OCTOBEB 4, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



4-19 



founded on careful investigation. In his valu- 

 able paper of April, 1907, " An Ornithological 

 Cross Section of Illinois in Autumn," the 

 account of a trans-state survey in which 4,804 

 birds were counted, it is stated that the num- 

 ber of birds per square mile of woods was 

 785, and in pastures 1,551. While a mere 

 coincidence, yet it is of interest that these 

 figures bear the same relation to each other 

 as do the numbers of the principal food ele- 

 ments. 



Another point of interest in connection 

 with the close investigation of the surface 

 fauna relates to dead insects. Insects number 

 so many, that even if we admit, as we do in 

 the case of other animals, the death of each is 

 a tragedy, it stands to reason that this tragedy 

 can not in every case be enacted by captor 

 and prey. Many must die of other causes and 

 simply fall to the ground. Wlaat becomes of 

 them? Some are eaten by sarcophagous in- 

 sects, but are any to be found? The question 

 was raised in the writer's mind by the find- 

 ing of some suspiciously old and apparently 

 weathered fragments of insects in bird 

 stomachs (segments of Millipeds in the 

 mourning dove, a practically entirely vege- 

 tarian species, and of adult June bugs in 

 winter stomachs of some other birds). Were 

 not these possibly picked iip as fragments ? It 

 is now the writer's opinion that this is more 

 than possible. 



At any rate there is no lack of dead insects 

 to be picked up by any bird desiring them. 

 On the plot of forest floor were found nine 

 dead invertebrates entire, and the fragmentary 

 remains of 36. Fewer of such remains were 

 found in the meadow, perhaps because the 

 multitude of ants disposed of a large propor- 

 tion of them. But even here there were 8 

 intact bodies and 14 broken. On the basis of, 

 these figures there are tangible remains of 

 240,030 departed insects on each acre of 

 meadow and 488,925 on each acre of woods. 

 Of both the living and the dead there are a 

 host, but the dead of ages reduced to dust are 

 insignificant beside the living of a single 

 season. 



W. L. McAtee 



QUOTATIONS 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 



To one very important condition of success 

 both advocates and opponents of la petite cul- 

 ture in England pay, we suspect, too little 

 regard — namely, the improvement of agricul- 

 tural education, for the heads as well as for 

 the rank and file of the industry. In too 

 many of our country districts it is hardly yet 

 realized that education is necessary at all. 

 Landowner and tenant-farmer are alike dis- 

 posed to lay blame for the rural exodus on 

 such education as is given to the laboring 

 classes — an education which, it may be ad- 

 mitted, has not always been best adapted to fit 

 them for a country life and pursuits. But they 

 forget that education is, after all, but an inci- 

 dent of the great social and economic changes 

 that have come over English life in the past 

 half century; and that, if all our elementary 

 schools could be restricted to-morrow to teach- 

 ing " the three R's " and all boys sent out to 

 farm work at ten or eleven years of age, there 

 would still remain the daily newspaper, the 

 bicycle, and the excursion train to give the 

 laborer that wide outlook and " progressive 

 desire " which is what really draws him away 

 from the land. So far from there being, as 

 Squire Oldaere and Farmer Hodge are apt to 

 think, too much education already, what is 

 needed is much more of it, but of a different 

 kind; education in the elementary school that 

 will bear directly on country life and inspire 

 some taste for it; education continued after- 

 wards in evening schools or technical instruc- 

 tion classes to widen the knowledge and sharp- 

 en the wits of those who are to cultivate the 

 soil, and to instil into them at least the be- 

 ginnings of scientific method. The day of 

 rule-of-thumb is over, in agricultural as in 

 other industries; the day of science — that is, 

 of trained and organized knowledge — has be- 

 gun, and the nation or class that despises it 

 must fall behind. It is not undue treatment 

 in freight charges, or unpatriotic preference 

 for foreign goods, that enables the small Dan- 

 ish butter-farmer, for instance, to undersell 

 the Englishman on his own markets, but su- 

 perior education and scientific method applied 



