1917] The Ottaava Naturalist. 47 



NOTES. 



The daily papers reported that Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Arctic 

 explorer, was wintering with the gasolene schooner Polar Bear at Prince 

 of Wales Strait, according to news brought by a Northwest Police 

 expedition from Fort McPherson. Stefansson, who passed last sum- 

 mer exploring the new land discovered north of Prince Patrick Island, 

 was hopeful that the ice would break up early the past spring and 

 permit him to make the northeast passage and to sail up the St. 

 Lawrence River to Montreal. 



Eight new club members were secured in one of the Government 

 buildings at Ottawa in two hours by a self-appointed committee of 

 two of our members. Persons were found to be anxious to be elected 

 to membership. Make up a list of your friends or take an attendance 

 list of the employees in a department, ask each one if they wish to 

 become a member, and send the names and addresses of those who do 

 to the Secretary. 



A number of rats which were stunted for various periods of time 

 at the Connecticut Agricultural Exp. Station and Sheffield Scientific 

 School, New Haven, Conn., showed that this retardation of growth 

 tended to prolong their life beyond the average span; that is, physio- 

 logically age is not a function of time alone but also of growth. A rat 

 three years old may be regarded as corresponding to a man ninety years 

 old/. Although none of the stunted rats began breeding until they had 

 reached an age when normal rats are commonly believed to be ap- 

 proaching the menopause, they produced from three to six litters of 

 young and successfully reared all but a few of them. Their voung 

 were apparently as vigorous as those born of younger mothers. Hence 

 the menopause has been postponed long beyond the age at which it 

 usually appears. In view of this, and the added fact that less than 

 one-third of the stock rats reached an age of more than two years, 

 whereas all of these stunted females lived longer, it appears as if the 

 preliminary stunting period lengthened the total span of their life. 



A third relief expedition will be sent to the Arctic this summer by 

 the American Museum of Natural History to bring home the members 

 of the Crocker Land expedition, which went north in 1913. The 

 second relief ship, the Danmark, was reported in Melville Bay, 150 



