6 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



American and British Governments for the protection of 

 birds migrating from the United States to Canada, which 

 applies chiefly to insect -eating and game birds. A new 

 bird to the Irish list is the Blackeared Wheatear, a specimen 

 of which has occurred at Wexford. One of our Honorary 

 Members, Sir Frederick Treves, has called attention to the 

 serious damage which is being done in the neighbour- 

 hood of Richmond Park, by the American grey squirrels 

 acclimatised there, to the fruit and shoots. They have 

 already made their way into the open country of Surrey, 

 and unless checked may prove as great a nuisance as the 

 rabbits in Australia. They are, however, being destroyed 

 by order of the Office of Works. Some interesting features 

 of jungle life in Brazil are published by an American Natur- 

 alist. He notes the abundance of species and the fewness 

 of individuals met with in the jungle. This I have noticed 

 with regard to moths in the New Forest. As a rule, one 

 meets with odd specimens of a good many species, but with 

 but few of any particular species, in a day's collecting, though 

 there are exceptions. He also says that a bag of jungle 

 earth taken away and examined gradually yielded a rich 

 harvest of small life, such as small insects, &c. The 

 Presidential Addresses in the Zoological and Physiological 

 Sections of the British Association dealt with the subjects 

 of Heredity, and the Analysis of Living Matter through 

 its reactions to Poisons, and both, being of rather an abstruse 

 natur?, should be studied in the original by those interested. 

 The secretion of the pituitary gland is known to have an 

 effect in promoting the growth of the body, and it is stated 

 that a Calif ornian Professor has now succeeded in isolating 

 from it a substance which has a definite power in this respect. 

 We may yet live to see a race of giants ! It has been shown 

 from statistics that the average length of life has greatly 

 increased in this country in the last 70 years 01 so. Whereas 

 the estimated average duration of lifa of males was in 1840 

 27.15 years, in 1870 it was 28.35, and in 1900 33.63 years, 

 and of females a little higher in each case. The chief causes 



