A GIANT OF THE ISLANDS

There is a picture, entitled "Dignity and Independence," that used to be the delight of the late-Victorian drawing room. It depicts a huge mastiff in his kennel, with a tiny terrier reposing between the big dog's paws. As striking and strange a contrast is afforded by a photograph made by the New York Zoological Society of one of their recently acquired giant tortoises from the Galapagos Islands, weighing 350 pounds, with a tiny three and three-quarter-ounce specimen perched on his head. Due to uncontrolled killing of these huge reptiles on their native archipelago, the species is in danger of extermination, so that it was thought advisable to send in an expedition to bring out as many living tortoises as possible and establish breeding stocks at a number of tropical and temperate stations.

MAN-MADE LIGHTNING OUT OF DOORS

Man-made lightning has now left the laboratory and gone out of doors to compete with the natural article in testing electric lines. This announcement was made by the General Electric Company in revealing the first details of experiments that have been made by their engineers in the Berkshire mountains in northwestern Massachusetts.

The apparatus was mounted on a small truck and placed at the base of one of the tall transmission towers. Outside the truck a spark gap consisting of two brass spheres was used, and from this wires led to the overhead spans. When the engineers operated the apparatus, a bolt of hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity, with all the characteristics of lightning, was sent over the lines to be recorded with a special camera operating in a millionth of a second. The records were made five or 10 miles away, at Pittsfield, where the power from the Turners Falls Power and Light Company is received over the lines for distribution to the city.

WORMS ON DIET TEMPT FISH

Worms placed on a scientific diet before being used as bait are more attractive to fish than those just taken from the ground, experts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture report, and the formula for this process, known as "scouring," has been made available by the Bureau of Entomology.

According to W.R. Walton, a distant relative of the famous Izaak Walton, known as the patron saint of fishing, the worms should be placed in a container filled with moistened moss for three or four days prior to being used. Sphagnum moss, found in damp woods throughout the northern states, is preferable, but other varieties may be used.

If the worms are kept for longer than that period, the diet should be varied with sweet milk every week and the moss should be washed every 10 days. At the end of a few days, they become pink in color and, for some unexplained reason, make the fish bite much quicker. The worm is transparent and the contents of the stomach can be seen through the skin. The dieting process makes them of an even color, which the fish regard as a choice morsel. The "scouring" process is particularly valuable for game fish such as trout, and it makes the worm more lively, tougher, and easier to handle, Walton has found.

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