592 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1277 



ing whether it is the intention of the committee 

 that the results of researches obtained by the 

 expenditure of national funds should be kept 

 secret, as most scientific men -would regard 

 this as short-sighted. 



The second ground is that, where results are 

 to be patented, delay in publication is in the 

 interest of the investigator. This is scarcely 

 relevant. It is surely in the highest degree 

 dangerous to delay applying for a provisional 

 patent until the results have been communi- 

 cated to the committee and its consent ob- 

 tained, for any person who, by lawful or un- 

 lawful means, gets the information is then in 

 a position to prevent the real discoverer from 

 protecting himseK. 



The third ground is that it is the object of 

 the department to secure to the discoverer a 

 fair share in any profits that may accrue from 

 his discovery. Admittedly, the class of in- 

 ventors and discoverers is in very great need 

 of being protected from the sharp practises 

 that have sprung up under the shadow of the 

 patent law, and primarily from the government 

 itself. But why should a small part of them, 

 who receive government funds, be singled out 

 and protected? If the discoverer prefers to 

 secure for himself the legal ownership of his 

 discoveries, rather than from the committee, I 

 do not think he should be debarred from par- 

 ticipating in this money. The most, I think, 

 the committee has a right to stipulate is that 

 its interest is limited to the amount it has con- 

 tributed, and that, in the event of a dispute, 

 the matter shall be referred to an impartial 

 arbitrator for settlement. — ^Frederick Soddy in 

 Nature. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Zoologica. Scientific Contributions of the 

 New York Zoological Society. Volume I., 

 1907-1915, 436 pp. 8vo, with 138 illustra- 

 tions. Published by the Society, The 

 Zoological Park, New Tork. 

 In 1906, after the New Tork Zoological 

 Society had advanced its two primary ob- 

 jects, namely, the establishment of a great 

 zoological park and aquarium, it entered more 

 seriously upon its third chief object — the pro- 



motion of zoology through exploration, re- 

 search and publication. Two volumes have 

 already been published, namely " Tropical 

 Wild Life," studies from the Tropical Station 

 of British Guiana, and " A Monograph of the 

 Pheasants," Volume I., by C. William Beebe. 

 The present volume is the third to be issued; 

 it contains twenty bulletin papers which have 

 been published by the society beginning in 

 1907, and here brought together in permanent 

 form. 



The members of the scientific staff of the 

 park and of the aquarium did not enter the 

 well-trodden field of the lifeless cabinet or 

 museum animal, nor of the older systematic 

 or descriptive zoology, nor even of the newer 

 field of experimental zoology and Mendelism; 

 they sought the inspiring field which has been 

 relatively little entered in this country or 

 abroad, namely, observation of the normal liv- 

 ing bird and the living mammal, wherever pos- 

 sible in its own living environment, not from 

 the standpoint of the older naturalists or syste- 

 matists, but from the standpoint of the newer 

 problems raised in modem biology. This is a 

 path partly pursued by certain of the older 

 naturalists and travelers, and especially by 

 such wonderful observers as Darwin, Wallace 

 and Bates, which has been abandoned for a 

 time through the lure of artificial experiment 

 and of the breeding pen, but which may now 

 be followed with the new ardor of a larger 

 knowledge of the problems and of a deeper in- 

 sight into the search for natural causes. 

 These causes are sought either in the experi- 

 ments which nature herself is constantly try- 

 ing, or in a close imitation of the actual ex- 

 periments of nature, as in Beebe's studies of 

 the causes governing the changes of plumage 

 and of color in the scarlet tanager (Piranga) 

 and the Inca dove (Scardafella). 



The work of Beebe, contained in the open- 

 ing article of the volume, entitled " Geo- 

 graphic Variation in Birds," describes his in- 

 itial experiments and observations, which are 

 continued in a later paper, " Postponed Moult 

 in Passerine Birds." In brief it is the normal 

 and natural phenomena which are being in- 

 vestigated. In midsummer he placed several 



