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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



well established that there was much clanger 

 of the milk being contaminated if the cow 

 from which it came had tuberculosis of the 

 udder, attention was restricted to the ques- 

 tion whether the milk was ever infected 

 when the disease was confined to other parts 

 of the animal. Bacilli were found in the 

 milk from twelve out of thirty-six tubercu- 

 lous cows. Milk from six out of fifteen in- 

 fected cows produced bacilli when inoculated 

 into guinea-pigs, and the milk of four out of 

 nineteen cows produced bacilli in rabbits. 

 Bacilli developed in two out of forty-eight 

 rabbits, five out of twelve pigs, and eight 

 out of twenty-one calves to which milk from 

 tuberculous cows was fed. It is interesting 

 to note that microscopic examination re- 

 vealed bacilli in only one out of thirty-three 

 samples of milk ordinarily supplied to con- 

 sumers in Boston, but bacilli appeared in 

 rabbits after inoculation with three of the 

 samples which gave negative results under 

 the microscope. A circular sent to eighteen 

 hundred physicians and veterinarians asking 

 *' Have you ever seen a case of tuberculosis 

 which it seemed possible to you to trace to 

 a milk supply as a cause ? " brought replies 

 from one thousand and thirteen, eight of 

 whom reported cases where they believed 

 children had been infected by mother's milk, 

 and eleven reported cases in which children 

 had been infected by cow's milk, while six- 

 teen spoke of suspicious cases which they 

 had not been able to verify. Some results 

 of inquiries as to the prevalence of bovine 

 tuberculosis and as to tuberculosis among 

 Hebrews are also given. 



Extermination of British Species. In 



the inaugural address of the president of 

 the Cheltenham, England, Natural History 

 Society, Dr. E. T. Wilson, on Man and the 

 Extinction of Species, are some historical 

 notes on the disappearance of certain species 

 in the British Islands. Within limited areas, 

 the author says, species were not unfrequent- 

 ly eradicated before the use of firearms, as 

 the beaver m England, which, though once 

 common, was in the twelfth century only to 

 be found in one river in Wales and one in 

 Scotland ; and wolves, which were practically 

 exterminated in four years after the demand 

 by Edgar for a tribute of five hundred heads 

 annually from liis Welsh subjects. " But 



even the introduction of firearms at first did 

 little beyond giving man an increased advan- 

 tage in his contest with the more formidable 

 of the lower animals. Far otherwise is it, 

 however, when man, the primitive hunter, 

 gives place to man the tiller of the soil, man 

 the cultivator, who fells forests, drains 

 marshes, plows prairies, and in a thousand 

 ways alters the face of Nature." To most of 

 the larger quadrupeds, and to many birds, 

 space is of vital importance, and space is 

 being rapidly curtailed. The bustard, de- 

 scribed by Bewick as common on the plains 

 of Wiltshire, Dorset, and Yorkshire, has dis- 

 appeared before advancing cultivation. The 

 egret and the crane, once common in Scot- 

 land, are now among the rarest of visitors. 

 Drainage in the broads and fens has led to 

 the banishment of many former inhabitants, 

 such as the grey lag goose, and in many 

 parts the bearded tit. Between 1825 and 

 1855 the avocet, the bustard, and the god- 

 wit ceased breeding in Norfolk. About the 

 same time the ruff became uncommon, and 

 the bittern left off breeding regularly in 

 1850. Eagles and large hawks, such as the 

 kite and the buzzard, and among mammals 

 the otter and even the harmless badger, are 

 becoming rarer year by year before the gun 

 or the trap of the gamekeeper; while the 

 trade collector, with his demand for whole 

 clutches of eggs, contributes to the destruc- 

 tion of some of the rarer species. In 1893 

 an item was published that two sloops had 

 visited the island of Foula in the Shetland?, 

 the chief breeding station of the great skua, 

 and carried off several dozens of the eggs, 

 and there was reason to believe that not a 

 single young bird was reared on the island 

 during the breeding season of that year. 



The Feigning of Death. The probability 

 of this phenomenon being a pure reflex, in 

 most animals, is indicated by the following 

 experiment on a currant moth, whose powers 

 of " shamming " are so familiar, which is 

 described in a recent letter to Nature by a 

 Mr. Oswald H. Latter : " The moth was first 

 seized by one wing, and it at once feigned 

 death ; thereupon its head was cut off with 

 a pair of scissors, and the miimal cotitinued 

 to feign death. I use the expression advised- 

 ly, for absolute immobility was maintained 

 for some seconds and then violent fluttering 



