FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



107 



races against which prejudice is strong, 

 and the growing habit of parents ex- 

 pecting their children to be restored to 

 them when their services become profit- 

 able. Placing out street waifs and 

 neglected and dependent children in the 

 homes of private families, the report 

 says, has been sadly abused. The deg- 

 radation and moral corruption of the 

 condition of such children are apt to 

 make them so refractory and unsuscep- 

 tible to the wholesome influences of 

 family life that an abrupt transfer is 

 liable to be attended with failure and 

 disaster. The children should therefore 

 be previously brought under the re- 

 straining and reformatory influences of 

 a training school. At the best, a plac- 

 ing-out work can not be exempt from 

 serious contingencies. " The second dec- 

 ade, the adolescent age, under most fa- 

 vorable conditions, is the period when 

 the will is apt to be wholly dominated 

 by the emotions, and unless the environ- 

 ment is peculiarly favorable, guardian- 

 ship becomes a difficult function. With 

 an indenturing system that prolongs 

 the term of apprenticeship for boys 

 throughout their minority, both appren- 

 tice and guardian must possess an ex- 

 traordinary measure of amiable quali- 

 ties to insure a continuance of their 

 relation through an extended period." 

 When the boy is old enough to earn 

 wages from strangers the temptation to 

 leave and go out for hire is very strong, 

 and must be met by a corresponding 

 degree of tact and liberality; and even 

 when interests are happily adjusted " a 

 placing-out system ought to take ac- 

 count of the tastes and aptitudes of 

 young people, and leave the way open 

 for the deserving at a suitable age to 

 start upon a new career.*' 



Animals Helping One Another. 

 — While the ruminant animals as a rule 

 do not seem to have made any fur- 

 ther advance toward forming communal 

 groups than to post sentinels while pas- 

 turing together, a few marked cases are 

 found in which a division of labor and 

 some system of assistance seem to have 

 been given effect. One such instance is 

 cited in the London Spectator as having 

 been observed by Lord Lovat in the 

 Highland deer, where large stags have 

 smaller stags to attend them and serve 

 them very much as the English school 



bully is attended and served by his fag. 

 Lord Lovat tells another story of com- 

 passion manifested and help afforded by 

 a stag to a younger animal. Of three 

 stags on the move, two jumped the wire 

 fence, and the third, a two-year-old, 

 halted and would not venture the leap. 

 The two waited for some time while the 

 little fellow ran along the fence, till the 

 larger of them came back to coax 

 him, and " actually kissed him several 

 times." Finally, the animal gave up and 

 went on, after which the little stag took 

 courage and made the jump. The so- 

 cial organization is very far advanced 

 with the beavers, and is quite elaborate 

 with the rabbits, which excavate com- 

 mon and interlacing burrows, and with 

 insects like ants and bees. 



Geological Formations and For- 

 ests in New Jersey. — From a study of 

 the relation between forestry and geol- 

 ogy in New Jersey, Arthur Hollick finds 

 that two distinctly defined forest zones 

 have long been recognized in the State 

 — a deciduous and a coniferous — the 

 contrast between the two being so ob- 

 vious as to attract the attention even 

 of superficial observers. While the de- 

 ciduous zone is roughly confined to the 

 northern part of the State and the co- 

 niferous to the southern part, yet when 

 the line of demarcation is carefully fol- 

 lowed up across the State and beyond 

 its confines it is found not to coincide 

 with any parallel of latitude or isother- 

 mal line, and not to be entirely depend- 

 ent either on topography or the physi- 

 ographic conditions. " If, however, a 

 geological map of the region be ex- 

 amined, the line of demarcation between 

 the two zones will be found to follow 

 the trend of the geologic formations 

 whose outcrops extend in a northeast 

 direction across the State and south- 

 ward beyond. A coincidence was sug- 

 gested, and it became more apparent, as 

 the investigations proceeded, that the 

 two classes of angiosperms and gymno- 

 sperms were severally identified with 

 certain geological formations, and also 

 that the distribution of many species 

 within each of the zones was capable 

 of. being similarly associated, and their 

 limits of being more or less accurately 

 defined. The deciduous zone is roughly 

 located as lying north of a line between 

 Woodbridge and Trenton, and the conif- 



