Apeil 18, 1902 ] 



SCIENCE. 



627 



Mr. C. C. Trowbridge presented tlie results 

 of systematic observations on the effect of the 

 wind on the migration of hawks and many 

 other birds along the Atlantic coast. The 

 principal points of the paper were illustrated 

 by means of diagrams giving the directions 

 taken by the migrating birds under the in- 

 fluence of different winds. It was shown that 

 a knowledge of meteorology was necessary in 

 considering this subject, because the effective 

 winds depend on storm centers traveling 

 eastward. In one case, in the height of the 

 southward migration, a storm center off the 

 coast of Maine caused northerly winds 

 throughout 800,000 square miles in the east- 

 ern part of the United States and Canada, 

 the velocity of the wind area averaging 

 twenty miles per hour. A former paper on 

 the subject was briefly reviewed, in which the 

 author showed that flights of hawks and other 

 land birds during the migrations were due 

 to the crowding of the birds in a narrow coast- 

 line path by the wind. The recent observa- 

 tions now warrant the conclusion that hawks 

 and many other birds regularly, depend on a 

 favorable wind as a help in their migratory 

 movements, and, as a rule, migrate only when 

 favorable winds occur. A brief account was 

 given also of a retrograde movement of mi- 

 grating swallows in the spring, evidently due 

 to a return flight of the birds after they had 

 been blown far out of their course by a 

 strong wind from the west. 



Henry E. Crampton, 



Secretary. 



SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 



A MEETING was held on March 28, Professor 

 Farrand in the chair. The present sectional 

 ofiicers were reelected for the ensuing year. 



Dr. Clark Wissler reported on the growth of 

 boys. The amiual physical measurements of 

 some three hundred schoolboys were corre- 

 lated to discover tendencies and directions of 

 growth. It appeared from the data that 

 growth was rather uniform, as for example, 

 when a boy's legs were gi'owing rapidly his 

 arms were also growing at a corresponding 

 rate. By correlating the stature with its 

 increment for the following year it was 



seen that the sign of correlation changes 

 when the pubertial maximum of growth is 

 crossed. This means that boys who are 

 growing rapidly at twelve, for example, con- 

 tinue to grow rapidly until fourteen or 

 fifteen, when they slow down, while those 

 growing slowly before this period now grow 

 rapidly. Thus it appears that the point of 

 pubertial maximum rate of growth, as de- 

 termined by mass measurements, is really the 

 point dividing the boys who mature early 

 from those who mature late. The relation is 

 yet more in evidence when the annual incre- 

 ments are correlated without regarding the 

 absolute measurements. The results as a 

 whole seem to show that the rate of growth in 

 any particular year is of no special signifi- 

 cance except as an index of the relative ma- 

 turity of the individuals concerned. 



Mr. W. S. Kahnweiler reported on a trip 

 that he made last summer through French 

 Indo-China to the Angkor Wat. His paper 

 was illustrated with lantern views of the trip, 

 and of the architecture and sculpture of the 

 ancient temple. The history of the temple 

 was briefly outlined. 



R. S. Wood WORTH, 



Secretary. 



TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 



At the meeting of the Club on March 11, 

 1902, the first pape^, by Edward S. Burgess, 

 was on 'Plant Illustration in the Middle 

 Ages,' being a portion of a contribution to 

 the history of early botany soon to be printed 

 among his 'Aster Studies.' The paper was 

 illustrated by examples from his library, of 

 early woodcuts intended to represent Aster, 

 dated 1485, 1499, etc. (long anterior to the 

 first adequate drawing of Aster, that of Fuchs 

 in 1542) ; also examples of the value once put 

 upon the vellum used for manuscripts, show- 

 ing an Italian manuscript dating perhaps 

 from before 1200, in which torn vellum had 

 been carefully mended before writing. He 

 also exliibited a series of heliotypes represent- 

 ing about twenty-five pages of unpublished 

 mediaeval manuscript containing drawings of 

 plants, and nearly as many pages more of 

 decorated test, photographed by Professor 



