76 NATURAL SCIENCE [August 
be granted to his fellow-countrymen. Further than this, complaint 
is actually made that foreign scientific men have already secured too 
many of the fossil treasures of the island. We wonder whether the 
naturalists of France, official and otherwise, have been consulted on 
this subject, or whether it is merely the order of a politician ignorant 
of the methods of scientific men. It will, indeed, be strange if the 
enlightened Government of France, which does so much for the pro- 
motion of research in foreign lands, should allow this policy to be 
pursued in its latest dependency. Natural science has hitherto 
known no division into nationalities. On the contrary scientific 
work confers a free-masonry on those who pursue it, and is 
the strongest force towards the federation of the world. It should 
not be turned into a cause of division. It is not long since the 
Colonial Government of Mauritius paid for excavations in that 
island to exhume the fossil remains of birds. These were investi- 
gated and described by our own ornithologists in the University of 
Cambridge, and were faithfully returned by them to the President 
of the Excavation Committee for preservation in the Museum of the 
Colony. Among other treasures then obtained was the finest known 
skeleton of the Dodo. This, however, along with other specimens, 
was eventually removed from Mauritius to the Museum of Natural 
History in Paris, where it is now one of the greatest ornaments. 
Surely a nation which can accept foreign courtesy in such a manner 
can ill afford to countenance such petty spite as that displayed in 
the manifesto of the Governor of Madagascar. We trust it is 
enough to draw the attention of French naturalists to the subject, 
that they may use their influence in a matter which ought to be 
beyond all -political considerations. 
AN AMERICAN PIRATE 
In our June number we published a specially written article, 
entitled “A Geographical Commemoration: Vespucci, Deschnev, 
and Vasco da Gama.” This article has been reprinted in the 
Scientific American for July 2, 1898 (vol. xxix. p. 8). <A few 
verbal alterations have been made, causing the article to appear 
as though prepared by the staff of the Scientific American. Five 
lines in the article are, it is true, placed between quote-marks, and 
ascribed to Natural Science; but no one would imagine from this 
that the whole article was lifted bodily from our pages. What 
makes this treatment worse is, that we acknowledged quite fairly 
and frankly that some of our statements concerning Vespucci were 
taken from an account in our contemporary. This is not the first 
time we have had to complain of similar piracy on the part of the 
Scientific American. 
