Apkil 1, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



551 



dent an account of primitive child life. The 

 author states in her preface that she was aided 

 in the preparation of her material by the late 

 Professor J. W. Powell, by Fred. J. V. Skiff, 

 of the Field Columbian Museum, and by Pro- 

 fessor Dewey, of the Chicago University; 

 other less prominent names are mentioned as 

 collaborators. 



Perhaps the most glaring errors that the 

 author has included in her work are certain 

 of the pictures; these are signed by Howard 

 V. Brown. 



On page 67 is a sketch of a dinosaur, evi- 

 dently intended for the Ceratosaurus of 

 Marsh, an Upper Jurassic form, chasing a 

 beast that is described as a ' five-toed horse '■; 

 accompanying this figure is the following 

 text: 



Long, long before the tree-dwellers lived there 

 were wild horses. 



Tliey were tiny little creatures. 



Perhaps you would not think that they were 

 horses at all. 



They were no larger than a fox. 



They had stripes like a zebra. 



Thej' had five toes on each foot. 



They lived on the marshes and on the dry land. 



The land at that time was almost covered with 

 water. 



The water was filled with fish and reptiles. 



Great reptiles crawled about everywhere. 



They were masters of the sea and the dry land. 



All the creatures feared them, the wild horses 

 tried to keep out of their reach. 



The foot of the little horse was not shaped for 

 running, but it was fitted for climbing trees. 



When a reptile appeared the horses cHinied the 

 trees. (Italics mine.) 



They stayed in the trees till the danger was 

 passed. 



Then they came down to their pastures again. 



Again, on page 62 I find a picture of a 

 man in a tree watching a herd of the same 

 horses ( ?) that were pursued by the Jurassic 

 dinosaur ! This makes man contemporaneous 

 with the dinosaur, although it is not so stated 

 in the text. 



This book is filled with just such mistakes 

 throughout, notably a figure of a saber-tooth 

 tiger in fierce combat with a hairy mammoth. 



That such a book is taken seriously by cer- 

 tain people is shown by the fact that it has 



been placed in the library of at least one nor- 

 mal school as supplementary reading for stu- 

 dents in the kindergarten course, girls who 

 are preparing themselves to teach nature study 

 to infants. 



Certainly if such things as anthropology 

 and vertebrate paleontology are to be forced 

 on the four-year-old child the perpetrators 

 should see that it is correct. 



We are promised four other volumes by the 

 same author from the same press ! Certainly 

 it is time to call a halt. E. 0. Case. 



State Normal School, 

 Milwaukee, Wis. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 



AN ACCOUNT OF SOME EXPERIMENTS IN REARING 

 WILD FINCHES BY FOSTER-PARENT BIRDS. 



During the spring of 1901, having some 

 twenty pairs of canary birds mated, I at- 

 tempted to induce them, in two cases, to in- 

 cubate the eggs and rear the young of wild 

 fringilline birds. These experiments led me 

 to continue similar efforts during each suc- 

 ceeding spring, and I propose to summarize 

 the results of what occurred in this way, in 

 1901, 1902 and 1903. 



In May, 1901, I secured a set of song spar- 

 row's eggs (Melospiza cinerea melodia). 

 There were four eggs in the nest and incuba- 

 tion had just started. I brought the eggs, 

 together with the nest, to my laboratory, and 

 took away from a very tame hen canary bird 

 four eggs which were in her nest, substituting 

 the song sparrow's eggs. I watched the hen 

 canary for a short time to assure myself that 

 my actions had not prejudiced the end I had 

 in view, and was presently delighted to see 

 her return to the nest and settle herself to 

 brood the eggs as if they were her own. In 

 due time, after about eight days, all of the 

 eggs were hatched, and four lusty young song 

 sparrows became the foster-children of the 

 canarj^ This bird was an especially good 

 parent, as I had proved, by her rearing with 

 success three broods of canary birds during 

 the preceding season of 1901, the whole of the 

 young aggregating thirteen birds, all of which 

 reached maturity, and were strong vigorous 

 examples of their kind. This hen canary 



