{ 
i 
y 
May 6, 1886} 
INALT OT iele 
AS) 
reeling was all that was required. The length of thread, how- 
ever, in each cocoon was very different, the Indian worm only 
spinning 150 metres, while the more highly-tended and selected 
Italian worm produced 650 metres. It is suggested that the 
Government should rear a limited quantity of cocoons, from 
which a careful selection of ‘‘seed’’ only shall be made, since 
much of the present inferior quality is traceable to want of dis- 
cretion in the choice of breeding stock. A loss to the growers 
of 60 per cent. of their grubs through hot winds can be pre- 
vented by the’ use of mud huts instead of matted walls only. 
The profitableness of the business is shown by the fact that the 
zemindars have been able to exact the highest of all agricultural 
rents for land where the mulberry is grown for this purpose : 
more than twelve times the amount paid for land adjoining 
planted with rice. But they do not realise that such high rents 
are not practicable now silk is at only half its ordinary price. 
Mr. Fortescue, the Superintendent of the Reading Room 
in the British Museum, has just produced a catalogue which is 
new, as far as the Museum is concerned, in plan, and which 
will prove of the utmost benefit to all students, men of science 
included. It is a catalogue of all the works acquired during 
the years 1880-85 in all modern languages except Oriental, 
Hungarian, and Sclavonic, arranged according to subjects. At 
present the alphabetical system is that employed in the Museum 
Catalogue, and therefore, unless the student knows, or can 
ascertain, the name of his author, the Library and its Catalogue 
are of no use to him. With Mr. Fortescue’s Catalogue one 
can tell at a glance what books have been published during the 
past five years in any given subject, or branch of a subject, in 
Europe, America, or the British Colonies. The work contains 
about 1000 pages, with from 50,000 to 60,000 entries. An 
analysis of one or two headings will best show the value of the 
Catalogue. To take ‘‘ Chemistry,” under the sub-head ‘‘ Gene- 
ral” we find, first, all important text-books, then elementary 
works, both grouped under the different languages ; thea follow 
Agricultural, Analytical, Arithmetical, Bibliography, Examin- 
ation Papers, Inorganic, Medical (with cross-references to 
Materia Medica and Pharmacy), and, finally, Organic, with 
about 400 entries in all. This, of course, does not exhaust the 
subject, for under such heads as Acids, Alkalies, Alkaloids, and 
so on, throughout the book, we have also the titles of chemical 
publications. ‘lhe subject Electricity is a remarkable one for 
the number of entries under it. They fill ten pages in double 
columns, and about half refer to the electric light. It is curious 
to notice, too, that fifty telegraph codes were published in the 
five years included in the Catalogue ; these do not, of course, 
include the innumerable private and cypher codes. 
A UNITED STATES digest of the Report of the British Com- 
missioners on Technical Education by an eminent pioneer in the 
work has been issued as a Circular of Information by the Bureau 
of Education. In the writer’s earlier days ‘‘apprenticeship was 
rapidly disappearing and home manufactures were giving place 
to large mills and factories, and yet the schools in which the 
young were to be specially fitted for their career in the new 
order of industries were in a large measure limited to the old in 
methods and principles ”’—and far too little has there been any 
alteration since! The British Commissioners’ Report is re- 
printed and added on to the text of this Circular, but the latter 
is chiefly an account of the French, German, and Russian 
technical schools, to the latter of which the writer gives the 
palm of excellence. In these schools, however, a great deal 
more than teaching is done. In St. Petersburg material is 
handled in the most wholesale style, and in Moscow orders for 
specially difficult work are taken and executed. Valuable, how- 
ever, as such trained ability may be where trained ability is 
scarce, it is not a solution of the problem before England and 
America, where the object is to teach every youth the principles 
which underlie his work. The average age of youths who enter 
such institutions is over seventeen, and the course extends over 
five or six years. The result of much of such training in the 
advanced manufacturing countries must naturally be, as in Ger- 
many already, an overflow of highly-trained polytechnic students 
seeking something above an intelligent mechanic’s work. A 
specially complete set of schools for teaching the various trades 
at Chemnitz is described. In France the work of such schools 
in providing a substitute for the extinct apprenticeship system 
is so efficient that, it is said, ‘‘ the effort to avoid teaching trades 
will not be very successful,’”’ and they are found already to revive 
drooping industries and to make new ones. A most important 
observation, if generally borne out, is that much of this technical 
work can be added to, not substituted for, ordinary school work. 
WE learn from Watuven that a committee has been formed at 
Christiania to promote the long-projected establishment of a 
zoological garden in the Norwegian capital. The plan suggested 
by the promoters of the scheme is wisely adapted to the special 
collection of North European and Arctic animals, such as the 
Polar bear, reindeer, elk, and the numerous other members of 
the Cervus family to be found in high latitudes, while no attempt 
will be made to introduce animal forms belonging to tropical 
faunas, whose susceptibility to cold makes it difficult to maintain 
them in health even in zoological stations lying far south of 
Norway. 
WE are sorry to learn that bad weather greatly interfered with 
the success of Herr Stejneger’s explorations of the Behring 
Straits fauna and flora during his last summer’s boating voyage. 
At the extremity of Komandor Bay he believes that he has iden- 
tified the exact spot at which Behring and his unfortunate 
comrades’were shipwrecked, and where he perished from the 
effects of exposure in the winter of 1741, Here Herr Stejneger 
found buried beneath the soil various relics of this memorable 
expedition, including a thin brass plate stamped with the Russian 
double eagle. The search for plants and insects was specially 
unsatisfactory, for the damp mildewed the few specimens col- 
lected, and ruined all the cases and herbaria, while it so 
thoroughly rusted every fragment of steel and iron that all the 
instruments intended for meteorological and other observations 
were made useless. 
THE additions to the Zoological Society’s Gardens during the 
past week include two Military Macaws (d7va milttaris), a Red 
and Yellow Macaw (Ara chloreptera) from South America, pre- 
sented by Mr. C. Clifton, F.Z.S. ; two Ring Doves (Columba 
palumbus), British, presented by Lord Arthur Russell, M.P., 
F.Z.S. ; a Jay (Garrulus glandarius), British, presented by Mr. 
R. Humphries ; two Spanish Terrapins (Clemmys leprosa) from 
Spain, a Spotted Salamander (Sa/amandra maculosa), a Fire- 
bellied Toad (Bomdbinator igneus), six Axolotls (Sivedon mexicanus) 
from Mexico, a Green Lizard (Lacerta viridis), European, pre- 
sented by Mr. Alban Doran, F.R.C.S.; tweaty Palmated Newts 
(Molge palmata) from Epping Forest, presented by Mr. G. A. 
Boulenger, F.Z.S.; a Collection of Sea Anemones, from 
British Seas, presented by Mr. W. L. Sclater, F.Z.S.; two 
Ring-tailed Lemurs (emu catta) from Madagascar, an Asiatic 
Wild Ass (Zguus onager 6) from India, deposited ; a Ludio 
Monkey (Cercopithecus ludio) from West Africa, three Red- 
crested Finches (Coryphosphingus cristatus) from South America, 
two Rosy-faced Love-Birds (Agafornis roseicollis) from South 
Africa, a Shining Parrakeet (Pyrrhulopsis splendens) from Fiji 
Islands, a Vinaceous Amazon (Chrysotis vinacea), a Conure 
(Conurus ) from Brazil, two Short-eared Owls (Asvo 
brachyotus), a Magellanic Eagle Owl (Bubo magellanica), a Pudu 
Deer (Pudu humilis @) from Chili, purchased ; a Hairy-eared 
