British Association Notes. 355 



Leicester Museum is at last falling into line with other museums, but it 

 is amusing to find it posing as a pioneer. Not only have other museums 

 for years been doing what Leicester now advocates, but in some districts, 

 as in Yorkshire, societies have been formed among the teachers for the 

 special object of encouraging Nature-study, and working in conjunction 

 with the museums. 



Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell's address to the Zoological Section was an 

 appeal for the preservation of the world's fauna. He pointed out that 

 Audubon relates that just a century ago Passenger Pigeons existed in 

 countless millions, and that for four days at a time the sky was black with 

 the stream of migration. ' The final extinction of this .species has taken 

 place since the last meeting of the Association in Dundee. In 1906 there 

 were actually five single birds living, all of which had been bred in captivity, 

 and 1 understand that these last survivors of a prolific species are now dead, 

 although the birds ranged in countless numbers over a great continent.' 

 It was also shown that South Africa, less than fifty years ago, was a 

 dream that surpassed the imagination of the most ardent hunter. ' And we 

 know what it is now. It is traversed by railways, it has been rolled over 

 by the devastations of war. The game that once covered the land in 

 unnumbered millions is now either extinct, like the quagga and the black 

 wildebeeste, or its scanty remnant lingers in a few reserves and on a few 

 farms. The sportsmen and the hunter have been driven to other parts of 

 the Continent, and I have no confidence in the future of the African fauna.' 

 He concluded that ' However we improve the older menageries and 

 however numerous and well-arranged the new menageries may be, they 

 must always fall short of the conditions of nature, and here I find another 

 reason for the making of zoological sanctuaries throughout the world. If 

 these be devised for the preservation of animals, not merely for the re- 

 c iperation of game, if they be kept sacred from gun or riile, they will 

 become the real zoological gardens of the future, in which our children 

 and our children's children will have the opportunity of studying wild 

 animals under natural conditions. I myself have so great a belief in the 

 capacity' of wild animals for learning to have confidence in man, or rather 

 for losing the fear of him that they have been forced to acquire, that I 

 think that man, innocent of the intent to kill, will be able to penetrate 

 fearlessly into the sanctuaries, with camera and notebook and field-glass. 

 In any event all that the guardians of the future will have to do will be 

 to reverse the conditions of our existing menageries, and to provide secure 

 enclosures for the visitors instead of for the animals.' 



Bees shewn to the Children, by Ellison Hawks, T. C. and E. C. Jack, 

 120 pp., 2/6 net. This well written little volume is the latest addition to 

 Messrs. Jack's admirable " Shown to the Children Series", and is by the 

 Secretary of the Leeds Astronomical Society. In simple language it 

 describes the wonders of the Bee world. The volume is made even more 

 fascinating by 39 plates, as well as illustrations in the text. 



The Humble-Bee, by F. \V. L. Sladen, 283 pp., Macmillan and Co., 

 1912, los. net. The sub-title of this work perhaps better describes its aim, 

 as it deals with the Humble-Bee, " its life history and how to domesticate 

 it," with descriptions of all the British species of Bombus and Psithyrus. 

 These descriptions, with the excellent coloured plates, are a valuable 

 feature of the volume. Some of the matter had previously appeared 

 elsewhere, but among that now published for the first time is a 

 description of what Mr. Sladen calls the " Sladen wooden cover for arti- 

 ficial nests," and details of his humble-bee house. The book is by no means 

 technical and adds much to our knowledge of the humble-bee. There 

 are many interesting illustrations from photographs. The work is also 

 well up-to-date as it contains a chapter on notes made during June and 

 July of the present year. 



1912 Nov. I. 



