.April 24, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



639 



ihroaX {Cyanecula siiecica) may make the jour- 

 ney fi'om Northern Africa to the Scandinavian 

 Peninsula — a distance of 2,000 to 2,400 geo- 

 graphical miles — during a single May night, 

 giving a velocity of four miles a minnte, or 240 

 miles an hour ! The American Golden Plover, 

 he afiirms, migrates in autumn from Labrador 

 to Brazil — a distance of 3,000 miles — in a single 

 uninterrupted flight, going at an average rate 

 of '212 geographical miles per hour.' Ashe 

 offers nothing but negative evidence and con- 

 jecture in proof of these statements, they are 

 scarcely entitled to serious notice, so contrary 

 are they to all of the known evidence bearing 

 on the case. In Chapter VI. , on the ' Order 

 of Migration According to Age and Sex,' 

 the evidence in support of his thoory that 

 ' ' the autumn migration is initiated by the 

 young birds, from about six to eight weeks after 

 leaving the nest," does not well bear close 

 analysis. But the worst portion of his book is 

 the fourteen pages relating to ' Changes in 

 the Colour of the Plumage of Birds without 

 Moulting,' in which he asserts that the breed- 

 ing dress in many birds is acquired by a change 

 in the color of the feathers themselves without 

 any alteration or change in their texture, 

 whereby pure white feathers change to dark 

 brown or black ; and not only this, but the worn 

 jagged edges of the old feathers at the same 

 time are restored to their former size and evenly 

 rounded outline, so as to look in reality like 

 new feathers. As a matter of fact, the very 

 species he cites and describes in detail as under- 

 going this wonderful process are well known to 

 acquire their breeding dress by a spring molt ! 

 In view of these and other misstatements the 

 review closes with the following : ' ' With all 

 its imperfections ' Heligoland ' is a book of 

 great interest and value, Part III. being a par- 

 ticularly useful contribution to the literature of 

 ornithology. It is also a work that is likely to 

 do much harm, for it is its sensational and in- 

 accurate parts especially that find their way 

 into the current literature of the day, and par- 

 ticularly into magazines and books devoted to 

 the popularization of natural history. ' ' 



The department of ' Recent Literature ' con- 

 tains the usual complement of reviews of lead- 

 ing works and papers on ornithology, and the 



department of ' General Notes ' some thirty 

 brief notices of rare or little known species, re- 

 lating mainly to their occurrence at unusual or 

 entirely new localities. Under the heading 

 ' Correspondence ' some ten pages are devoted 

 to the discussion of various questions of nomen- 

 clature, by Witmer Stone, H. C. Oberholser and 

 the editor, the number concluding as usual with 

 several pages of ' Notes and News. ' 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 

 MARCH 28. 



Me. Charles Richakd Dodge read a paper 

 on some undeveloped American fibers. He 

 stated that government experiments for the de- 

 velopment of fiber industries in different coun- 

 tries date back nearly one hundred years. A 

 necessity for such government aid is the im- 

 portance of securing disinterested experts to 

 prosecute the work, that the investigations and 

 experiments may be conducted in a scientific 

 manner. Such experiments relate to the test- 

 ing of the strength of fibrous substances, the 

 testing of new machines or new chemical pro- 

 cesses for their preparation, and the cultivation 

 of fiber plants when necessary to demonstrate 

 their precise economic value. 



In the United States 15 commercial fibers are 

 recognized, only four of which are produced to 

 any extent within our borders : cotton, hemp, 

 palmetto and Spanish moss. The commercial 

 forms not grown, but which might be produced 

 in this country, are flax, jute, sisal hemp. New 

 Zealand flax, cocoanut and possibly sunn hemp. 



There are many other forms of plants, some 

 of them classed as American weeds, which pro- 

 duce fibers known as jute or hemp substitutes, 

 that it will not pay to cultivate while the stand- 

 ard fibers hold the market. These are chiefly 

 bast fiber plants. 



The flax industry is being reestablished in 

 this country, on the lines of an ' American jsrac- 

 tice ' laid down by the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, and gratifying progress has already been 

 made in the new industry. Sisal hemp and 

 some alleged forms of structural fiber plants will 

 thrive in southern Florida. Ramie culture and 

 the spinning and manufacture of the fiber are 



