POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



279 



States, the necessity of providing by law for 

 the admission of students that have taken 

 scientific courses in statistics as honorary 

 attaches of or clerks to be employed in the 

 practical work of statistical offices. This 

 can be very easily done without expenditure 

 by the Govermnent and with the very best 

 economic results. We take a census of the 

 United States every ten years, but, as a rule, 

 the men that are brought into the work 

 know nothing of statistics. They should 

 be trained in the very elementary work of 

 the census-taking and of statistical science. 

 How much more economical for the Gov- 

 ernment to keep its experienced statisticians 

 busily employed in the interim of census- 

 taking, even if they do no more than study 

 forms, methods, and analyses connected 

 with the presentation of the facts of the 

 preceding census ! Money would be saved, 

 results would be more thoroughly appre- 

 ciated, and problems would be solved." 



Plant-Lice and their Insect Enemies. — 



Two features in the life of plant-lice are 

 the enormous rate at which they multiply, 

 • and the suddenness with which they some- 

 times disappear. The cherry-trees may be 

 black with them in May, and in a month 

 hardly a specimen of them will be found. 

 This welcome riddance is due to their insect 

 enemies. A syphus maggot with a pointed 

 head, says Mr. A. J. Cook, of the Agricult- 

 ural College, Michigan, just revels in plant- 

 lice. It seems never satiated, and it is hard 

 to understand how so small an insect can 

 make so large a meal. The lady-birds, and 

 especially their larva; or grubs, do signal 

 service in the same direction. Several spe- 

 cies of the genus Aphidius of the ichneu- 

 mon family, very minute parasites, destroy 

 the lice by the thousands. Thus, plant-lice 

 on out-door vegetation, which may threaten 

 dire mischief early in the spring, are almost 

 vanquished before summer comes. In some 

 years, however, probably favored by drought, 

 the plant-lice live out of proportion, and 

 succeed in spite of their enemies, when they 

 do most serious injury. They are sometimes 

 favored, too, by misguided cultivators, who 

 destroy their enemies, mistaking them for 

 mischievous insects. The aphides may be 

 destroyed by the kerosene-and-soap mixt- 

 ure, which consists of a quarter of a pound 



of hard soap or a quart of soft soap, and a 

 quart of water, heated till the soap is dis- 

 solved, to which a pint of kerosene is added, 

 and the whole agitated till a permanent 

 emulsion or mixture is formed. It is ap- 

 plied with a force-pump, of which some are 

 made for the purpose. 



Monnments, Sculptures, and Inscrip- 

 tions at Copan. — Mr. A. P. Maudsley has 

 made a systematic examination of the prin- 

 cipal ruins of the ancient city of Copan, in 

 Central America, one of the most interest- 

 ing of the sites explored and described by 

 Stephens in his first account of his inves- 

 tigations. Mr. Maudsley's examination in- 

 cluded surveys and measurements of the 

 mounds, excavations, and the taking of 

 casts, which will be preserved in the South 

 Kensington Museum. He believes that the 

 nature of the structures has been in some 

 points mistaken ; that the so-called pyra- 

 mids are the raised foundations which sup 

 ported roofed buildings — probably temples 

 — which were approached by steep flights 

 of steps ; that the long heaps of stones 

 which were taken to be the ruins of city 

 walls are in fact the remains of single- 

 chambered, stone-roofed houses ; and that 

 the great " river- wall " is merely a wall in 

 appearance, resulting from the river having 

 changed its course and eaten into the raised 

 terraces and lofty foundations on the east 

 side of the ruins, the plan of the structure 

 on that side having been originally the same 

 as on the other sides, with slopes and stair- 

 ways. A few worked stones, including some 

 beads and a whorl of jade, pearls, and carved 

 pieces of shell, a pot containing red powder 

 and several ounces of quicksilver, human 

 bones, dog's teeth, and skeletons of jaguars, 

 parts of one of which were painted red, 

 were found in the excavations. Mr. Mauds- 

 ley adduces evidence, from the failure of 

 all the Spanish chroniclers to make any 

 mention of the cities which these ruins 

 represent, or of anything like them, and 

 from the comparison of the ruins with what 

 the Spaniards did speak of, that the sites 

 had been deserted, and the buildings buried 

 in the forest and lost, long before the time 

 of the conquest. The ruins of Copan have 

 been famous ever since Stephens made them 

 known, for the profusion of sculptured orna- 



