December 23, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



897 



mental images of, tbat portion of the body ; 

 aud attention, in its turn, means in most 

 cases movement of tlie part of the body at- 

 tended to. If one thinks hard of one's 

 knee, or foot, e.g., one will obtain a sur- 

 prisingly intensive and insistent mass of 

 cutaneous aud organic sensations of which 

 one was previously unconscious, or at best 

 but very dimly conscious ; while, at the 

 same time, there is an actual twitching or 

 bracing of the knee or foot, which sets up 

 new sensations. Any part of the body will 

 thus yield up its quantum of unpleasant 

 sensation, if only for some reason the at- 

 tention can be continuously held upon it, 

 to the exclusion of other topics. The ' feel- 

 ing of Must ' in the present case is no more 

 mysterious than is the ' feeling of Must ' 

 that prompts us to shift our position in a 

 chair, when the distribution of pressures 

 has become uncomfortable, or to turn our 

 better ear to the sound that we wish par- 

 ticularly to observe. 



(5) In conclusion, I may state that I 

 have tested this interpretation of the ' feel- 

 ing of being stared at,' at various times, in 

 series of laboratory experiments conducted 

 with persons who declared themselves either 

 peculiarly susceptible to the stare or pecu- 

 liarly capable of ' making people turn 

 round.' As regards such capacity and sus- 

 ceptibility, the experiments have invariably 

 given a negative result ; in other words, the 

 interpretation offered has been confirmed. 

 If the scientific reader object that this result 

 might have been foreseen, and that the ex- 

 periments were, therefore, a waste of time, 

 I can only reply that they seem to me to 

 have their justification in the breaking- 

 down of a superstition which has deep and 

 widespread roots in the popular conscious- 

 ness. No scientifically-minded psychologist 

 believes in telepathy. At the same time, 

 the disproof of it in.a given case may start 

 a student upon the straight scientific path, 

 and the time spent may thus be repaid to 



science a hundredfold. The brilliant work 

 of Lehmann and Hansen upon the tele- 

 pathic ' problem ' (Philos. Studien, 1895, 

 XI., 471) has probably done more for 

 scientific psychology than could have been 

 accomplished by any aloofness, however 

 authoritative. 



E. B TiTCHENER. 



CoENELL University. 



WHAT IS SCIUBUS VARIEGATUS EBXLEBEN? 

 While working out the synonomy of the 

 Mexican squirrels I have had occasion to 

 consult the mitch quoted Historise Ani- 

 malium Novte Hispanise of Fernandez, 

 edition of 1651. The descriptions of bii-ds 

 and mammals in this work have served as 

 the basis for many species named by suc- 

 ceeding authors whose vagueness of de- 

 scription and lack of definite information 

 concerning the geography and animal life 

 of Mexico have resulted in great confusion. 

 At the time when Fernandez made his ob- 

 servations the main area of Spanish oc- 

 cupation in Mexico was the southern end 

 of the Mexican tableland, about the valley 

 of Mexico, and thence eastward across the 

 plains of Puebla, through the Cordillera 

 (crowned by the peaks of Orizaba and Cofre 

 of Perote) to the hot lowlands of Vera Cruz. 

 For several seasons zoological explorations 

 have been conducted in this area by the 

 writer, who, as a result, has become fa- 

 miliar with the topography and resident 

 species of birds aud mammals. In the light 

 of this knowledge it is possible to identify, 

 with certainty, many of Fernandez's species, 

 for example his QuauhteoallotlquapacMli or 

 Coztiocotequallin.^- 



In 1777 Erxleben, in his Systema Eegni 

 Animalis, Mammalia, p. 421, named this 

 animal Sciurus variegatits. Since Erxleben 

 derived his information from Fernandez it 

 becomes necessarj^ to learn what the latter 

 says. Following is the translation of Fer- 



* Hist. Animalium, p. 8. 



