NATURE-STUDY AND SCIENCE NOTES 



[Editor's Note — This department will be conducted by Chester A. 

 Mathewson, of the High School of Commerce, New York City. Notes- 

 and suggestions may be sent to him in care of the editor of The Review.] 



Nature in Literature. It is proposed that for the year 1908 a page be 

 reserved for quotations from the best and greatest nature literature. 

 There are many good things in this line which we forget because we rarely 

 see them in print. Readers are requested to make suggestions regarding 

 selections. As far as possible send accurate copy from original editions 

 and give full references. No quotation may exceed 300 words. We prefer 

 the short ones. Please make a memorandum of this note so that you will 

 not forget to send your own selections. 



M. A. B. 



Cotton Boll Weevil. A circular issued this month by the Government 

 cites an important step in the control of the cotton boll weevil. Experi- 

 mental tests have demonstrated that if the cotton plants are uprooted and 

 burned during the early fall, the weeyils fail to appear the following spring. 

 This destruction stops the development of weevils that would normally 

 hibernate successfully, and reduces many fold the number of weevils that 

 would otherwise em,erge in the Spring to damage the cotton. Further- 

 more, the clearing of the field in the fall makes fall plowing possible, thus 

 reducing still further the number of places for shelter left for the ubiquitous 

 weevil. 



The Rat is characterized in a recent circular from the Department of 

 Agriculture as the worst mamnialian pest in existence. The common 

 brown or Norway rat reached this country in 1775 and ever since has been 

 levying heavy tribute for its maintenance, the average cost of the grain 

 consumed by every rat being about fifty cents per year. They destroy not 

 only food, but curtains, carpets, silks and woolens, kid gloves and leather 

 goods of all sorts. ^They gnaw through lead pipes, eat insulation from 

 electric wires, and gnaw at the foundations of buildings, thus causing 

 indirectly many millions of dollars damage. 



The chief obstacle to their extermination is their prolificness. A single 

 pair breeding without check and without losses by death would be repre- 

 sented in about three years by 20,000,000 individuals. Various sporadic 

 attempts have been made to check the ravages of these rodents, but so far 

 no adequate means of effectively combatting them has been devised. 

 Cooperative effort of an entire community is the only means that has 

 accomplished much thus far. 



"How to Study the Animals at the Zoological Garden" is the title of a use- 

 ful pamphlet written by Professor M. F. Guyer of the University of Cincin- 

 nati. It contains definite suggestions designed to show the teacher how he 

 may get some real results from the visits of classes to a zoological park. 

 Too often such visits, owing to the lack of a definite aim and method, are 



