I 30 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



atic treatment from ornithologists Mr. Sim- 

 eon Pearce Cheney, an American, being the 

 only one who has published a special work of 

 any considerable pretensions upon it. Mr. 

 Witchell first thought of making a scientific 

 investigation of it in 18S1, while listening to 

 a nightingale, from observing the repetition of 

 a particular feature in its strains. After an 

 interval of some years he became interested 

 in the song of a thrush, and from the thrush 

 was led to observe mimicry in other birds. 

 As his observations were continued, the re- 

 sults assumed shape and now justify embodi- 

 ment in a book. First he seeks for the ori- 

 gin of the voice, and finds it, with Darwin, 

 in involuntary movements of the muscles 

 the excitement of combat being a possible 

 occasion. The combat cries are serviceable 

 also for purposes of alarm. A further de- 

 velopment in the faculty of song is the call- 

 cry, and from this the transition is not very 

 great to the simplest songs, which are fixed 

 and further developed and varied by heredity 

 and imitation. In the filling out of the plan 

 thus sketched, a chapter is devoted to no- 

 ticeable incidents connected with bird-song, 

 the influence of heredity is discussed, the 

 causes and effects of variation in bird-song 

 and the influence of imitation arc inquired 

 into, and an attempt is made to express the 

 songs of various birds in musical notation 

 with transcripts of the music sung by black- 

 birds, thrushes, and skylarks. The book 

 covers a field not occupied by any of the nu- 

 merous bird books now current, except, in 

 part, by Mr. Cheney's, and will prove an ac- 

 ceptable complement to them. 



The Year-Book of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture for 1895 is the first 

 volume published in accordance with the law 

 of 1896 directing the separation in the re- 

 ports of the executive and business matter 

 intended for official information and those 

 papers formerly incorporated in them " spe- 

 cially suited to interest and instruct the farm- 

 ers of the country." We are very glad to 

 find that the editors have sought to make it 

 " a concise reference book of useful informa- 

 tion . . . without making it an encyclopaedia 

 of general information " " to make a book 



By Charles A. Witchell. New York: Macmillan & 

 Co. ; London : Adam and Charles Black. Pp. 253. 

 Price, 81.75. 



and not a mere Government report." It in- 

 cludes a general report of the operations of 

 the department ; the papers, presented in 

 the form of popular essays rather than of 

 scientific reports, which are its main reason 

 for being ; and an appendix, containing a 

 large amount of miscellaneous matter taken 

 from the reports of the department and pre- 

 sented with special regard to the require- 

 ments of the reader. 



In the Nineteenth Report of the Illinois 

 State Entomologist the first article details a 

 series of experiments for the destruction of 

 the chinch bug. A large portion of the re- 

 mainder of the work treats of the parasitic 

 and contagious diseases of insects, and de- 

 tails numerous experiments for the destruc- 

 tion of the noxious bugs by means of infect- 

 ing them with some destructive disease. The 

 last paper deals with the white ant, which 

 it seems annually does much damage in 

 Illinois. 



The second of the popular writings of 

 Thomas Paine that has been reprinted from 

 the complete works edited by Moncure D. 

 Conway is The Age. of Reason (Putnams, 

 $1.25). In this form it makes a volume of 

 two hundred pages, octavo. The new edi- 

 tion will doubtless enable many persons to 

 learn that the book is not atheistic, as they 

 have been told, but deistic; that it is not 

 blasphemous, but its whole tenor is. There is 

 one God, and He is too great and good to be 

 charged with the ignorant and wicked acts 

 of men that are recorded in the Hebrew 

 Scriptures. 



The Administrative Report of the Thir- 

 teenth Aniiual Report of the Bureau of Mh- 

 nohgi/ (1891, 1892) presents a historical re- 

 view of the development of the plan of the 

 work of the bureau, which from a seemingly 

 simple beginning has been found to involve 

 some highly complex problems, and in which 

 many lines of investigation have been opened. 

 Seven publications were issued during the 

 year. The general account of the work of 

 the agents of the bureau during the year 

 covered by the report is followed by a general 

 summary of the special papers which com- 

 pose the larger part of the volume. These 

 papers are : Prehistoric Textile Art in the 

 United States, by W. H. Holmes ; Stone Art, 

 by Gerard Fowke ; Aboriginal Remains iu 



