228 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No. 429 



short winter day, upon 300 or 400 acres of wheat and beet 

 fields within half an hour's drive of Frankfort, from 400 to 

 500 hares. As they average in winter about eight pounds in 

 weight, the result of such a day's shooting would be nearly 

 or quite two tons of game, — a quantity which it would be, 

 of course, impossible to dispose of otherwise than by sale. 

 Game killed in such quantities must either be sold or 

 wasted : and in this country, where waste is considered sin- 

 ful, the hares or deer or partridges, as the case may be, are 

 turned over to the game-dealer, who during the season loads 

 daily a special car for the Paris market. The game-dealer 

 pays from fifty to seventy-five cents each for hares in Ger- 

 many: they retail for from five to seven francs in Paris 

 The French capital pays yearly millions of francs for game 

 brought from beyond the Rhine. By the sale of his game, 

 the lessee of shooting-grounds recoups, more Or less fully, 

 his expenditures for rent and keepers, and the money goes 

 finally to the peasant or landed proprietor upon whose 

 premises it was grown. From the beginning of the hunting 

 season until the end of December, 1890, there have been 

 killed in Prussia alone, according to official statistics, 2,500,- 

 000 hares, which, at 2.50 marks each, the usual wholesale 

 price, represent an income of 6,250,000 marks, or nearly 

 $1,500,000. 



The invitations which are exchanged between sportsmen 

 to make up the number of guns requisite for a drive-hunt 

 constitute an important form of social courtesy in Germany. 

 The entertainment always includes a mid-day breakfast, more 

 or less luxuriantly served at the tavern in the nearest village 

 or upon tables spread in the woods by servants, who bring 

 warm dishes, wines, etc., from the home of the host in the 

 city. 



Such, in substance, is the German system. Could it be 

 introduced successfully and profitably in the United States, 

 and, it so, would such introduction prove desirable ? Com- 

 petent judges who have given the subject careful thought 

 answer both these questions in the affirmative, and say that 

 the game-laws of several Northern and Eastern States are 

 already adequate to render the raising of game in the woods 

 and fields of ordinary farms sufficiently secure to insure a 

 successful result. A system which would add an additional 

 crop to the farmer's fields and forests, and thereby increase 

 substantially his cash income from his land, would certainly 

 not lack support from the agricultural majority which con- 

 trols most State legislatures. 



There are, of course, many questions of detail which such 

 an experiment would involve, and into which it is impossi- 

 ble at present to enter; but, after all that has been so suc- 

 cessfully done in our country to restock the inland lakes 

 and streams with Bsh, there ought to be some way of restor- 

 ing in a measure the game birds and animals which were 

 formerly so abundant, anc which have become, through 

 indiscriminate shooting, so rare to the sportsmen, so costly 

 in our markets. This can only be done by making game- 

 preservation easy, inexpensive, and withal profitable to 

 owners of the land. The German system has made game 

 abundant throughout the empire, and yields an important 

 income to the class which is in most need of it. 



The exp3riment in America would need to be systematic, 

 but not necessarily expensive. A dozen pairs of partridges, 

 pheasants, and hares, imported from Germany or Austria, 

 turned loose on almost any American farm, and protected 

 from molestation three or four years, would multiply so that 

 they would thei-eal'ter hold their own against any reasonable 

 and sportsman-like pursuit. The larger the territory in- 



cluded in such experiment, the more certain would be its 

 success. There is the disastrous expei-ience of Australia 

 with the English rabbit, which might make some American 

 farmers timid about introducing the hare; but it must be re- 

 membered that the European hare is a very different animal 

 from the rabbit of either Australia or America. Besides be- 

 ing far less destructive and prolific than the rabbit, the hare 

 does not burrow, and being, therefore, always above ground 

 and accessible, its numbers can be easily kept within safe 

 and reasonable limits. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



On Thursday, May 21, the second annual banquet is to be 

 given at the Mercantile Club, St. Louis, in honor of Henry Shaw, 

 the founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Shaw 

 School of Botany. 



— Dr G. Baur will leave, May 1, for the Galapagos Islands, to 

 be absent for six months. He intends to make the most careful 

 examination of the fauna and flora of every island. 



— At the annual commencement of the Jeflferson Medical Col- 

 lege, Philadelpliia, on April 15, the honorary degree of doctor of 

 laws was conferred on Dr, Daniel G. Brinton, in recognition of 

 the merit of his researches in anthropology and ethnology, 



— An international agricultural congress, says Nature, will be 

 held at the Hague in September next, from the 7th to the 12th. 

 A commission will be appointed at the Hague to arrange for the 

 reception of the members. 



— Dr, E D. Warfield, at present the president of Miami Uni- 

 versity, has accepted the position of president of Lafayette College 

 at Easton, Penn. Dr. Warfield, who is but thirty-two years old, 

 graduated with high honors from Princeton in 1883, and afterward 

 from Oxford University, England. 



— A meeting of the New York members of the American 

 branch of the English Society for Psychical Research wQl be held, 

 April 24 at 8 p.m , in Room 15, Hamilton Hall, Columbia College. 

 Dr. Richard Hodgson, secretary of the American branch, will 

 read " Narratives received by the Secretary." AH persons inter- 

 ested are invited to attend. 



— Bulletin No. 9 of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the 

 Rhode Island State Agricultural School. Kingston, Washington 

 County, R.I., is devoted to a record of experiments in apiculture, 

 including the following subjects: " Artificial Eleat for promoting 

 Brood-Kearing ; " ''Hive on-Scale.s, and Sources of Honey;" 

 "Carniolan Bees;" "Foul Brood, its Cause, Prevention, and 

 Cure." Samuel Cushman is the apiarist of the station. 



— According to a telegram sent through Dalziel's Agency, a 

 magnificent grotto has been discovered near A jaccio. As described 

 in Nature, it is entered with difficulty, owing to the smallness of 

 the aperture; but upon his entrance, the explorer finds himself in a 

 vast and lofty hall, the sides of which are some twenty-five yards 

 in height. From' this there are several passages leading to an in- 

 definite number of other chambers, A thorough investigation of 

 the grotto has not yet been made. 



— Dr. Jordan, president of Stanford University, at Palo Alto, 

 Cal., has completed arrangements for the appointments to the 

 faculty of the university, and has made the following selections 

 public: Dr. Andrew D. White, ex president of Cornell University, 

 to be the non-resident professor of history; E. Stanford of Lake 

 Forest University, to be the associate professor in physics; 

 Horace B. Gale of Washington University, St. Louis to be pro- 

 fessor of mechanical engineering ; Professor Joseph Swain of In- 

 diana University, to be the associate professor of mathematics; 

 Douglass H. Campbell of Indiana University, to be the associate 

 professor in botany. 



— The following are some results of a study of 197 thunder- 

 storms m Russia in 1888, with reference to their speed of travel, 

 as given in Nature of April 3. The author (Herr Schonrock) ob- 

 tained as mean velocity about 38,5 miles an hour, with variation 



