July 31, 1913] 



NATURE 



57 x 



amount for a period of, say, four years. " From that 

 estimate he divided up the whole of the guano-archi- 

 pelago into zones. He made certain practical sug- 

 gestions for the protection of the birds with a view 

 to allowing them to deposit and to have a rigorous 

 close-season, and also a period of rest in each of four 

 years. Only one zone would be worked every year, 

 thus leaving a period for recovery." A remarkable 

 event occurred just before Dr. Forbes's visit, almost 

 the whole of the birds having deserted the islands in 

 November, ign, and not returning until February or 

 March, 1912, leaving their young to perish from 

 starvation. An unusually severe earthquake shock is 

 considered by Dr. Forbes to have been the probable 

 cause of the exodus, and he surmises that the birds 

 may have betaken themselves northwards to the Gala- 

 pagos Islands. 



The supreme importance of birds to the agricul- 

 turist, as being in the main the only effective 

 check on most of the insects by which crops are 

 ravaged, is perhaps more fully and more generally 

 recognised in the United States than in this country. 

 Evidence of popular interest in this matter among our 

 American cousins is afforded by the first article in the 

 June number of The National Geographic Magazine, 

 which is a reprint of a " Farmers' Bulletin," issued 

 some years ago by the Agricultural Department, con- 

 taining an account of fifty species of birds commonly 

 frequenting American farms and orchards. In its 

 new guise the article contains a coloured illustration, 

 printed in the text, of each of these fifty species. 

 Although small, the figures are beautifully executed, 

 and form a striking instance of journalistic achieve- 

 ment. 



In an illustrated article on national bird-reservations 

 in the United States, published in the Mav number 

 of The American Museum Journal, Prof. T. S. Palmer 

 points out that, in addition to protected breeding 

 places, refuges have been established in the west for 

 birds while on passage. A reservation of this type 

 "comprises merely a narrow strip of land bordering 

 the reservoir, and is set aside to afford the birds a 

 resting place on their journeys north and south. Some 

 of these reservations were created before construction 

 work was completed and before there was any water 

 to attract the birds, in order to afford protection as 

 soon as the reservoirs were filled and the birds began 

 to visit them." 



In an article on the velocities of migratory birds in 

 the July number of The Zoologist Mr. F. J. Stubbs 

 disputes the belief that migrants prefer to fly in the 

 teeth of the wind, and likewise that they do so in 

 order to escape the inconvenience of the wind ruffling 

 their plumage by blowing obliquely through it from 

 behind. The fact that head-winds undoubtedly bring 

 most migrants has been a main argument in support 

 of the former belief, but it is urged that such winds 

 stop migration, and that birds flying under these 

 conditions are really retarded. The " feather-ruffling " 

 theory, on the other hand, is stated to be based on a 

 misinterpretation of the fact that such birds as lap- 

 wings constantly stand head-to-wind in rough 

 weather, and that if they happen to turn ruffling of 

 their feathers ensues. For the author's arguments in 

 support of his views, our readers must be referred to 

 the article itself. 



In an account of a recent visit to Phillip Island, 

 published in The Victorian Naturalist for June, Mr. 

 J. Gabriel states that sixty species of birds were iden- 

 tified, of which sixteen are sea or shore soecies, leav- 

 ing forty-four as residents on the island, an excess 

 of eight over a previous record. Protection, it is ureed, 

 is sorely needed for the mutton-bird and the little 

 penguin, the numbers of which are rapidly diminishing 

 owing to incessant persecution. 

 NO. 2283, VOL. gi] 



BLOOD-PARASITES. 1 



YOU will remember that Mephistopheles, when he 

 insists upon the bond with Faust being signed 

 with blood, says, " Blut ist ein ganz besondrer Saft " 

 (" Blood is a quite special kind of juice "). Goethe 

 would probably not have used the word "Saft" had 

 he been writing "Faust" to-day instead of in 1808, 

 for at that time the cellular elements of the blood — 

 although they had been seen and described by Leeu- 

 wenhoek in 1686 — were believed to be optical illusions, 

 even by so distinguished a person as the professor 

 of medicine of that time at the Sorbonne. The in- 

 credulity of scientific men as to what they see is 

 proverbial and astounding, fortunately ; but it is prob- 

 ably because science is really quite sure of nothing that 

 it is always advancing. 



I have the privilege this evening of trying to show 

 you the barest outlines of our present knowledge of 

 the parasitology of the blood. It is a subject of great 

 practical and economic importance, as many grave 

 diseases of man and beast are caused by these para- 

 sites, which, on account of their minuteness, enormous 

 numbers, and very complex life-histories, are very 

 difficult to eradicate or to deal with practically. On 

 this account there is a good deal of the enthusiasm 

 of the market-place mixed up with this subject, which, 

 although a new one, has advanced with great rapidity, 

 and has revolutionised pathology, and medicine so far 

 as possible. From our point of view it began in 1880 

 with the discovery by Laveran, in the military hos- 

 pital of Constantine, of the parasite which causes 

 malaria. This caused the protozoa, to which order 

 most of these parasites belong, to oust bacteria from 

 the proud position they then occupied of being the 

 cause of all the ills we have to bear, and to reign 

 in their stead ; not an altogether desirable change ; for 

 when you have seen what I shall show you, you will 

 agree With me that sufficient unto life is the evil 

 thereof. It has had all the disadvantages of a new- 

 subject, and since that time, floods of work have been 

 poured into journals, annals, proceedings, &c, some 

 of it of the best, with much of it that is indifferent, 

 temporary, and bad ; so that at times it seems as 

 if this branch of science were in danger of being 

 smothered in the dust of its own workshop, or drowned 

 in the waters of its own activity. We do not, 

 nowadays, keep our ideas and scraps of work to our- 

 selves until they are either established, or, as is more 

 likely, dissipated, so we have a huge mass of what 

 is called "literature," filled with many trivial, frag- 

 mentary, and doubtful generalisations, many of which 

 we have with pain and trouble to sweep into the dust- 

 bin : nature's blessed mortmain law taking too long 

 to act. You remember Carlyle complained — to use a 

 mild term — of Poggendorff's Annalen, and I feel sure 

 that, if he had had to study blood-parasites now, he 

 would have said that it was a much over be-Poggen- 

 dorffed subject. Blood-parasites are afflicted, too, with 

 terrible names, and with lartje numbers of them ; 

 some have as many as ten or even fifteen different 

 names, perhaps on the Socratic principle, that naming 

 saves so much thinking. And they are in Latin, too, 

 so that the terminology of this subject is a perfect 

 museum of long Latin and hybrid-Latin names. 

 The terminology generally of our later biology 

 is, as one has said, ""the Scylla's cave which men of 

 science are preparing for themselves, to be able to 

 pounce out upon us from it, and into which we cannot 

 enter." This will be my excuse if I should use words 

 vou do not understand. 



I will just remind you of the structure of the blood, 

 that it consists of an extraordinarily complex fluid — 



1 Attract of 

 May 2, by Mr. H. G. PI 



eliveivd at the Royal In 

 :r, F.R.S. 



Friday, 



