July 27, IS&J.] 



SCIENCE. 



105 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 Impregnation in the turkey. 

 When I was a boy, my father u>eil to send nie to 

 some of the neiglibois with our tiirkey-ln-n, ami we 

 left her there with the cock a day or so. Eitlier this, 

 or we wimlii borrow a cock fur a day or so. and turn 

 liiiii Willi our lien. This was not only for one year, 

 but our custom; as we never wintered a turki-y-oock, 

 and we did raise turkeys by ihis process. Tht-re was 

 no po-siliility of the tuikey-cock getting with our 

 hen after the contact mentioned above. 1 did not 

 know thai this fact wa< still unknown to people. 

 What is ."till a qiie>tion that I should like settled by 

 experiment i.-, whether the spermatozoids are re- 

 tained M>mewliere in the oviduct until the eggs reach 

 a certain siage of development, dr whether they at 

 once iinpreunale the eggs. W. Mann. 



roudain, N.Y.. July 5. 



I We fiive place to the foregoing extract from Mr. 

 Mann's letter, referring to Mr. Sbepard's comiimni- 

 cation in No. 20, p. .576, on the same subject. There 

 are prohablv many species of birds in which one con- 

 neciioii with the male >ufl3ces to impregnate a wlude 

 batch of eggs. That the turkey, like the common 

 hen. is oneof these, is a fact which hardly requires 

 furiher confirmation. There can be little question 

 that the spermatozoids are retained in the oviduct, 

 as in other animals, and the eggs impregnated as 

 they successively mature.] 



Macloskie's Elementary botany. 

 The review willi which you favor my Elementary 

 botany catechi.-es me as to whether 1 am .-ure that 

 the seeds of Lepidium emit mucilaginous threads. 

 Permit nie to answer that I am sure, having made 

 the experiment a dozen times. Violets, besides the 

 orders cited by the reviewer, prove that the state- 

 ment as to cymose flowers being aelinomorphic re- 

 quires modification. I sympathize with the olijection 

 to the terms "e.xotest' and 'endoiest;' but the tcrins 

 'priiiiine' and "secundine' are bewildering to authors 

 as well a- students, and give priority to the part which 

 is in mo~t cases a result of secondary differentiation; 

 'tegmen' is obsolete, ami the whole subject of the 

 development and structure of the seed-wall requires 

 revision : hence the provisional use of terms which, 

 though hybrid, are easily understood, and not likely 

 to mislead the young. G. Macloskie. 



.Tuly 10, 1883. 



[We conjecture that Professor Macloskie had mixed 

 in his mind, or at Uast in his statement, two different 

 ca.-es, — oiie, that in which the wall of the surface- 

 cells of the seed-coal, changed into asulislance which 

 swelU into mucilage upon wetting, contains a spiral 

 thread, as in Collomia; the other, in which there is 

 no contained thread. According to our observations, 

 the seeds of Lepidium belong to the latter: hence 

 the 'catechi>m,' which was intended to call attention 

 to a possible oversight. We have to-day verified our 

 obseivalion upon seeds of Lepidium ruderale. Pfr- 

 haps Professor Macloskie will kindly indicate the 

 species in which he found flie threads. — Reviewer.] 



Primitive streak of vertebrates. 



Dr. Stralil of Marburg has had the kindness to 

 write to me concerning the alistract of his researches 

 (Science, i. 521). A part of his letter contains an 

 explanation which I shall be glad to have published 

 in justice to Dr. Stralil. Translated, the passage is 

 as follows: — 



" As regards the esteemed remark at the close of 



the abstract. — that I have declared erroneous Bal- 

 four's comparison between the primitive streak and 

 neurenteric canal on one side, and the blastopore of 

 Amphia and fishes on the other. — the remark may 

 be due to a misunderstanding. So far as known to 

 me from his descriptions, Balfour placed the neuren- 

 teric canal at the anterior end of the primitve streak. 

 But, as i have shown in my paper, the neurenteric 

 canal originally lies in the miildle of the primitive 

 streak. The object of my demonstration is to show 

 that the premises from which Balfour starts do not 

 agree with the oliservatii^ns : this, I believe, was 

 accomplished. This would also decide the second 

 point made by you, — that my argument'ation against 

 Balfour was defective." 



1 am much indebted to Dr. Strahl for his letter, 

 and I think others will value his short statement of 

 his position. Ciiakles Skdowick Minot. 



' In an Indian grave. 

 In an Indian grave in Santa Barbara county, Cal., 

 the writer found a beautiful specimen of doubly ter- 

 minated limpid quartz, with a cavity half an inch 

 long containing water or some other fluid. It was 

 about four feet below the surface, and had been care- 

 fully depositeil with many other stone implements, 

 and was doubtless highly prized by its aboriginal 

 owner. Stephen Boweks. 



WARD'S DYNAMIC SOCIOLOGY. 



ir. 



It is proposed to show the relation of Mr. 

 Ward's pulilicalion to current thought. 



The law is composed of the rules of conduct 

 which organized society endeavors to enforce. 

 The law, tlierefore, represents the quantity and 

 quality of regulation, or, in other words, of 

 government, which the people of the state 

 in their corporate capacity deem neccssaiy for 

 their welfare. With resjiect to the amount 

 and kind of government (i.e.. of regulation, 

 i.e., of law) which the best interests of society 

 require, there is a very wide divergence of 

 opinion between the chief publicists of civil- 

 ized nations and the people themselves as 

 they are represented by law-making bodies. 

 The publicists tell us we are governed too 

 much ; but the people are demanding more 

 government, and, in obedience to this demand, 

 law-making bodies are rapidly extending the 

 scope of law. The careful observer of the 

 progress of government, who is at the same 

 time a careful reader of opinion presented in 

 the larger body of works on state craft, in the 

 more carefully prepared dissertations on this 

 subject appearing in the great reviews, and in 

 manj- of the best editorials of the 'daily press, 

 is astonished at the extreme conflict between 

 opinion and practice. 



There are two classes of law-making bodies, 

 — courts and legislatures. The growth of 

 law through the courts is almost unrecognized 

 by the people at lai^e ; yet its development 



