June 19, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



895 



Pa., President ; Dr. Albert C. Hale, Brook- 

 lyn, ]Sr. Y., Secretary. 



The Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 

 Science will hold its meetings in tlie Library- 

 Building, August 21st and 22d. Prof. Wm. 

 R. Lazenby, Columbus, Ohio, President; F. 

 M.Webster, "Wooster, Ohio, and Herbert Os- 

 borne, Ames, Iowa, Vice-Presidents; Prof. 

 Charles S. Plumb, Lafayette, Indiana, Secre- 

 tary. 



The Association of Economic Entomologists 

 will hold its eighth annual meeting in the 

 Library Building, August 21st and 22d. C. 

 H. Fernald, Amherst, Mass., President; C. 

 L. Marlatt, Washington, D. C, Secretary. 



The Botanical Society of America will hold 

 its second annual meeting in Buffalo High 

 School, on Friday and Saturday, August 

 21st and 22d. 



The Society will be called to order by the 

 retiring President, William Trelease, of St. 

 Louis, on Friday, at 3 P. M. The Presi- 

 dent-elect, Charles E. Bessey, of Lincoln, 

 will then take the chair. The afternoon 

 session will be devoted to business. At 8 

 P. M. the retiring President will deliver an 

 address in the High School chapel ; subject, 

 ' Botanical Opportunity.' The sessions of 

 the Society for the reading of papers will be 

 held on Saturday, at 10 A. M. and 2 P. M., 

 in room 16, High School. Prof. C. R. 

 Barnes, Madison, Wisconsin, Secretary. 



The Botanical Club of the Association will 

 meet at 9 o'clock, Tuesday morning, August 

 25th, in the rooms assigned for the use of 

 Section G (Botany) . Frederick V. Coville, 

 President; Prof. Conway MacMillan, Vice- 

 President; J. F. Cowell, Sec^y. and Treas. 



The Society for the Promotion of Engineering 

 Education will meet in the rooms of the 

 Lngineers' Society of Western New York, 

 Library Building, on Thursday, Friday and 

 Saturday, August 20th, 21st, 22d. Prof. 

 Mansfield Merriman, Lehigh "University, 

 President; Prof. C. Frank Allen, Massachu- 

 setts Institute of Technology, Treasurer. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 THE BULL-ROAEEE, OR BUZZ. 



The value of the study of games and 

 gaming implements to ethnology is well il- 

 lustrated by a monograph which is printed 

 in the last (ninth) volume of the Transac- 

 tions of the ' Verein fiir naturw. Unterhalt- 

 ung,' of Hamburg, by Prof. J. D. E. 

 Schmeltz, the genial editor of the ' Interna- 

 tional. Archiv. flir Ethnographic.' His sub- 

 ject is the familiar humming toy called by 

 our boys the buzz (German, Schwirrholz or 

 Waldteufel). Taking it up in the true 

 scientific spirit, he sets about to study the 

 various forms in which it has been made, 

 the materials selected for its construction, 

 the geographical localities in which its use 

 has been reported, and the purposes for 

 which it has been employed by various peo- 

 ples. A plate is appended showing the va- 

 rious shapes which have been devised for it 

 by different tribes. The result is that 

 which is practically invariable when we ex- 

 amine with entire thoroughness any of these 

 survivals from remote ancestral conditions: 

 " We discover that one and the same im- 

 plement was manufactiired and connected 

 with the same associations among tribes of 

 the most widely different races. Does not 

 this add another to the remarkable proofs 

 that whether men have straight or crum- 

 pled hair, white or black skins, they are 

 mentally so allied that their thoughts and 

 even their follies are over and over again 

 identically repeated ? " 



GEOGRAPHICAL MARKINGS ON NATIVE 

 UTENSILS. 



The Brazilian explorer. Dr. Karl von den 

 Steinen, calls attention in the Ethnologisches 

 Notizblatt, No. 3, to a series of figures 

 burned or scratched on the gourds used by 

 the Lenguas Indians on the Paraguay river. 

 They represent a number of circles con- 

 nected by crooked lines. Their meaning 

 would scarcely be guessed by an observer, 



