344 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XX. Na 515 



was that one of these songs was almost invariably repeated until 

 he himself became tii'ed of it before he changed to another. 



The difficulty of expressing a bird's notes by words is well 

 known, but the following attempt may give some idea of the dif- 

 ferent songs of my cardinal : — 



I. Hoit, — 'whoit,w}wit, whoit (eleven times); hoit, — whoit, tohoit, 

 wJwit (eleven times). 



II. WAeii, wheii, loheil, wTieu,, toheii. 



III. Tchew, Lcliew, tchew, tcheio, tchew. 



IV. Bird'ie, hird'ie, Hrd'ie, — tcheio, teliew, tcheic, tchew. 

 v. Bird'ie, — Tnrd'ie, hird'ie, hird'ie, Urd'ie, hird'ie. 



VI. Whoy'it, — whoy'it, whoy'et, whoy'et, chichichichichichi (a 

 jingling trill, so long continued that it apparently ended only when 

 the singer became " out of breath "). 



The notes of many cardinal gi-osbeaks are clear and tender — 

 far sweeter than the mellowest notes of fife or flageolet. 



One of my most welcome bird-guests last summer was a summer 

 tanager, whose favorite singing station was the summit of a tall 

 scrub pine-tree in a corner of my yard. All day long, from May 

 till August, no matter how hot the sun, he sang, robin-like, this 

 song: Ter-whit'-ter-way, — BB,mG him HERE; ter-iMt' -ter-way , — 

 Bring him HERE (repeated incessantly, with very strong em- 

 phasis and rising inflection on the ' ' here "). Another male of the 

 same species, whose nest was in a neighboring pine grove, an- 

 swered thus: BKINQ-Aim-HERE, chip' -way, BEiNG-/i.wft-HERE, 

 BEiNa-A«;«-HERE. 



This beautiful tanager and the red-eyed virio are midsummer 

 and midday songsters. Perhaps it is because they are representa- 

 tives of tropical families that they do not mind the intense heat of 

 the dog-days, but sing cheerily, the former from the tip-top of 

 some tree taller than those about il, his glowing red plumage 

 receiving, it may be, increased refulgence from the burning rays 

 of the sun, the latter, of modest olive-green and whitish garb, as 

 he busily gleans his insect food among the shady leafage of the 

 forest trees. 



The subject of midday songsters brings me again to John Bur- 

 roughs, who, always charming and usually accurate in his de- 

 scriptions of bird-life, sometimes (like the rest of us) makes mis- 

 takes. The bird involved is the grass finch, for which he prefers 

 the name vesper sparrow (since adopted by the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union), and all he says of it is true and eminently 

 characteristic except the statement that " his song is most noticea- 

 ble after sundown, when other birds are silent," — which does not 

 accord with my own experience in midland Virginia, where, in 

 extensive fields of a large farm, numbers were heard singing 

 sweetly through the hottest part of the hottest day of a hot sum- 

 mer, — the time being about 1 o'clock p.m., the date July 4, 1887, 

 and the temperature 103° in the shade 1 



But the habits of birds do vary, and one day's observations, in 

 the same locality, may quite contradict those of a previous occa- 

 sion ; therefore, only repeated observations, under varying cir- 

 cumstances of time and place, can give us an approximately cor- 

 rect knowledge of the habits of any species. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



**» CarresponAenU are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



On request in advance, one hundred copies of the number containing his 

 communication will be furnished free to any correspondent. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the eharactir 

 of the journal. 



How are Young Spiders Fed ? 



In my rambles for botanical specimens in the last three years, 

 many new and curious things have been thrust upon my atten- 

 tion in the insect world, and these I have recorded for future 

 use. One fact in particular struck my attention, and I herewith 

 submit it to the readers of Science, partly to record the fact, and 

 partly to ask if any other readers of your excellent periodical 

 liave ever observed a similar fact. 



We have been taught by the best works on spiders that the 

 young of spiders derive their food mostly from the atmosphere. 

 The " Encyclopedia Britannica " confirms this view. 



