Our correspondent is located in the mountains, some nine miles distant from the Gila River.  He states that the reptile he sends was found in one of the shops pertaining to the mine, which had been left unoccupied for a week or so.

Apropos to the foregoing, we have received the following letter from another correspondent in Arizona: 

To the Editor of the Scientific American:

  My attention has been called to an article in your issue of Oct.
  7, 1882, relating to the Heloderma horridum, or commonly known
  as the Gila Monster.

During a residence of ten years in Arizona I have had many opportunities of learning the habits of these reptiles, and I am satisfied their bite will produce serious effects, if not death, of the human race.  I know of one instance where a gentleman of my acquaintance by the name of Bostick, at the Tiga Top mining camp, in Arizona, was bitten on the fingers, and suffered all the symptoms of poison from snake bite.  He was confined to his bed for six weeks and subsequently died.  I am of the opinion his death was in part caused by the effects of the poison of the Gila Monster.

The Hualzar Indians are very much afraid of them, and one I showed the picture to of the Monster in your paper remarked, “Chinamuck,” which in Hualzar language means “very bad.”  He said if an Indian is bitten, he sometimes dies.

I have seen them nearly two feet in length.  Never, to my knowledge, are they kept as pets in our portion of Arizona.  They live on mice and other small animals, and when aggravated can jump several times their length.

W.E.  DAY, M.D.

Huckberry, Mahone Co., Ar.  T., April, 1883.

* * * * *

THE KANGAROO.

To the Editor of the Scientific American:

In page 69 of your issue of 3d of February, 1883, I notice among the “Challenger Notes” of Professor Mosely the statement that “Among stockmen, and even some well educated people in Australia, there is a conviction that the young kangaroo grows out as a sort of bud on the teat of the mother within the pouch.”  Some eighteen months ago I noticed a paragraph wherein some learned professor was reported to have set at rest the contested point as to whether the kangaroo come into being in the same manner as the calves of the cow and other mammals, or whether the young grows, as alleged, upon the teat of its dam within the pouch.  The learned professor in question asserted that it did not so grow upon the teat; but, with all due respect to the professor’s claim to credibility on other matters, I must in this instance take the liberty of stating that he is in error.  The young kangaroo actually oozes out, if I may use such an expression, from the teat.  Strange as the statement may seem, it is a fact that the first indication of life on the part of the kangaroo