558 
SECRETARY WILSON, of the Agricultural De- 
partment, will, in his annual report, ask Con- 
gress to make an increase in the appropriation 
for the Bureau of Animal Industry, the Farm- 
ers’ Bulletins and the Weather Bureau. 
PROFESSOR WIESNER, of Vienna, has under- 
taken during the past summer, says Nature, a 
journey to Spitsbergen to complete his observa- 
tions, previously made in the Tropics, as to the 
effect of light and other external conditions on 
the growth of plants. 
THE members of the Stanford University 
party who have been engaged in branding seals 
by electricity on Pribyloff Islands have, as we 
learn from the daily press, arrived at Palo Alto. 
They claim that the experiment was successful. 
Besides the work of taking the seal census and 
building a fence enclosing the salt lagoon to 
prevent the redriving of bachelor seals, a num- 
ber of bird skins, skeletons, insects and marine 
invertebrates were collected. The party con- 
sisted of Messrs. Greely, ’98; Snodgrass, ’99; 
Edwards, 1900; Bristow and Adams, 1900, and 
Instructor Farmer. 
We learn from the London Times that Miss 
Ormerod, of Torrington-house, St. Albans, con- 
tinues to supply the leaflet on the common 
sparrow, and that several of the largest Brit- 
ish landowners are interesting themselves in 
the endeavor to reduce the numbers of Pas- 
ser domesticus to within reasonable limits. 
Since attention was first drawn to the matter a 
few weeks ago Miss Ormerod has received ap- 
plications for the pamphlet from most unex- 
pected places—Stavanger, St. Petersburg and 
Smyrna, for example. So great is the demand 
that yet another edition of 5,000 copies has been 
printed. Miss Ormerod sends the pamphlet 
free on a receipt of a stamp for postage and 
many copies should find their way to America. 
A DESPATCH to the daily papers from Bom. 
bay states that the latest health statistics show 
that the bubonic plague is again active, haying 
crept unobserved from hamlet to hamlet until 
a wide area is affected. The newspapers assert 
that the withdrawal of the medical officers for 
service with the troops on the frontier will en- 
tail consequences more disastrous than any- 
thing happening on the frontier. 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Von. VI. No. 145. 
As we learn from Nature, the Commission du 
Musée d’Histoire Naturelle at Geneva has 
formed itself into a committee haying for its ob- 
ject the erection of a monument to the memory 
of Francois Jules Pictet de la Rive. A site for 
the monument has been granted in front of the 
museum. Old students of the eminent investi- 
gator, and all who are interested in the work 
which he accomplished, are invited to send 
subscriptions for the memorial fund to MM. 
Lombard, Odier et Cie, Genéve. 
THE Icelandic Parliament has voted a subsidy 
for the laying of a cable from Scotland to Ice- 
land by way of Faroe Islands. The Great 
Northern Telegraph Company will lay the 
cable during the early summer next year. 
A REFUGEE hut on the Zugspite, the highest 
mountain in Germany (10,000 feet), near Gar- 
misch, in the center of the Bavarian Highlands, 
has been opened. It stands on the Grat between 
the east and west peaks, affords accommodations 
for twenty-two guests, and has been erected at 
a cost of $10,000. 
Wirt the beginning of the next volume in 
January The American Naturalist will be pub- 
lished by Ginn & Co., Boston, New York and 
Chicago. : 
THE government of India and Lord George 
Hamilton have offered hearty congratulations 
to Sir Joseph Hooker on the occasion of 
the completion of the ‘Flora of British India,’ 
on which he has been engaged for twenty-five 
years. Sir Joseph will now undertake to com- 
plete the ‘Flora of Ceylon,’ left unfinished by 
the death of Dr. Trimen. 
WE have received from John P. Morton & 
Son, Louisville, a guide to;the Mammoth Cave, 
of Kentucky, by Horace C. Hovey and R, Ells- 
worth Call. Both of the authors have for years 
been familiar with the Mammoth Cave and have 
published works on American caverns. It isa 
great advantage to have a guide book by men 
of science, written with accuracy and without 
exaggeration. Visitors to the cave using this 
book will learn much of its geology and natural 
history, and it will also prove useful to those who 
are studying the scientific problems involved. 
THE three leading articles of the October 
Monist deal with questions of eyolution. The 
