172 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 162. 



of the reserves mentioned are numerous lakes, 

 and these are to be connected with wide roads, 

 which, when completed, will, it is thought, 

 form an effective obstacle to the progress of 

 conflagrations. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



At the semi-annual meeting of the Board of 

 Trustees of Beloit College it was announced that 

 the College had received a gift of $25,000 for 

 the endowment of the chair of chemistry, now 

 occupied by Professor E. G. Smith. The donor 

 wishes to remain anonymous. It was also re- 

 ported that the sum of $70,000 had been raised 

 toward the $100,000 necessary to secure Dr. 

 Pearson's gift of $50,000. 



Mes. Daniel C. Eaton has recently given 

 $2,000, the income from which is to be devoted 

 to a scholarship open to competition by the 

 graduate students of Yale University. 



The following assistants have been appointed 

 in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale Uni- 

 versity : C. B. Eice, in physics ; W. G. Van 

 Name, in biology: C. H. Warren and W. M. 

 Bradley, in chemistry, and G. L. Bunnell, in 

 zoology. 



The registration of students at the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania for the year 1897-1898 is 

 2,834, an increase of 23 over the previous year. 

 A decrease of 38 in the medical school is due to 

 the raising of the requirements for admission. 

 The officers of instruction number 258. 



Representative Hayes, of Lowell, has 

 introduced into the Massachusetts House of 

 Representatives a bill for a State appropria- 

 tion of $100,000 to the Lowell Textile School, 

 one-half of the amount to be paid in 1898 

 and 1900. At the same session Representa- 

 tive Dubuque, of Fall River, introduced a 

 bill for an appropriation of $100,000 for the 

 establishment of a school in that city upon the 

 same lines as the one in Lowell. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



'WILD NEI6HB0ES.' 



Editor of Science : A man who has been 

 making books as long as I rarely ' talks back ' 

 to the critics. I never did so but once, and that 

 was to rebut misstatements likely to injure the 



value of my property. For the same reason I 

 beg leave to reply to your recent notice of my 

 book ' Wild Neighbors ' (The Macmillan Co. , 

 1897), first thanking j-ou for such commenda- 

 tion as is given. 



Alluding to the fact that in order to round 

 the biographies of the various animals treated, 

 and make them interesting, I drew upon the 

 writings of several ' well-known ' naturalists, 

 the reviewer so states this matter as to imply 

 that the whole book is nothing but a mosaic of 

 quotations, ' direct and indirect ' (oh, fie !), and 

 later frankly says that it ' offers nothing in the 

 way of new and original matter.' It would be 

 possible to produce an interesting and even 

 valuable book in that way ; but, if by the latter 

 phrases quoted above it is meant that the book 

 contains nothing of my own observation, I must 

 protest. The chapter on Gray Squirrels distinctly 

 states that it is wholly personal experience, 

 and I have certainly seen on several occasions 

 each of the other mammals described. As I 

 did not write the book to laud myself, but to set 

 the subject well before the reader, it did not 

 occur to me invariably to put in the big I, yet 

 I have not yet heard any complaint as to stolen 

 goods. 



Your reviewer alleges that ' many misleading 

 statements are made,' and in support of this 

 makes a very erroneous one himself. "The 

 reader is told," he says, "that the Eastern 

 Chipmunk {Tamias striatus) is now conceded to 

 be the only species ranging between the Atlantic 

 and Pacific coasts, while in reality some twenty- 

 two species and twelve subspecies are now 

 recognized in the United States." The reader 

 is not told (by me) anything of the sort. He is 

 told that the early naturalists, lacking large 

 numbers of specimens, made several distinct 

 species, so-called, of what are now conceded to 

 be only geographical . varieties of the single 

 species Tamias striatus. There is a sort of sneer 

 in the reviewer's next remark: "Young opos- 

 sums are said to go about clinging to their 

 mother's tails soon after they are born. ' ' That is 

 not altogether a fair way of putting my account 

 of it ; but — don't they ' sometimes ' ? Credible 

 persons say they do — Flower and Lydekker, for 

 instance. Then the reviewer asserts that my 'no- 

 menclature is out of date, a large proportion of the 



