298 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1370 



corporation, while Peruvian planters obtain 

 the most valuable fertilizer at a price -which 

 our American farmers would consider aston- 

 ishingly low. 



Now, in the words of Captain Cuttle, " The 

 bearings of this observation lays in the appli- 

 cation on it." 



In the first place, one of the essential prin- 

 ciples upon which this scheme of protection 

 is founded is that of closure of breeding 

 grounds in rotation for periods of years. 

 This principle must be distinguished from the 

 common measures of protection through closed 

 seasons or the establishment of permanent 

 sanctuaries. While the latter is in many 

 cases an ideal method of protecting animals, 

 it is of course impracticable of application in 

 the case of guano birds and many objects of 

 chase or fishery. 



Closed seasons of a few months produce 

 good results in many cases, but such a prin- 

 ciple of protection has the defect (often un- 

 appreciated) of being based upon an assump- 

 tion that nothing essential to reproduction 

 takes place except when the reproductive 

 activities are estemally evident. It seems 

 sometimes to be assumed that destruction or 

 disturbance of an animal iefore it spawns 

 makes no difference. The closed season of 

 months has, to be sure, its proper place, and 

 is often the only feasible measure. 



The second application is that the plan of 

 temporary sanctuaries, as applied to guano- 

 producing birds, has evidently worked and 

 produced the desired results in high degree. 

 The annual production has been trehled in ten 

 years. Why then can not the plan be more 

 generally applied in the case of natural ob- 

 jects requiring protection? It seems to be 

 based upon a proper appreciation of physio- 

 logical, " social " and ecological conditions as 

 affecting successful reproduction. This is the 

 principle, by the way, which for eight years 

 has been advocated for the preservation of the 

 fresh-water mussel resources of our interior 

 streams, but which is as yet being given effect 

 in a small way in only two states. 



A final application to be made in this con- 

 nection is not the least in importance. The 



enforcement of any broad and effective plan of 

 protection of guano birds was confronted ten 

 or twelve years ago with obstacles which one 

 might fairly have considered insurmountable: 

 foreign obligations with their customary diffi- 

 culties of adjustment; national agricultural 

 demands so exceeding the yearly production 

 as to make temporary curtailment most aggra- 

 vating to Peruvian agriculturists; restive 

 political conditions such as usually demand 

 the service of the present rather than of the 

 future. How do such difficulties compare 

 with those which confront the protection of 

 fresh-water mussels or the development of the 

 oyster industry in the Chesapeake Bay, for 

 example? Surely, as Dr. Murphy has appro- 

 priately suggested, credit is due primarily to 

 the patriotic and far-sighted citizens of Peru 

 who accepted the preliminary sacrifices and 

 did what was evidently needed to he done. 



When we consider that the conservation 

 measures cited were so promptly and fruit- 

 fully executed in one of oiu- sister republics 

 south of the equator it ought to " give us 

 pause " — or else it should stimulate us to stop 

 pausing and proceed to take like care of some 

 of our own natural resources. 



E. E. COKER 



Bureau of Fisheries 



NATIONAL TEMPERAMENT IN SCIEN- 

 TIFIC INVESTIGATIONS 



We have too long adjusted our scientific 

 thought to the temperature of a European 

 atmosphere. It should not be necessary 

 to guard the voice of our scientists against 

 the unnatural accent of the parrot. What 

 was true of literature when Emerson read 

 before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at 

 Cambridge his celebrated oration on " The 

 American Scholar " is now true of scientific 

 investigation in the United States. "We 

 have listened too long to the courtly muses of 

 Europe." We have too much taken our prob- 

 lems from Euroi)ean investigators and have 

 too little allowed nature to ask her own ques- 

 tions of us. These problems we have treated 

 too much in the spirit of European (and 



