NOTES. 



431 



Dr. W. J. Holland, naturalist of the 

 American Eclipse Expedition to Japan, col- 

 lected 4,000 botanical specimens, represent- 

 ing nearly 800 species, and 6,000 entomo- 

 logical specimens, representing about 1,200 

 epecies, mainly Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. 

 He obtained also by purchase the entire col- 

 lection of Pyralidae made by Mr. H. Pryer, 

 representing the labors of nearly seventeen 

 years, and containing nearly 4,000 specimens, 

 of more than 375 species, the larger part 

 of them as yet undetermined, and some pos- 

 sibly new to science. This collection of Pyra- 

 lidae covers the entire group of the Japanese 

 Islands. The botanical collections exhibit 

 strikingly the wonderful affinity between the 

 flora of Japan and that of the United States. 



Two incidents are related by the London 

 " Spectator," which seem to indicate that ani- 

 mals are able to think and carry out a plan. 

 They occurred in India. A rough terrier, 

 when given a bone, was sent to eat it on the 

 gravel drive in front of the bungalow. Two 

 crows had sought often to snatch the meat 

 from the dog, but had always been defeated. 

 Finally, they discussed the matter in a neigh- 

 boring tree ; after which one of them flew 

 down and pecked at the dog's tail, and while 

 he was attending to this matter, the other 

 one came and seized the bone. The same 

 dog had a favorite seat, of which a visiting 

 dog had frequently deprived it. One day, 

 the terrier, having found his seat thus occu- 

 pied, flew savagely out of doors, barking at 

 a supposed enemy. As the intruding dog 

 rushed out to take a part in the fray, the 

 terrier hastened back to secure possession of 

 its -seat. 



President Willits, of the Agricultural 

 College of Michigan, while he disputes the 

 exercise of a direct influence of forests in 

 promoting moisture — saying that all the trees 

 in the world will not put it where it is not — 

 believes that the moisture on the continent 

 is advancing toward the west, and that the 

 planting of forests and increased cultivation 

 will cause the rainfall to advance farther 

 west every year. Seven hundred th&usand 

 acres of forest have already been planted in 

 Nebraska; the cotton-wood and the willow 

 first, and then the soft maple and the hard 

 woods. 



Two skeletons of Akkas, from central Af- 

 rica, representing probably the smallest of 

 the human races, have been received at the 

 British Museum from Emin Pasha. As de- 

 scribed by Prof. Flower, though both of full- 

 grown people, they are hardly four feet high, 

 while a woman of the race, measured by 

 Emin Pasha, was still shorter. They are 

 v.ell formed, and present most of the charac- 

 teristics of the negro race, except that the 

 skull is rather rounder than usual. They 

 appear to belong to the branch of the human 

 race called " negrito," which includes also 

 the smaller tribes of the Indian Archipelago. 



The north side of the Romsdal, Norway, 

 is a magnificent wall of dark-colored rock, 

 I'anging at the lower part of the valley from 

 two to three thousand feet in height. Over 

 this are poured a multitude of cascades, 

 some of them mere threads of water. On a 

 clear summer's day the continuous sunshine 

 warms the dark rock so effectually that some 

 of these minor falls, after breaking, as they 

 all do, into snow-like spray, vanish altogether 

 by evaporation. 



Austria, according to a British consular 

 report from Trieste, has a larger proportion 

 of forest to its area than any other country. 

 The woods cover about 3,500,000 acres, of 

 which 80 per cent is timber forest, and the 

 remainder is of young growth. The Gov- 

 ernment and the large land-owners own 69 

 per cent of the whole, the parish authorities 

 20 per cent, the clergy 5.V per cent, and the 

 peasants about li per cent. The total value 

 is estimated at $200,000,000, and the annual 

 increase at $2,500,000. 



According to the British consul at La 

 Rochelle, since the failure of the vineyards 

 from phylloxera, an imitation of claret is 

 made there by steeping raisins and currants 

 in water and mixing the compound with cheap 

 Spanish wine. In other districts of France, 

 a spurious brandy is made from a mixture 

 of beet-root and cheap German spirit. This, 

 having been sent to a port of exportation iu 

 its true character, is rc-marked and sent 

 abroad as cognac. 



Why, asks Prof. W. Mattieu Williams, 

 must we suppose the existence of a lumi- 

 niferous ether distinct from other matter, 

 when it is just as easy to account for the 

 phenomena of heat, light, electricity, mag- 

 netism, and chemical force as " modes of ac- 

 tivity of ordinary matter, analogous to the 

 waves of sound," but differing from them by 

 being molecular vibrations, while sound is 

 molar vibration ? Gaseous matter being in- 

 finitely expansible in the presence of radiant 

 heat, there is no difficulty in imagining space 

 filled with ordinary gases thus expanded, 

 and performing all the functions ascribed to 

 the ether. 



In a paper on " Earthquake - Sounds," 

 Prof. Milne suggests that there is a close 

 connection between the sounds that precede 

 the shock and the smaller vibrations that 

 bear a like relation to them. He had counted 

 as many as seven per second of these sinu- 

 osities, and believes that we are warranted 

 in assuming the existence of still smaller 

 and quicker vibrations preceding even these. 

 With more delicate seismographs we might 

 be able to catch the very early infinitesimal 

 movements that herald the approach of an 

 earthquake. With thirty or forty vibrations 

 per second, we should have an audible note 

 of very low pitch. 



