January 11, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



67 



polishing seen in them will be of some interest 

 in this connection — bearing in mind, of course, 

 that the dinosaurs exhibit such a wide range 

 of skeletal structure that it has been more than 

 once seriously proposed that they can scarcely 

 be all included in the same reptilian order. 

 Nevertheless, if the doubts recently expressed 

 by Dr. Eastman as to any possibility of infer- 

 ring stomach structure from the presence of 

 gastroliths,* find some justification, it is cer- 

 tainly a fact of singular and widening interest 

 that the dinosaurs swallowed and retained and 

 polished far more highly than seen anywhere 

 else in nature, the hardest quartz. The 

 stronger inference by far is that their stomach 

 structure was different from and more com- 

 plicated than in existing reptiles. And nat- 

 urally a stomach especially suited to grinding 

 action analogous to that of birds first calls 

 itself to mind. G. E. Wieland 



DEAFNESS IN WILD ANIMALS 



To THE Editor of Science: An interesting 

 case of deafness in wild animals came to my 

 attention this season and the conditions seem 

 so simple as to suggest that, possibly, the loss 

 of the sense of hearing or of smell may be no 

 uncommon thing. I should be glad of others' 

 notes on the subject. 



In the great semi-arid regions of the west 

 the struggle for existence is so strenuous that 

 the special senses are very highly perfected. 

 Especially is this true of the sense of hearing 

 as evidenced by the enlarged external ear in 

 many forms. The coyote (Canis ochropus) is 

 especially marked with this enlarged concha 

 and undoubtedly has, under normal conditions, 

 a very keen sense of hearing. Popular report 

 endows him also with almost supernatural 

 sense of smell. The individual of the species 

 must then labor under a decided handicap if 

 the hearing be destroyed or the sense of smell 

 even slightly impaired. The instance which 

 I cite suggests that such may be often the 

 case. 



In cleaning a pair of skulls of this spe- 

 cies which I obtained in August last, I found 

 in the case of the male that both ears were 



• Science, N. S., Vol. XXIII., p. 983, June 29, 

 1906. 



crowded full of the bearded seeds of the com- 

 mon fox-tail grass (Hordeum, murinum) which 

 is such a pestiferous weed in the southwest. 

 The seeds were packed closely into the tym- 

 panic chamber and the beards were very much 

 darkened by having remained in the ear some 

 time subjected to the exudations from the in- 

 flamed surfaces. In the same individual a 

 fully bearded seed was found in the left nos- 

 tril worked well up among the folds of the 

 turbinated bone. 



The second specimen, a female, taken at the 

 same time, had the grass seeds in both ears 

 but none in the nostrils. 



The ear bones showed no sign of necrosis, 

 though the seeds were in direct contact with 

 them. Hearing was undoubtedly destroyed 

 and, in case of the male, the sense of smell 

 must have been impaired. 



The animals were taken by strychnine poi- 

 soning with a bait of watermelon, a crop the 

 coyote injui-es extensively in the sparsely set- 

 tled regions. The specimens came to my 

 hands in the meat; they were in good flesh 

 and pelage. There was no possibility of the 

 seeds having gotten into the ears and nose 

 after death. 



The possibility of frequent occurrence of 

 the condition is suggested (1) by the fact that 

 both ears of both animals had been destroyed; 

 (2) by the great abundance and wide range 

 of the species of grass in the case; (3) by the 

 extreme penetrating power of the seed. Each 

 seed tuft is very sharp pointed and is armed 

 with three stout, serrated awns an inch long 

 which force the seed onward with great per- 

 sistence at each motion of the surface with 

 which it is in contact. 



Loye Holmes Miller 



State Normal School, 

 Los Angeles, Cal. 



interrogatory labels for certadst kinds of 



MUSEUMS 



To the Editor of Science : If teachers have 

 learned that it is wise to ' exercise much self- 

 restraint in regard to telling children what 

 they ' should ' discover for themselves,' may it 

 not be a wise policy for workers in certain 

 kinds of small museums, and in purely educa- 



