How to Feed a Small Alligator.
New York, N.Y.
Dear St. Nicholas: I have always been very much interested in the Nature and Science part of your magazine. Since I have found out that you can give information on certain topics, I would like to ask you about a small alligator which I have brought from the South. it is only about eight inches long, and I do not know how to care for it.
Your loving reader,
Your lovinJames E. Knott (age 12).
Keep the alligator in a tank, or vivarium, the bottom of which is covered with pebbles and has some water in at least a portion of it. There should be a place out of the water on which the alligator may crawl. Thus we intitate the natural home of the alligator. You know that it does not spend all of its time in the water, but enjoys lying on the bank of the river.
Holding the alligator and feeding it bits of meat.
Ordinarily the alligator will take small bits of meat without especial urging. I have found it convenient, sometimes, to hold the alligator and feed it bits of meat placed in its opened mouth on the end of a sharp-pointed stick. My alligator readily opens its mouth when the sides of the head are rubbed.
Newts Under Stones.
Metuchen, N. J.
Dear St. Nicholas: While out in the woods, Saturday, I came across a spring. I lifted the large stones near it, and found under them a number of newts or salamanders in company with a lot of frogs. The latter were a dark gray-green above, rather mottled, and a bright yellow underneath. The newts are about five inches long, and of a salmon-color, mottled on the back with dark brown. The coloring of some of them is so heavily marked as to be almost black above, while others are quite light. Can you tell me what their names are from these descriptions? I brought four of the newts home. Can you tell me on what to feed them? Yours truly,
G. Willard Martin
These are probably the common “red” salamander or newt. They live under stones and in damp places as well as in the water. Feed them on earthworms or fresh chopped meat.
Drops of Water on the Outside of an Ice-pitcher.
Phoenicia, N. Y.
Dear St. Nicholas: I noticed that when a pitcher of ice water is placed in a warm room, the pitcher will have drops of water on the outside. Will you please tell me how the drops come on the outside of the pitcher?
Your loving reader,
Your lFrank MacDowell (age 13).
The drops, sometimes called “sweat,” are the water which was in the air in contact with the cold surface of the pitcher. The air in cooling was condensed and the water “squeezed” out. These beads of water are very easily seen on the surface of a silver ice-pitcher.
The House-cricket
Is the Cricket a Cannibal?
Youngstown, Ohio.
