DECEMBER 29, 1899. ] 
low, nightingale, starling, swift, wren, magpie, 
garden warbler, owl, and redstart. A further 
effect of the order will be that all wild birds 
will be protected on Sundays during the whole 
year. The Parks Committee of the Council 
think this a most necessary step, as Sunday is 
the day on which the bird-catcher and cockney 
sportsman have the greatest opportunity of 
carrying on their operations. Another clause 
of the order adds the names of several birds to 
those in the schedule of the Act of 1880. The 
effect of this is to increase the penalty with re- 
gard thereto, as any person convicted in con- 
nection with the scheduled birds is liable under 
the Act of 1880 to a penalty in each case of £1, 
whilst for wild birds not in the schedule the 
‘penalty is by that Act fixed at 5s. in each case. 
The birds now to be added to the schedule of 
1880 are the bearded tit, buzzard, chaffinch, 
honey buzzard, hobby, kestrel, magpie, mar- 
tins, merlin, osprey, shrikes, swallow, swift, 
-and wryneck. Under the last clause of the 
order it will be an offense to take or destroy 
the eggs of any of the birds set out in the 
schedule attached. Included in this schedule 
are the cuckoo, goldfinch, kingfisher, linnet, 
lark, magpie, martins, nightingale, starling, 
‘swallow, wren, redstart, and swift. The com- 
mon house and hedge sparrow apparently re- 
ceive no special protection under the order, 
except that provided by the close time from 
February 1st to August 31st. 
Dr. BuRRILL, of the University of Illinois, 
has sent to Dr. Reynolds, Health Commissioner 
of Chicago, a report of bacteriological investiga- 
tions upon the waters of the Illinois and 
Michigan canal and of the Illinois and Miss- 
issippi rivers, altogether extending from Chi- 
cago to St. Louis. The report covers the 
months of June, July, August, September, 
October, and November, and gives the monthly 
average number of bacteria found in a cubic 
centimeter of water taken from each of thirty- 
eight stations. The laboratory work was done 
by Mr. James A. ‘Dewey. The figures, as tabu- 
lated, show that the whole stream has been, 
during the time, greatly polluted, but they 
also show that the water becomes rapidly puri- 
fied as it flows along from the source of contam- 
ination. At Ottawa and LaSalle the number of 
SCIENCE. 
983 
bacteria has decreased from several million toa 
few thousand in a centimeter of water. Above 
Peoria the stream is nearly free from these 
organisms. Below this city the numbers rise 
again so as practically to equal those in the 
canal at Bridgeport. Farther down, the water 
again becomes gradually less infected, so that 
at the mouth of the Iliinois there are less bac- 
teria than occur in the waters of the Mississippi 
river. 
WE learn from the London Times that at a re- 
cent meeting of the Departmental Committee on 
Preservatives and Coloring Matters in Food, Mr. 
J. Kellitt, of Liverpool, speaking on behalf of the 
Grocers’ Federation, said that it was now abso- 
lutely necessary to use borax or boracic acid for 
ham, bacon, and butter, on account of the great 
demand for a mild-cured article. Borax, in his 
experience, was the most effective preservative 
he had known, especially for stopping fly-blow. 
Quite 75 per cent. of the hams and bacon sold 
in this country were treated with the preserva- 
tive. After the bacon or ham had been pre- 
pared for cooking by the consumer most, if not 
all, of the borax had disappeared, so that in 
actual consumption the percentage of boracic 
acid present at the time the article was con- 
sumed must be small. Captain T. W. Sandes, 
who had started a creamery in county Kerry 
for the benefit of his tenants, said that he used 
generally to send to England butter that they 
called saltless—that is, butter that was cured 
with one pound of preservative to the hundred- 
weight of butter. The preservative he used 
was boracie acid. The saltless but preserved 
butter was bound to be good butter, because im- 
purities could be so easily detected in it, whereas 
the heavy salted butter need not be, as the salt, 
more or less, covered a few of the ‘sins’ in 
the butter. Mr. J. Wheeler Bennett, who ap- 
peared on behalf of the London Chamber of 
Commerce, said that the trade in Canadian 
hams had increased since 1889 from something 
like $300,000 to $1,800,000 in 1898, and this he 
attributed to the use of preservatives. If the 
treatment of hams by borax were prohibited, 
the whole of this gigantic trade from Canada 
would come toanend. There wasa very large 
and increasing trade in Australian butter, and 
that trade hinged upon the use of borax, the 
