January 14, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



65 



ical College, died on January 3, aged fifty-nine 

 years. 



Dr. Joseph J. O'Connbll, health officer of 

 the port of 'New York, lecturer on hygiene in 

 the New York University and lecturer on 

 public health in the Long Island College Hos- 

 pital, died on January 1, at the age of forty- 

 nine years. 



Dr. W. a. Borger, assistant director of the 

 Pasteur Institute and vaccination service in 

 Java, has died, aged forty years. He suc- 

 cumbed to laboratory infection from research 

 on bubonic plague. 



The death of Dr. Jules Ville, professor of 

 medical chemistry at the Taculte de Mont- 

 pellier, is announced. 



The annual general meeting of The Amer- 

 ican Philosophical Society wiU be held on 

 April 13, 14 and 15, 1916, beginning at 2 p.m. 

 on Thursday, April 13. 



The sessions of the fourth annual meeting 

 of the New York State Forestry Association 

 will be held at Syracuse on January 21. The 

 program has been considerably broadened and 

 in addition to discussing forests as producers 

 of timber there will be considered the neces- 

 sity of the forests in controlling the run-off 

 of water, the forests as a recreation place and 

 as a home for fish and game. The Honorable 

 Gifford Pinchot and Chief Forester Graves, 

 of the U. S. Forest Service, have been invited 

 to speak. The list of speakers will include 

 also John B. Burnham, president of the New 

 York State Fish, Game and Forest League, 

 who will give an illustrated address on game 

 protection and propagation, and Dean Baker, 

 of the State College of Forestry at Syracuse, 

 who will speak on forests and the conservation 

 of water in the state. 



The directors of the Fenger Memorial Fund 

 announce that $550 have been set aside for 

 medical investigation in 1916. The money 

 will be used to pay all or part of the salary of 

 a worker, the work to be done under direction 

 in an established institution, which will fur- 

 nish the necessary facilities and supplies free 

 of cost. It is desirable that the work under- 

 taken should have a direct clinical bearing. 



Applications should be addressed to Dr. Lud- 

 vig Hektoen, 637 S. Wood St., Chicago. 



The Journal of the American Medical As- 

 sociation reports that President Wilson will 

 submit to congress a plan for a system of pub- 

 lic health hospitals to take the place of the 

 present condition of contract care of patients 

 and government hospital service. The first 

 step will be to take over the meteorological 

 research station at the summit of the Blue 

 Ridge, Mount Weather, Va., and convert it 

 into a hospital for sailors and other patients 

 from the Atlantic seaboard. Within another 

 year locations will be selected for hospitals in 

 southern California and the southeastern part 

 of the United States. 



Under date of December 8, from Rome, the 

 trustees of the Permanent Wild Life Protec- 

 tive Fund are informed by Frederic C. Wol- 

 cott that " the Italian Government has at last 

 passed a law, which goes into effect on Jan- 

 uary 1, prohibiting the shooting of all song 

 and insectivorous birds throughout Italy.'' 

 If this prohibition also includes, as it is only 

 fair to assume that it does, the netting of all 

 such birds, then Italy has indeed carried into 

 effect a great reform. The importance of this 

 action to the birds and the crops of Europe 

 is beyond computation. Hitherto the netting 

 of song birds while on their migrations has 

 been a widespread industry, and the deadly 

 roccoUo has each year slaughtered hundreds 

 of thousands of the choicest song-birds of Eu- 

 rope for food. Both in America and in Eng- 

 land this abuse has been severely denounced, 

 and an American bird protector has declared 

 that it was " a reproach to the throne of 

 Italy." The causes which brought about this 

 reform in Italy, in spite of the excitement of 

 war, are as yet unknown. 



The American Museum Journal states that 

 the large collection of prehistoric pottery col- 

 lected by Mr. Algot Lange on the island of 

 Marajo has been acquired by the American 

 Museum. Marajo Island in the mouth of the 

 Amazon River is 165 miles long by 120 wide, 

 and belongs to Brazil. A collection of some 

 two thousand pieces comes from Pacoval Is- 

 land in Lake Aray, the source of the Aray 



