Sbpiembee 28, 1900. ] 



SCIENCE. 



495 



idea that the very impediments of reversal in di- 

 rection, the contradictions of alternations might 

 be transformed into power producing rotations, 

 a whirling field of force. What others looked 

 upon as only invincible barriers, impassable 

 currents and contradictory forces, he seized, and 

 by harmonizing their directions utilized in prac- 

 tical motors in distant cities the power of 

 Niagara." 



Peofessoe B. Eat Lankestee communicates 

 to Nature a letter from Captain Hind remarking 

 that " It is a curious fact that a bird which is 

 so valuable as Buphaga in clearing parasitic in- 

 sects from cattle that we lately agreed to give 

 it special protection at the International Con- 

 ference on the Preservation of African Wild 

 Animals, should now, by a sudden change of 

 conditions induced by man, become a dangerous 

 and noxious creature. This fact shows how 

 difficult is the problem presented by the rela- 

 tions of civilized man to a fauna and flora new 

 to his influence." The letter is as follows : 

 ' ' The common rhinoceros-bird {Buphaga eryth- 

 roepyncha) here formerly fed on ticks and other 

 parasites which infest game and domestic ani- 

 mals ; occasionally, if an animal had a sore, the 

 birds would probe the sore to such an extent 

 that it sometimes killed the animal. Since the 

 cattle plague destroyed the immense herds in 

 Ukambani, and nearly all the sheep and goats 

 were eaten during the late famine, the birds, 

 deprived of their food, have become carnivorous 

 and now any domestic animal not constantly 

 watched is killed by them. Perfectly healthy 

 animals have their ears eaten down to the bone, 

 holes torn in their backs and in the femoral reg- 

 ions. Native boys amuse themselves sometimes 

 by shooting the birds on the cattle with arrows, 

 the points of which are passed through a piece 

 of wood or ivory for about half an inch, so if 

 the animal is struck instead of the bird no harm 

 is done. The few thus killed do not seem in 

 any way to affect the numbers of these pests. 

 On my own animals, when a hole has been dug, 

 I put in iodoform powder, and that particular 

 wound is generally avoided by the birds after- 

 wards ; but if the birds attack it again, they 

 become almost immediately comatose and can 

 be destroyed. This remedy is expensive and 

 not very effective. Is there any other drug 



you could suggest that would be less likely to 

 be detected? Perhaps you know that I re- 

 ported three years ago that these birds rendered 

 isolation under the cattle plague regulations 

 useless in some districts, as I proved beyond 

 doubt they were the only means of communica- 

 tion between clean and infected herds under 

 supervision, a mile or two apart. These birds 

 I have never seen on the great herds of game 

 on the open plains, but I have seen them on 

 antelope and rhinoceros in the immediate 

 neighborhood of Masai villages and herds of 

 cattle ; on the other hand, I have never seen 

 the small egret on cattle, though often on 

 rhinoceros and gnii." 



The work done at the Pasteur Institute in 

 Paris, so far as regards the treatment of rabies, 

 is set forth in the last issue of the Annales de 

 I'Institut, which is abstracted in the London 

 Times. It appears that 1614 persons were in- 

 oculated, of whom 1506 were French, 74 Eng- 

 lish and Indian, 15 Belgian, seven Swiss, four 

 Greeks, three Spanish, two each Dutch and 

 Turks, and one from Morocco. Of the 1614 

 under treatment, 188 were bitten on the head 

 or face, 965 on the hands and 464 on other 

 parts of the body ; while the number of deaths, 

 excluding six which occurred before the treat- 

 ment was completed, did not exceed four. The 

 full return of the treatment since Pasteur com- 

 menced it is as under : 



It must be pointed out that since the Pasteur 

 Institute was started in Paris several others 

 have been opened in different European coun- 

 tries, so that it is not surprising to find that the 