On the 19th day of June, 1891, I discovered, in a ploughed 



field, an enormous spider of the Lyeosidce species, which was 1^ 

 inches long. She presented a very curious appearance, being 

 covered with scores of tiny spiders from one end of her body to 

 the other. When I touched her with a weed stem the young 

 spiders scampered off at a lively rate, only to return when left to 

 themselves. The spinnarets and abdomen of the mother-spider 

 were greatly distended. Suddenly, there was a copious flow of 

 white liquid which the young greedily devoured. Examining 

 the fluid under my microscope, I was fully convinced that this 

 was veritable milk, and that this spider, at least, nursed her 

 young, instead of bringing them up on atmospheric moisture. I 

 should be glad to know if any readers of Science have ever ob- 

 served a similar occurrence. John W. Sanborn. 

 Naples, K.T. 



Palaeolithic Man : A Last Word. 



The world was growing old apace, just as it is now, when 

 Man first entered upon the scene here in the valley of the Dela- 

 ware. Over the hills and along every lowland water-course 

 forests grew, died, fell, and decayed, helping to make that deep 

 deposit of soil which now covers the gravel and sand that agencies 

 no longer active had spread over the surface of the land. Just 

 what was the outlook that presented itself when the first Man or 

 Men looked about them, we can only conjecture. Mr. McGee 

 claims that the evidence favors the view that the soil had formed, 

 the forests were old, pines had succeeded oaks, and oaks suc- 

 ceeded pines, and the elk, deer, and bear were the chief sources 

 of food-supply to the wandering hunter that, reaching out from 

 his native land, came, saw, and conquered the valley of the 

 Delaware. But is this true ? Has he or has any one so carefully 

 studied the soil-making period that all doubt is dissipated and 

 shown that the Indian of historic time can only trace his ancestry 

 back to so recent a time as when the brute creation that still lin- 

 gers on our frontiers was its sole occupant ? If the reader, 

 curious in such matters, will look into the literature of this sub- 

 ject, he will find that the evidence has been produced time and 

 again to show that with the very commencement of this soil- 

 making period, are so intimately associated abundant traces of 

 a tool-making creature — a man — and in such a manner asso- 

 ciated, that the suggestion that all such objects of human origin 

 are "intrusive," has no real weight. 



Sections of undisturbed soil, sand, and gravel are not difiicult 

 to make and when we find that as a result of a large series of 

 such, we have a uniform result, we are bound, if reasonable men, 

 to accept such as the truth. Now this has been done, as I have 

 said, and the fact obtained that relics of man of a very rude char- 

 acter underlie those of a more elaborate one. In an earlier pub- 

 lication I have ventured to call the former " fossil Implements " 

 and the later ones "Indian relics;" although, of course, they 

 were all made, I believe, by the same people, but at different 

 times. The apparent contradiction that rude and elaborate alike 

 are found on the disturbed surface has no bearing upon the ques- 

 tion. What the plow or spade has displaced has no longer an 

 archaeological significance, save as to its import as a tool or 

 weapon of a particular character. A stone axe is an axe wherever 

 and however found, but if it has been tossed about the fields or 

 washed by a freshet from its original resting-place, what more 

 can we say than that it is an axe? On the other hand, if in 

 a section through the soil and underlying sand we find rude 

 argillite implements and the very rudest pottery, and above them, 

 wholly in the soil, axes, celts, pipes, and pottery of more artistic 

 finish ; find this not once, but always ; then we have the right to, 

 indeed cannot honestly do otherwise, assert that the deeper, 

 sand-encompassed objects antedate those which occur only in 

 the over-lying soil. This holds good in archaeological research 

 in any part of the world, and is just as true as that in building a 

 city to-day, we are building upon the ruins of an Indian village, 

 or at least on ground where once the Indian passed and re-passed, 

 even if be did not tarry long. 



But can we go back a step farther ? If we can do so elsewhere 

 on the globe, I hold that it is warranted to do so here and for the 

 same reasons. The geologists to effectively prevent this must 

 show that the earth previously was uninhabitable; that the phy- 



