St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 1/Nature and Science/Know

by Cleveland Abbe, H. L. Wells, F. R. Gorton, Jane R. Cathcart

A cat’s eyes of two colors

Kansas City, Mo.

Dear St. Nicholas: I have a little two-months-old Persian kitten which has one light blue eye and one green gray eye. Could you please tell me why it is so?

Your very loving reader,
⁠Louise Meckes (age 11).

Such differences in the color of the eyes often happen with white kittens, both long- and short-haired, but with a cat of no other color of which I have ever heard. Such cats are called by fanciers “odd-eyed,” but I have never heard any cause given, or, rather, explanation offered, for the phenomenon. I have several at the cattery now, and they are curious-looking “little beasties.” The mother, in both cases, is endowed with the most beautiful of blue eyes. The blue eye is the ideal color for a white cat. The orange eye makes it second best, all other points being equal. But the blue eyes in the white cat are frequently accompanied by deafness, while the orange- and odd-eyed cats never are. deaf, except, of course, from local trouble, as sometimes happens to any animal or human.

J. R. Cathcart.

A racoon as a pet

Nashville, Tenn.

Dear St. Nicholas: My uncle has a pet ’coon which washes everything he eats; you give him a nut and he will wash it and wash it, and then he eats it. This ’coon is very mischievous, and has to be kept chained. He seems to know when they have ice-cream, for he hears them freezing the cream, and whines until they give him some. If you give him a pan of clear water and some soap, he will wash his face and hands with the soap. Then give him some more clear water, and he will wash the soap off and wipe his hands and face. He always likes to play with some one, but when there is no one to play with him, he goes to sleep.

If he is let loose, he climbs into a little hole in the roof, and stays in there all day and sleeps, and comes out at night. I don’t think it would be better to let him roam in a cage, for he loves to play in the grass. We feed him anything, mostly nuts and bread, and he likes everything sweet.

He is kept chained in the garden in the shade in the summer, and under the house in the winter, and sometimes on the back porch.

Your friend,
⁠Edward Weston Hamilton.

The lovableness of a ‘coon depends upon the age at which it is taken from the wild woods.
A young racoon taking milk from a bottle. Ernest Thompson Seton truly says, “The old racoon is sullen, dangerous, and untamable if kept captive, but the young, if taken at an early age—that is, before they have begun to hunt for themselves—make intelligent and interesting pets, being easily tamed and evincingconsiderable affection for their master.”

The editor of “Nature and Science” recently found a very young racoon in the woods, and it is now attracting much attention by the eagerness with which it takes milk from a bottle.

A rainbow at night

Elizabeth, Col.

Dear St. Nicholas: Will you please tell me the cause of a rainbow in the night? Last fall, about nine o’clock in the evening, a rainbow appeared in the north, and no one knew the cause of this. I shall be very grateful if you will explain this for me.

Yours respectfully,
⁠Marguerite Barnett.

Nothing can make a true “rainbow” except a combination of sun or moon and rain or fog. At nine P.M. a rainbow should not be visible unless the sun or moon is shining. Possibly you have mistaken a bow of the aurora borealis, or “northern lights,” for a rainbow. We have some reports of aurora on October 10 in northern New York. We shall be glad to get particulars as to the date and appearance and location of the “rainbow” before we can speak more definitely. Could it have been a meteor?—Cleveland Abbe.

Why metals seem of different temperature from that of surrounding objects

Dear St. Nicholas: Will you please tell me why any metal is always cooler (if not in the sun or a hot place) than anything else? I am very much interested in the Science Department.

Your constant reader,
⁠Helen Kay. (age 12).

Practically all common objects, except metals, with which we come in contact are non-conductors of heat, that is, heat will not flow through them readily. Such objects are wood, paper, cloth, etc.; but metal objects, generally speaking, conduct heat readily. All objects, including the two classes just mentioned, are, as a rule, at a lower temperature, or colder, than our bodies; hence, when we touch an object, as wood, which will not conduct heat readily, no heat flows from the hand into the object, and it does not give us the impression of being cold; but when the warm hand comes in contact with an object which is a good conductor of heat, such as metal, heat flows from the hand into the object, tending to warm it to the same temperature as the body. This loss of heat on the part of the hand gives us a sensation of coldness. Of course, if the object has been placed in the sun or any hot place where it has acquired a temperature above that of the body, the phenomenon is reversed, in that the metal gives its heat rapidly to the hand, while the wood, being a poor conductor of heat, does not; consequently, the metal feels warmer than the wood under such conditions.—Professor F. R. Gorton, State Normal College, Ypsilanti, Michigan.

It is interesting to notice that the hand, which is exceedingly sensitive to differences of touch, is not as sensitive to heat and cold as the face, so that when you try the cold feeling of metals, it is best to apply them to your cheek or nose.

Some things besides metals feel cold, as you will find if you step with bare feet on a cold winter morning upon a piece of oil-cloth instead of upon the carpet. This also is caused by its power of conducting heat.

Different metals vary in their heat conductivity, silver and copper being the best conductors, and alloys, such as brass, German silver, and so on, being much poorer ones. If you put solid silver spoons and plated spoons into a cup of hot water together, you will find that the heat goes much faster up the handles of the solid spoons than up those of the plated ones.

An expert will distinguish between a ball of quartz crystal and a similar ball of glass by touching his tongue to both, because the tongue is very sensitive to cold, and the quartz, as it conducts heat more rapidly, feels much colder.—Professor H. L. Wells, Yale University.

A cat that washes its face with both paws

Detroit, Mich.

Dear St. Nicholas: In January’s ‘‘Nature and Science” you said that you had never seen a cat use both paws at once to wash her face. You asked if any of the children had. I have. My kitten used to amuse us very much doing it. She would sit up on her hind legs and then “scrub” her “arms,” one after the other, over her ears and head. She looked sometimes just as if she folded her arms when she was through.

Your very interested reader,
⁠Betty Penny. (age 12).

It is a very clever cat, indeed, that can sit on its hind feet and wash its face with both paws at once! I do not imagine it has any significance beyond that. A cat can be taught to sit up and beg, and from that point I suppose this other feat would be only a step. Possibly this cat bears the same relation to the rest of her tribe as the man who must do things in double-quick time bears to his fellow-men.

Jane R. Cathcart.

A Tree in the form of a basket
(From one of our older readers)

A mulberry-tree that has been trained into the form of a basket.

Cazenovia, N. Y.

Dear St. Nicholas: The inclosed photograph of a forty years’ trained growth of a mulberry-tree in the Umbrian plains (Italy) may be of interest to your Nature and Science department.

M. F. H. Ledyard.