January 23, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



87 



worthy Haidas of Masset, B. 0., who are 

 capable of corresponding and executing the 

 purchase of a pole or poles, and of engaging 

 other help and superintending the lowering 

 and creating of poles, their transportation 

 across the inlet from Tan to the wharf at 

 Masset and their shipment to destination. 

 The poles are very heavy and the cost of 

 handling will be perhaps equal to the price 

 of the poles. They are soft and their own 

 weight will crush parts of the carvings un- 

 less they are properly crated. Some of the 

 poles 50 to 60 feet in length may have to be 

 cut in sections for shipment. 



Here is an opportunity. Examples of this 

 unique art now going to decay may be 

 rescued, loaded and started on their way to 

 safe-keeping in our museums at the rate of 

 about one hundred dollars per specimen. 



Harlan I. Smith 



Geological Sukvet, 

 Ottawa, Canada 



TO KILL CATS FOR LABORATORY USE 



A QUICK and humane method of killing a cat 

 or other small mammal in the laboratory is to 

 put the animal under an open topped bell jar, 

 i. e., a bell jar which has a small bottle-like 

 neck at the top through which there is an 

 opening. This mouth should be comparatively 

 small, not over a half inch in diameter, and the 

 neck should be at least an inch long. After the 

 animal has been placed under the bell jar, a 

 very small quantity of ether or chloroform is 

 poured through the opening in the top, and it 

 is then corked up. The liquid strikes the sides 

 of the neck and immediately runs down in a 

 thin film over the inner surface of the bell jar 

 and evaporates into the chamber in two or 

 three seconds. The enclosed animal shows its 

 effects almost immediately, and dies in a very 

 short time. 



While it is not necessary, it is beitter to seal 

 up the base of the bell jar because occasionally 

 the animal falls down after it becomes uncon- 

 scious, and its head comes in close proximity to 

 the crack between the jar and the object on 

 which it is placed, and it thus obtains suffi- 

 cient air to delay its death. This can be pre- 



vented by wrapping a damp towel around the 

 base so as to exclude the air. By placing the 

 bell jar on a glass plate and sealing with vase- 

 line, an airtight chamber can be made, but the 

 advantage thus gained does not make up for 

 the care necessary in order to avoid getting 

 one's clothing in contact with the greased sur- 

 faces. 



Horace Gunthorp 

 Washburn College, 

 Topeka, Kans. 



ants and scientists 

 To THE Editor of Science: As a result of 

 watching a colony of ants and attending a 

 scientific meeting on the afternoon and even- 

 ing of the same day, it seemed to me the two 

 teeming hordes of excited workers — the in- 

 sects and the scientists — had some queer traits 

 in common, as : 



1. How they work in ranks and cohorts, 

 mutually attracted by some exciting discovery 

 that a wandering member has stumbled upon, 

 and that awakens the most astounding and 

 intense interest. 



2. How they immediately set to work to 

 pull opposite ways, fight valiantly over their 

 treasure, and heroically keep it up after they 

 have amputated some of each others' legs and 

 other appendages. 



3. How they take up one thing, drag it 

 about for a time, and then drop it for some 

 other thing. 



4. How they often expend enormous labor 

 on something that isn't worth a darn; and 

 here Mark Twain's story of the two ants and 

 the grasshopper leg came to mind. 



5. How their splendid industry is generally 

 circular in direction; so that after long 

 struggle, they get the thing back to the exact 

 spot from which it started. 



6. How they firmly believe that " they are 

 the people " and refuse to admit or bother 

 over bigger intelligences that are their inter- 

 ested observers and that can and sometimes 

 do sweep them and their hills and rimways 

 and stores into oblivion. 



7. How, measured by final results, they are 

 nevertheless a wonderful body of workers; 



