6 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



lower forms of life, as one might expect. They mostly 

 belong to specially hardy genera which might more easily 

 adapt themselves to waters of different salinity. Investiga- 

 tion of the supposed destruction of salmon by cormorants 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has proved that the cormorants 

 are wrongly accused, and that the small salmon are eaten by 

 large ones and by other enemies, so far unidentified. A 

 similar accusation was formerly made in regard to the 

 cormorants of the Murray river, Australia, but when the 

 cormorants were destroyed, the salmon disappeared, and it 

 was found that the birds preyed on the crabs and eels which 

 devoured the salmon fry and eggs. In the hot springs at 

 Buena Vista in Colorado, young toads have been found 

 plentifully in the water up to 93 Fah. and one specimen up 

 to 113, after which any found were dead ones. The thrush 

 is not generally looked upon as a migratory bird, but a 

 specimen, ringed in Lancashire as a nestling on April 4, 1914, 

 was found at Pontillado in Spain on Nov. 18 last. An 

 interesting book on American bird migration has lately been 

 published by the U.S. department of Agriculture and gives 

 particulars of many American species. In June, 1915, immense 

 quantities of sea birds were killed on the E. Coast of Scotland 

 by masses of floating oil, probably the cargo of some torpedoed 

 ship, and those which survived had their feathers so coated 

 with it that they could neither fly nor swim. The sufferers 

 were chiefly guillemots, razorbills, puffins, and eiderducks. 

 Experiments in homing on the noddy and sooty terns, two 

 migratory birds, proved that they would return to their 

 summer haunts, when transported 1,000 miles in cages, over 

 ground which they did not cover in their migrations, being 

 north of their northerly limits, which suggests that other birds 

 besides pigeons probably possess this habit. The slaughter 

 of fur-bearing animals in America is enormous, and attempts 

 are made to breed silver foxes, skunks, &c., for the sake of 

 their skins, with success, but not yet to any great extent. 

 Some animals have been exterminated, whilst of others, 

 such as the sea otter with a beautiful fur which less than 100 



