3i8 



NATURE 



[February 2, 1905 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 io return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



Compulsory Greek at Cambridge. 



My own experiences are somewliat different from those 

 of your correspondents, but tiie result is the same. 1 

 commenced Greek when about thirteen ; I passed the 

 London matriculation, the entrance examination at Trinity, 

 and the Little-go without any difficulty ; and I have read 

 the three synoptic gospels in the original, several Greek 

 plays, and a certain amount of Homer, Xenophon, and 

 Thucydides. Now, if all the Icnowledge I thus acquired 

 had been of any practical value to me in after life, I 

 should, as a matter of ordinary common sense and worldly 

 wisdom, have kept it up ; but, finding Greek absolutely 

 useless, my acquaintance with the language has so com- 

 pletely faded aw-ay that I can scarcely make out the sense of 

 a Greek quotation in a historical or theological work. 



It has often been a matter of profound regret to me that 

 the time spent on Greek was not devoted to German, for 

 if it had 1 should have been able to speak the language 

 sufficiently well to enjoy during my whole life German 

 society, German literature, and German places of amuse- 

 ment. 



I have never been able to discover any educational value 

 in a training which condemns boys to grind up pages of 

 Greek declensions and irregular verbs. In my experience 

 of life a youth who, after acquiring some knowledge of 

 the grammar of a modern language, is made to read 

 easy books on the manners, customs, and history of the 

 country where the language is spoken (and nothing is 

 better than a well-written novel) is far better equipped for 

 the battle of life, and is a far more agreeable companion 

 both intellectually and socially, than a man whose boyhood 

 has been spent in studying musty old mythologies, which 

 nobody troubles about nowadays except the select few who 

 have made such subjects the hobby of their lives. 



Bv all means let the bishops continue to require a know- 

 ledge of Greek (and also of Hebrew) on the part of 

 candidates for orders, on the ground that these subjects 

 ought to be considered part of the professional stock-in- 

 trade of a clergyman ; but special studies of this kind, like 

 law in the case of barristers and solicitors, need not be 

 commenced until a youth has decided upon the profession 

 he intends to follow. A. B. B.asset. 



January 27 



Can Birds Smell ? 



Examination of the Bird's brain shows that the sense of 

 smell can be but little developed. The olfactory bulbs are 

 small. No medullated nerve-fibres unite them with the rest 

 of the brain. Yet in no birds are the bulbs entirely absent, 

 so far as I am aware. The olfactory membrane of birds 

 presents certain structural peculiarities which are difficult 

 to interpret. The nasal chambers which it lines are not 

 large in any bird, but in some they are sufficiently exten- 

 sive to suggest that olfaction is not completely in abey- 

 ance. The fact that they are better developed in birds 

 which seek their food in the sea (petrels, the tropic bird, 

 &c.), in which pursuit smell can, one would suppose, be 

 .of little service, than they are in most other birds 

 seems to indicate that they have some function other 

 than olfaction. Perhaps they serve to warm the inspired 

 air ; although here again we are confronted with the 

 difficulty that, in the frigate bird (Fregata), in which 

 the nasal chambers are relatively large, the nostrils are 

 obliterated. Air may, of course, enter the nasal chambers 

 through the cleft palate, but such a mechanism cannot 

 provide for the warming of the air on its passage to the 

 lungs. The teachings of anatomy being so obscure, it 

 seemed to me desirable that direct observations should be 

 ■made. 



NO. 1840, VOL. 71] 



.'X study of the habits of flesh-eating birds shows that if 

 they possess the sense of smell at all, it is not sufficiently 

 acute to enable them to use it in finding food. All 

 observers are agreed that when a carcase is hidden, by 

 never so slight a screen, it is safe from the attacks of 

 vultures and other carrion-seekers ; but the most remark- 

 able proof of the inelTectiveness of the sense (if it exist 

 at all) is afforded by experiences which Dr. Guillemard 

 w-as good enough to relate to me. Many times it has 

 happened, he tells me, that, having shot a wildebeest or 

 other game which was too heavy to carry home, he has dis- 

 embowelled it, and has hidden the carcase in the hole of an 

 ant-bear." On returning with natives to carry it to 

 camp, he has found a circle of vultures standing round the 

 spot where the offal had been thrown, completely unaware 

 of the carcase within a few yards of their beaks. Of ob- 

 servations proving the possession of the sense I know none, 

 unless we are willing to accept as evidence the belief, 

 which is very general among fanciers, that birds are 

 attached to the smell of anise, and the similar belief of 

 gamekeepers in some parts of the country that they are 

 attracted by valerian. It is said that pigeons may be 

 prevented from deserting the dove-cote by smearing their 

 boxes with oil of anise. Poachers are supposed to lure 

 hen-pheasants from a w'ood by anointing gate-posts with 

 tincture of valerian. 



With the view of testing the smelling powers of gramini- 

 vorous birds, I placed a pair of turkeys in a pen which 

 communicated with a large wired-in run. The pen was closed 

 by means of a trap-door. In the run I placed, each day. 

 two heaps of grain, right and left of the trap-door, but so 

 far in front of it that they made with it an angle of about 

 50°. Various substances which give out a powerful odour 

 were placed under one of the heaps, alternately the right 

 and the left. The birds were lightly fed in the morning 

 in their pen. At two o'clock the trap-door was raised, and 

 they were admitted to the enclosure. It was curious to 

 note that after the first few days the hen almost ahvays 

 came out first (in the last ten experiments this rule was 

 broken but once), and Invariablv went to the heap on her 

 right ; the cock following went to the heap on the left. 

 The cock usually tried the hen's heap after feeding for a 

 short time from his own, but the hen never trespassed 

 upon the preserve of the cock. In the earlier observations 

 I placed beneath one of the heaps a slice of bread soaked 

 with tincture of asafoetida, essence of anise, oil of lavender, 

 or sprinkled w'ith valerianate of zinc or powdered camphor. 

 When the birds, plunging their beaks into the bread, took 

 some of the tincture or essential oil into the mouth, the 

 head was lifted up and shaken, but they immediately recom- 

 menced to peck at the grain. They were completely in- 

 different to the presence of camphor or valerianate of zinc. 

 In several cases in which these substances were used, they 

 consumed the bread. As a turkey does not steady the 

 thing at which it is pecking, with its foot, but, seizing 

 it in the beak, shakes it violently until a piece is detached, 

 it is probable that most of the powder was shaken from the 

 bread. As these experiments gave absolutely negative results, 

 the birds showing neither preference for nor repugnance to 

 any of the odorous substances used, I proceeded to stronger 

 measures. The grain was placed upon a seven-inch cook's 

 sieve, inverted. The odorous substance w*as placed beneath 

 the sieve. Each of the following experiments w-as repeated 

 three times, first with a small quantity of " smell," then 

 with a great deal, and lastly with as much as possible. 

 It is onlv necessary to describe the final tests. Four ounces 

 of carbide was thrown into a saucer of water and placed 

 beneath one of the sieves. There was no reason to think 

 that the birds were aware of the existence of the acetylene 

 which was evolved. The saucer was filled with bisulphide 

 of carbon. The hen turkey finished her meal. When the 

 grain was exhausted she knocked the sieve over with her 

 foot. Both birds then lowered their beaks to within 

 half an inch of the colourless liquid, which they appeared 

 to examine. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that they had 

 already satisfied their thirst at the w-ater-trough. A bath 

 sponge soaked in chloroform was placed under the sieve, 

 the wire of which rested upon it. The hen finished her 

 meal without leaving the sieve. Towards the end she 



