Septembee 26, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



305 



the " Journal OfSeiel " of the birth and deaths 

 for 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916 and 1917 in the 

 French departments not included in the zone 

 of occupation and military occupations. These 

 show a terrible increase of deaths over births. 

 To give the whole picture of the serious eiiects 

 of the war on the French civil population the 

 figures are needed for the occupied territory. 

 I can provide a few as a result of opportuni- 

 ties offered while at work in. occupied France 

 for the Commission for Relief in Belgium and 

 North France. 



In Lille, by far the largest city in occupied 

 France, there was in the two years 1915 and 

 1916 a 47 per cent, decrease in births and a 

 45 per cent, increase in deaths as compared 

 with pre-war ratios. This determination takes 

 into account the difference in population of 

 the city between the pre-war and the war 

 years produced by an escape of one fourth of 

 the city's inhabitants before the German 

 forces occupied it, but it does not take into 

 account the fact that this diminution of popu- 

 lation was not effected by a simple random 

 selection among the whole population (i. e., by 

 a proportionate lessening of all age groups and 

 both sexes) but resulted largely from the re- 

 moval for military service of almost all phys- 

 ically fit men of the age-group twenty to forty- 

 five years. Part of the diminution also was 

 caused by the emigration at the time of the 

 invasion of entire families of the well-to-do 

 class able to afford the expense of removal. 

 This last group may perhaps be taken to be, 

 on the whole, a particularly healthy group. 

 In making, therefore, direct comparison of 

 the mortality ratios for the two periods (war 

 and pre-war) these special facts should be 

 taken into account. 



The increased percentage of deaths occurred 

 especially in the age-groups 1 to 19 years, 

 where it was 81 per cent, more in 1915-1916 

 than in 1913-1914, and 60 years and over, 

 where it was 85 per cent. The principal im- 

 mediate causes of the increased deaths were 

 tuberculosis, brain hemorrhages and heart 

 affections. The ultimate causes were of course 

 certain war-produced conditions, especially the 

 insufficient amount and variety of food and 



the necessity for a renewed return to hard 

 work in the fields by old men and women to 

 make up for the absence of the able-bodied 

 men. 



Data with regard to Charleville, another 

 French city in the occupied territory, but one 

 in an agricultural rather than an industrial 

 region — Lille is the center of ISTorth France's 

 principal industrial region — show almost iden- 

 tical conditions. And I believe from my per- 

 sonal observations during 1915 and 1916 over 

 the whole of the occupied territory that the 

 death-ratios in these two cities are a fair 

 sample of those for the whole of the occupied 

 region. The occupation extended, of course, 

 for a much longer period than merely 1915 

 and 1916. It extended from late in 1914 until 

 late in 1918. Undoubtedly these ratios of 

 lessened birth-rate and increased death-rate in 

 the occupied territory of France for 1915-1916 

 are not greater, but probably because of the 

 increase of exhaustion and diificulties with 

 food, fuel, clothing, medical service and sup- 

 plies, less than those for 1917 and 1918. 

 Vernon Kellogg 



National Eeseasch Council, 

 Washington 



instinctive behavior in the white eat 

 In confirmation of Mr. Griffith's observa- 

 tion of a possible case of instinctive behavior 

 in the white rat reported in Scienoe for 

 August 15, 1919, I wish to add a somewhat 

 similar observation which I made a few 

 months ago. 



Upon placing a few handfuls of fresh 

 dandelions into a cage of some twenty white 

 rats of various ages which had been reared 

 in the laboratory for several generations, 

 much to my surprise I found the rats at once 

 ran away from the greens and gathered in one 

 comer of the cage and behaved in a thor- 

 oughly frightened manner. At first I could 

 not account for this strange behavior, for 

 hitherto the rats had fed with avidity on 

 fresh dandelions and seized the plants as soon 

 as they were placed in reach. On further 

 thought, I recalled that I had gathered the 

 dandelions on this occasion in an old basket 

 which had recently been used for bringing a 



