180 



SCIENCE 



N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 762 



spud-bar (an iron implement shaped like a 

 crow-bar, with a chisel-blade at one end, for 

 digging) with one blow I cut its head squarely 

 off. The body was taken back to camp. This 

 was about 5 p.m. 



About eight o'clock that evening, wishing 

 to skin the snake, I placed the body upon my 

 desk, noting as I did so that there was the 

 slightest movement of the body. I took a 

 scalpel, and holding the tail in one hand, 

 started to cut off the rattles. The snake had 

 no sooner been touched by the blade of the 

 scalpel than it snatched its tail away, rattled 

 viciously, and struck at my hand with its 

 headless neck three times. I postponed the 

 skinning until a later time. 



The snake was a small one, being about 

 eighteen inches in length, with five rattles. 

 It was killed at an elevation of about 1,150 

 feet. 



Some weeks later I found another of the 

 same species stuck fast in a pool of the crude 

 oil with which the Santa Fe track is sprinkled. 

 Large numbers of small animals, especially 

 mice, lose their lives in this manner. In 

 places the track is nearly covered with the 

 remnants of dead bodies. 



Henry W. Maynard 



Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 Kingman, Arizona, 

 May 30, 1909 



QUOTATIONS 



A LONGEMTY TRUST 



The term " life insurance " never meant the 

 insuring of lives until this year, when Dr. 

 Burnside Foster and Professor Irving Fisher 

 interested the life companies in their plans 

 of preventing premature death. One company 

 has this week announced its purpose to save 

 one third of the amount awarded for death 

 claims of tuberculous policy holders by a 

 campaign of cure and prevention. The agents 

 of the companies might easily be transformed 

 into a militant body of health agents, armed 

 with pamphlets and advice to each holder of 

 the millions of policies. A staff of visiting 

 physicians, specialists in the chief diseases, 

 may treat patients in every community who 



can not otherwise command skilled services. 

 By such work the companies would have 

 fewer death claims to pay. They could prom- 

 ise larger benefits. But this, which has hith- 

 erto been a deciding argument in insurance 

 competition, is only incidental to the added 

 promise that the policy holder's life, which is 

 of quite inestimable value to his family, would 

 be guarded. 



The competition of the life companies, once 

 started toward the prolongation of their pa- 

 trons' lives, will not end until not only tuber- 

 culosis but all the diseases that figure largely 

 in the actuarial tables become the subject of 

 skilled attention. The lives of most men who 

 can afford to employ a doctor are already " in- 

 sured." Ultimately, we presume, those phy- 

 sicians not retained by the companies would be 

 reduced to treating minor ills, or they would 

 be forced quite out of their profession. 



The organization of preventive medicine has 

 reached startling proportions, but it has failed 

 to keep pace with the progress in medical sci- 

 ence. This progress is so rapid that the med- 

 ical colleges complain that they can not catch 

 up in their equipment. But if the new depar- 

 ture in life insurance means anything, it 

 means that the companies are beginning to 

 resolve themselves into what they have an in- 

 herent right to be, companies of physicians — 

 a longevity trust. — The New York Times. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



GAUDRY ON PYROTHERIUM ' 



The venerated author of " Les Enchaine- 

 ments du Monde Animal " was engaged until 

 within a few days of his death upon a series 

 of monographs dealing with the fossil mam- 

 malian faunae of Patagonia and based upon 

 specimens collected for the Paris Museum by 

 M. Andre Tournouer. 



The first of these monographs' dealt with 



" " Fossiles de Patagonie : le Pyrotherium," 

 Ann. de Paleontologie (Boule), tome IV., 1909, 

 pp. 1-28, pll. I.-VII. 



- " Fossiles de Patagonie — Dentition de quelques 

 Mammif6res," Mem. de la Soc. g6ol. de France, 

 Paleontologie, Mem. XXXI., 1906, 4° (42 text 

 figures) . 



