870 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 574. 



personal judgment. Whatever language is 

 chosen, it will be in any case the most im- 

 portant step mankind has taken since the in- 

 vention of printing, for its future unification 

 and for the saving of an enormous amount of 

 hitherto wasted energy. 



In the discussion which followed Professor 

 Maurice Bloomfield> of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, pointed out that the history of the 

 second half of the nineteenth century in 

 Europe was largely a history of re-nationaliza- 

 tion. United Italy and Germany, Hungary 

 and Bohemia are cases in point. Every 

 minute and subjected people in southwestern 

 Europe is engaged in furbishing up anew its 

 national character. Each of them insists upon 

 its own language as the chief sign of its indi- 

 viduality. Under these circumstances the 

 hope that any one of the existing languages 

 may become universal vanishes into thin air. 

 The possibility of an artificial universal lan- 

 guage comes to the fore, and the experiment 

 deserves the most cordial support of all 

 enlightened men. Nevertheless, Professor 

 Bloomfield could not refrain from pointing 

 out how much there is in language of organic 

 growth, of mixed expression, which can not 

 be produced artificially — chains of related and 

 mixed words like ' hurry,' ' flurry,' ' scurry,' 

 like 



hurry bustle 

 \ / 



hustle 



rustle 



rush 



showing some of the mixed expressions which 

 arise in speech through the subconscious crea- 

 tion of the individual and through the sub- 

 conscious adoption of that creation by the 

 masses. Simple idiomatic expressions like 

 ' three years ago '■ — ' H y a trois ans,' ' vor drei 

 Jahren ' — illustrate how difficult it is to find 

 common ground for even the most common- 

 place expression. Continuous issue of new 

 words from a bureau of fabrication would 

 exercise an incessant strain upon even the 

 most willing disciples of an artificial language. 

 Professor Bloomfield was followed by Pro- 

 fessor Mitchell Carroll, of the George Wash- 

 ington University, who spoke briefly in favor 

 of Esperanto. 



THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OP WASHINGTON. 



The 405th regular meeting of the Biological 

 Society was held on November 11, 1905, with 

 Vice-President Hay in the chair and 36 per- 

 sons present. Under brief notes and exhibi- 

 tion of specimens, Dr. B. W. Evermann said 

 that while collecting yellow fever mosquitoes 

 in Santo Domingo, Mr. August Busck had 

 incidentally collected six specimens of fish, 

 including four species, three of which proved 

 to be new. Mr. W. H. Osgood exhibited an 

 almost perfect molar tooth of a mastodon from 

 Dawson, Yukon Territory, Canada. He stated 

 that while mastodon remains had been found 

 over a great part of the United States, the 

 northernmost record up to the present time had 

 been from near Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba. The 

 tooth had been compared with specimens in 

 the National Museum and found to agree with 

 those of typical mastodons. Mr. W. L. Hahn 

 showed a photograph of a red maple branch 

 that had taken root in the ground and pro- 

 ceeded to grow. He also reported a specimen 

 of the little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus, in 

 the U. S. National Museum collection from 

 Kamchatka, the previously most western rec- 

 ord being from Kadiak Island, Alaska. The 

 specimen was collected by Dr. W. H. Dall 

 and proves to be typical lucifugus. Dr. C. W. 

 Stiles reported that he had recently had sent 

 to him for determination specimens of rat- 

 tailed larvae (Aristilia) alleged to have been 

 passed by human patients. A case of pseudo- 

 parasitism of this form is reported by Brera 

 in 1809, and Dr. Stiles has recently examined 

 specimens from two or three such cases in the 

 United States. These specimens were also 

 examined by Dr. L. O. Howard. Dr. Theodore 

 Gill spoke of the wolf fishes of the genus 

 Anarrhichas, of their distribution in the At- 

 lantic and of their relationship. He finds 

 that the species donticalatis and latifrons are 

 generically distinct from the rest of the group. 

 Mr. Walter H. Evans spoke of the introduc- 

 tion of minnows into the tero and rice ponds 

 of Honolulu for the purpose of destroying the 

 larvae of the yellow fever mosquitoes. Dr. B. 

 W. Evermann added that between 450 and 500 

 of these minnows, Fundulus and MolUenesia, 

 transferred by Mr. Scale from Galveston, 



