FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



137 



is without dots, sprays, or other figures, but 

 with large, regular meshes made with single, 

 compact threads. Eye troubles do not ne- 

 cessarily result from wearing veils, for the 

 healthy eye is as able as any other part of 

 the body to resist the strain they impose 

 upon it. But weak eyes are hurt by them, 

 and prudence should teach not to strain 

 healthy eyes too much. 



Domestication of the Egret. A resolu- 

 tion was adopted at the International Zoologi- 

 cal Congress held in Leyden in 1895, favor- 

 ing measures for the preservation and do- 

 mestication of the egret. Under present 

 conditions the bird, so highly prized for its 

 plumes, is undergoing rapid extermination. 

 M. J. Forest, the author of the Leyden reso- 

 lution, is confident that the domestication of 

 the egret herons will be found as practicable 

 as that of the ostrich has proved to be. The 

 little egret, or garzette, in particular, has 

 already shown itself quite susceptible to the 

 taming process. In a heronry established 

 at Tunis in 1873, a flock of thirty young 

 birds has increased to about four hundred. 

 The establishment contains a pool and trees, 

 and cost less than twenty-eight hundred dol- 

 lars. It was stocked in the beginning with 

 captured wild birds, whose disposition and 

 capacity to breed did not seem to be affected 

 by their captivity. The proprietor repre- 

 sents that he gets six or seven dollars a year 

 from each bird, plucking the plumes twice a 

 year, in June and October, besides the in- 

 crease of the flock. The capacity of the 

 large egret for domestication is not so well 

 established ; but a specimen of this bird, 

 which had been captured wild and then tamed, 

 was sent to the Jardin <T Acclimatation in 

 Paris from Guiana in 1853; and several 

 travelers Paul Marcoy, Tbouar, the lamented 

 Crevaux, and Ehrenreich mention having 

 seen in Paraguay and along the Amazon 

 numerous domesticated birds, herons and 

 grebes among them, living in the Indian 

 villages on whatever they could find to eat 

 there. Herons bearing ash-gray plumes are 

 kept in some of the larger houses of Bagdad. 



Inventing a Match. The credit of the 

 invention of chemical matches is claimed for 

 various persons in different countries for 

 Friedrich Kamrer in Germany, Roemer and 



Preschel in Austria, Ironvi and Moldenhauer 

 in Hungary, Ivan Worstakoff in Russia, 

 Watt and Isaac Holden in England, and 

 Charles Lauria in France. The one thing 

 agreed upon is the date 1833. For Lauria 

 the claim is made by M. Jacques Boyer that 

 he thought about the matter in 1827, when 

 he saw Gay-Lussac's hydrogen tinder box 

 at Lyons in 1827, and had made a practical 

 match before 1833. Immediately after wit- 

 nessing Gay-Lussac's experiment he began 

 to look for a fulminating powder which would 

 enable him to realize the dream he had con- 

 ceived, and while still in this search saw 

 his professor of chemistry, Nicollet, produce 

 the detonation of powdered sulphur and 

 chlorate of potash. Then he thought that 

 if he could incorporate phosphorus with this 

 mixture he might produce the blaze he 

 wanted. He had no apparatus but a few 

 sticks of sulphur- tipped pine and some glass 

 tubes. He had got some parcels of sulphur 

 and chlorate from the college laboratory at 

 Dole, and having obtained a little phosphorus 

 from a pharmacy, he proceeded to melt his 

 mixture. As he was inexperienced and awk- 

 ward at the work, he suffered a number of 

 accidents, in which his bed curtains proved 

 readier to take fire than his matches. At 

 last he dipped the end of one of his sul- 

 phured sticks into the chlorate slightly 

 warmed. Some of the chlorate adhered, 

 and, rubbing his half-finished match on the 

 wall where a trace of phosphorus had found 

 its way, the stick blazed up at once. Lauria 

 called his comrades and the principal of the 

 college to witness his achievement, and en- 

 joyed a kind of triumph. He made a few 

 improvements in his invention, added a little 

 gum arabic to his mixture to make it more 

 adhesive, and had what is in principle the 

 match of to-day. His fellow- students amused 

 themselves with the matches, Prof. Puttenay 

 made some for his own use, and they found 

 their way into a cafe at Dole, but the effort 

 to find a more general market for them did 

 not succeed. 



Young Animals at School. A new the- 

 ory of the sports of young animals put forth 

 by Prof. Groos, of the University of Giessen, 

 holds that they are a preparation for after- 

 life, for the adaptation of the faculties for 

 the sterner purposes of maturity, and are hi 



