time, or earlier, it will cause terrible trouble. This is because it occasionally, without any sign or any known reason, distils a powerful irritant poison. There is no difference in the ap.pearance of the fish, or in its flavour, nothing to warn you of the danger. The only remedy is to leave the fish alone, and not take the flesh that lies in the angle of the backbone's edges. There is never a y6ar without a few deaths from this cause, though you might eat mackerel scores of times without taking harm. Yet animals have some way of detecting the poison, and a cat will not eat the flesh from the mackerel's spine if it is dangerous. It is not a question of stateness—a perfectly fresh fish may be deadly, and a Btale one harmless.

-Beware also of the fish called gurnards a3 regards their heads. They are moat wholesome fish, and palatable, but let the flesh close to the head alone, The eyes of this creature are sometimes poisonous, and spoil the rest of the flash. Whiting is,one of the few fish that are never dangerous, and'soles very seldom. Plaice occasionally are poisonous—the deep-sea ones are the safest. Mussels, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are wholesome enough—if you have a pretty strong digestion—and particularly nourishing, too. Bat they, again, may poison you as effectively as any poison. If they are taken from any kind of ironwork, or especially from copper sheathing, or even from an apparently clean rocky foreshore, three or four of them may be a fatal dose. It hss been said that they show a green or other colour when dangerous, but this is not so. They often give no warning whatever, even to an expert analyst. An average of a dozen persons a year are killed by eating poisonous mussels, yet mussels to the extent of £12.000 are eaten annually, with only this percentage of casualties. Cockles are less liable to be dangerous, but they are very poisonous when they are bad. As for oysters, £147,000 worth a year Are eaten, and are a good food, even for invalids. Yet, a few months ago, the Daan of Winchester and eight other wellknown citizens ate a few oysters apiece at the annual mayoral banquet, and all were down with typhoid fever soon afterwards. The oysters were perfectly healthy and well-flavoured. Nearly a score of other guests at the banquet were laid up almost immediately with severe gastric poisoning, i . Mushrooms, even eellar-grown ones, which are everywhere .to be had in large quantities, however good and genuine they may be, may develop a violent poison afew hours after they are picked. They are generally safer, however, than wild mushrooms. The latter, though the genuine article, will sometimes absorb poison from the spawn of dangerous fungi which lies in the ground they- grow in, and be as deadly as any toadstool; in fact, a great many of the deaths reported every year as caused by toadstools mistaken for mushrooms are caused by the true mushroom which has absorbed poison. Out of a single field, one batch of mushrooms may be excellent, and others, not fifty yards away, perfectly poisonous. Yet there will be no difference in appearance, and both will peel and show all the mhrks of the genuine article.. There is one test which is generally safe, Pat a silver: spoon among the mushrooms when they frying, and if it turns black reject them. Also, if they show a yellow tint rousd the edges, throw them away. Pork pies by good makers are perfectly honest and wholesome. Yet, for no reason that anyone can discover, a autnber of them will suddenly develop the poison called ptomaine, which sometimes occurs in cooked and tinned foods, and anyone who consumes that pie under such conditions probably suffers.—Eng Science.

I a black poodle dog lived comfortably. When the dog gave up this earthly life f there; came a successor in white dog, Now a white poodle lived in the red kennel. - This was considered as a demonstration, as red and white are the colours of the Dannebrog. The countryman was officially ordered, as he could not very well give the to repaint the kennel. Many other instances of the arbitrary action of the German Government towards the onfortnnite Danes are de> scribed in the «Nineteenth Century/ Dameii children at school are forbidden to use the mother tongne, and those who sympathise with the Danes of North Sohleswig are in danger of imprisonment or banishment, The public hoisting of the Danish flag, the 'Dannebrog,' is forbidden. Its beloved red-white national colours may only be enfolded by the Dane in his own,., dwelling, where every advantage is taken of the permission. I! one goes into the ■, ; home or a Dane one is sure to see the 'Dannebrog' in miniature on a small , flagstaff, pictures of the four kings of Denmark ~ great-grandfather, grandfather lather and son—-and other souvenirs of Desmark. The appearance of Danish actors has been forbidden In Hadersleben. The singing of Danish songs of a stirring nature is forbidden by an order of the . Prussian Government. The despotic policy of that Government, as described in the 'Nineteenth Century,' seems, to indicate that it is so terrified of these law-abiding and industrious people that it would, if it could, foibid them even to ; live. ■-•'.' -; HUNTING BIG GAME. * A correspondent who kaowa his South Africa by heart writes : a. native armed with an old Brown Beas musket—a weapon of the most antiquated type—came into my camp one nignt and and discoursed with my 'boys' about the largest elepi'ant he had ever seen. From the strangers description its tusks were enormous, and, moreover, the grand beast was a 'rogue'—therefore expatriated from its tribe. Further, the brute had killed several of the natives, and nightly ravaged the adjacent 'mealy' gardens. This was a foe worthy cf doing battle with, so "I resolved to hunt up the mammoth's lair and, if possible, kill it. My plans, however, were not carried into effect, for two Boer hunters visited me the next day. and stated that they had severely wounded the terror of the neighbourhood, but in some uaacoountable way the stricken beast had made its escape. Nevertheless, they pointed out that if my people found the carcase they should be informed, as the ivory was theirs by the laws of the veldt. Three days afterwards the Boers took their departure for a new range of country. 'I Hate Crocodiles.' The giant elephant and its assailants had almost passed out' of my memory, . when, abut noon on a very warm day, my chief man presented himself beside my hammock. Judging from his hurried utterance and moist state, his business was urgent. Nor did he take long to enlighten me. About an hour's journey (six miles) was the carcase of an enormous elephant stranded on a Band-bar, 'with tnska'— well—"aa long as a wagon.' Very short delay took place before I gained the deserted place. There was the mammoth's body, also the tasks, but the water arousd seemed to be alive with crocodiles, while one enormous saurian was elevated upon and over the boated mountain of carrion, and expressing plainly by its vindictive appearance that it would not tolerate trespassers in the vicinity of its treasure. I must acknowledge that I hate crocodiles. I have good reason for doing so, for they deprived me of my best permanently injured one of my favourite horses, and to my knowledge caused the death of many a native.. I took steady aim buhindita shoulder, and my 'ubique' ten-bore did not disappoint me. When the crocodile received the bullet it rushed frantically into the water, the others of its species took alarm, and in a few minutes all had vanished. Although the elephants on the, watershed north of the Limpopo are probably the largest in Africa, they do not carry as heavy ivory ai those fpnnd ncrth of the Zambesi.