656 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1009 



(How about the coexistence of juridical par- 

 enthood and of discipline in the patriarchal 

 family?) Nor would he have concluded that 

 sex taboos, the demarcation of masculine and 

 feminine interests, resulted in social discord 

 (p. 54). He would have realized that sex 

 taboos have quite the opposite effect, protect- 

 ing the habits of one sex against the habits 

 of the other. He might also have realized 

 that age class similarly protects itself against 

 age class and that respect for age is merely a 

 survival of the rigid age class demarcations of 

 primitive circles, in no sense a development 

 (p. 131). 



Until comparatively recently, " the forma- 

 tion of a body of habits," sex habits, age-class 

 habits, family, clan or tribe habits was the 

 goal of all education. As Professor Todd has 

 well pointed out (pp. 143^), primitive edu- 

 cation planned to adjust youth to a static 

 environment, to fit each boy and girl into a 

 set place from whence no departure was pos- 

 sible, except into another set place. Modem 

 education at its best plans to develop in all of 

 us adjustability to a changing environment, 

 together with a capacity to control our en- 

 vironment, i. e., it plans to develop personality. 

 To its part in this new venture of education 

 the modern family is not yet awake. Hence its 

 discredit in the eyes of Professor Todd and 

 other modern educators. Once it realizes that 

 of all educational agencies it has unique op- 

 portunities to develop personality, that far 

 better than the school or the club it may lead 

 a child to think for himself and to have the 

 courage of a minority, once the family be- 

 comes alive to this new role — ^perhaps the 

 coming " transcendent and valuable " role 

 Professor Todd has in mind for it, it may 

 assert with success its old claim to educational 

 prestige — ^nd not before. 



Elsie Clews Parsons 



NOTES ON THE SEA ELEPEANT 

 (MIROVNGA LEON IN A) 

 Mr. Egbert Cushman Murphy has pub- 

 lished in the American Museum Bulletin'- 

 1 Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. XXXIII., Art. 

 II., pp. 63-79, pis. I.-VII. 



an interesting and splendidly illustrated 

 paper entitled " Notes on the Sea Elephant 

 Mirounga leonina" (Linne). This article 

 embodies the observations made by Mr. Murphy 

 during a whaling and sealing voyage to the 

 South Georgia Islands on the brig Daisy of 

 New Bedford. Although sea elephants have 

 been hunted for many years and thousands 

 have been killed for commercial purposes, but 

 little accurate information as to their life 

 history is to be found in the literature of the 

 species. This is perhaps partially due to the 

 fact that their habitat lies on the desolate, 

 storm-swept islands of the South Atlantic, in 

 a region which holds out few inducements to 

 the traveler and that almost the only visitors 

 to their uninviting breeding grounds were 

 those who came to slaughter the animals for 

 commercial gain. 



Too few of these hunters were interested in 

 anything but the number of gallons of oil 

 which could be tried out from each carcass, 

 and ship after ship returned loaded to the 

 gunwales with oil but empty of information 

 concerning the habits of the greatest of all 

 the seals which they were sweeping from off 

 the earth. This relentless slaughter has long 

 since passed the bounds of safety and the sea 

 elephant bids fair to soon be numbered with 

 the Steller's sea cow, an animal which has 

 been swept away, leaving little but traditions 

 behind. 



Mr. Murphy's notes, taken with the care and 

 interest of one who came to study and not to 

 kill, are thus especially interesting, and com- 

 bined with his splendid photographs form a 

 valuable contribution to the life history of 

 the elephant seal. 



Dr. C. H. Townsend's rediscovery of the 

 northern sea elephant (Mirounga augustiro- 

 siris) on Guadaloupe Island, and the valuable 

 collection of specimens and photographs 

 which he secured, have done much to elucidate 

 the life history of that species and Mr. Murphy 

 has well supplemented his work by this study 

 of the southern animal. 



Roy Chapman Andrews 



American Museum of Natural History 



