Much more might be written concerning the habits and variations of the freshwater snails. The best way to become acquainted with these interesting animals is to collect them alive and study their various modes of life in an aquarium. This receptacle need not be an elaborate or expensive affair. A fish globe six or eight inches in diameter makes an admirable aquarium and even a quart Mason fruit jar has been successfully used by the writer. The bottom should be covered to a depth of an inch or more with clean, fine sand and several stones should be introduced for the snails to “roost” upon. If the aquarium is large enough a few water plants like water cress might be introduced to assist in purifying the water.
The best Mollusks for this purpose are the Limnaea, the Planorbis, the Physa, the Vivipara and some of the “pigmies” just mentioned. Much can be learned concerning the habits of our common snails if a record is kept of everything the animal does, such as its mode of eating, what it will eat and the increase in size from day to day of the little snails after they are hatched from the egg. If these creatures could be considered by the majority of people as living, breathing animals, performing many of the functions carried on by our own bodies they would be regarded with more favor and hence aquaria would become more numerous and they would also be studied more intelligently. The writer has been frequently amused (and sometimes pained) by the careless question of some otherwise intelligent person, when he has been exhibiting the shell of some interesting mollusk, “Well, really, now, was that thing ever alive?” It is to be earnestly hoped that this series of articles will reach many of this class of people and lead them to a better understanding of these lowly creatures.
Frank Collins Baker.
THE ORANGE.
(Citrus aurantium.)
The tree which produces the well-known Orange of commerce is closely related to the lemon, the citron and the lime, and with them belongs to the genus Citrus.
By some it is supposed that Linnaeus selected this name, deriving it from a corruption of the Greek word meaning cedar-tree, because, like the cedar, it is an evergreen. By others it is held that the name was chosen in honor of the city of Citron in Judea. In ordinary language the name citron is applied to another species of the genus, the fruit of which is oblong, about six inches in length and with a thick rind.
Many consider that the name Orange is a direct corruption of the Latin word aureum, meaning golden; but our best authorities on the derivation of words believe that the name, though a corruption, reached its present form in the following manner: “The Sanskrit designation nagrungo, becoming narungle in Hindustani, and corrupted by the Arabs into naranj (Spanish naranja), passed by easy transitions into the Italian arancia (Latinized aurantium), the Roman arangi, and the later Provincial Orange.”
In regard to the original home of the Orange there is a great diversity of opinion, yet there is little doubt that it was in some portion of southern Asia. Both the Orange and the lemon were unknown to the Romans, hence they must have been indigenous in a country not visited by this people. The region traversed by them was great and they even penetrated India. They were a people who were inclined to please the palate and would surely have used the Orange and taken it home with them if discovered and would doubtless have recorded the finding of so important a fruit. These facts tend to prove that the Orange was not then cultivated in India unless in the remoter parts. Other portions of Asia were unknown to the Romans but, with the exception of the southeastern portion, climatic conditions would not have permitted the growth of the Orange.
De Candolle, an eminent botanist and one the truthfulness of whose investigations cannot be questioned, held that the original home of the Orange was the Burmese peninsula and southern China. Throughout both China and Japan this fruit has been cultivated from very ancient times.
Though not found by the Romans in India it was later cultivated there and without doubt it was carried from there by the Arabs to southwestern Asia previous to the ninth century and from there into Africa and to some of the European islands. The Arabian physicians were familiar with the medicinal virtues of the Orange and have spoken of it in their writings. It was probably afterwards introduced into Spain and possibly to other portions of southern Europe by the same agency as it seemed to follow the spread of Mohammedan conquest and civilization. Thus in the twelfth century we find that the bitter Orange was a commonly cultivated tree in all the Levant countries. There is no reference to the sweet Orange in the literature of this time and it must have been introduced at a later period. It was certainly cultivated in Italy as early as the sixteenth century.