NATURE NEWS 343 



ported into this county before 1913. As a result of this Act, all the 

 paradise feathers in New York and Chicago and other large cities 

 were dumped upon the market at greatly reduced prices. 



Stefanson reports that the northern islands of America are as 

 hot or hotter than Brazil in mid-summer, although the sun never 

 reaches a high point in the sky, yet because for six weeks it does 

 not set, much heat is given out. For a short time vegatation 

 grows as rankly in the Arctic regions as in the hotter climates. 

 This exhuberance of plant growth, however, lasts only a few weeks. 



The Harvard astronomers in studying the photographic 

 plates made in Peru at the Arequipa Station of the Harvard 

 College Observatory have discovered this summer more than 

 2,000 Nebulae and several new variable stars. They have also 

 measured for the first time the distance and size of the large 

 Magellanic Cloud which seems to be a universe of itself, quite 

 separate from the Milky Way which is our own universe. Its 

 distance from the earth is 110,000 light years, and we should bear 

 in mind that a light year is six trillion miles. The longer diameter 

 of the cloud is found to be about 15,000 light years. 



Mr. Edward Hatch, Jr., has given to the N. Y. Zoological 

 Society the Four Brother Islands in the Lake Champlain. Mr. 

 Hatch has carefully preserved these islands as a haunt and a 

 breeding place for sea-gulls. Through making this gift, he in- 

 sures the keeping of these islands permanently as a gull reservation. 



