134 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 553 



mitted to the offspring. The solid fabric which Darwin 

 did so much to erect, and which is essentially based on 

 the affirmative proposition, has been most persistently 

 stormed, especially by a certain class of embryologists, 

 and the question is too complicated and far-reaching to 

 be lightly considered. It may be well to bear in mind, 

 however, that the solution of the problem involves the 

 psychical as well as the physical facts, and that the 

 former cannot be revealed by scalpel or microscope. 

 The naturalist who studies the development, and the ac- 

 tions of living organisms, in their relations to each other 

 and to their environment, and who seeks to confirm 

 his views by experimentation is, in my j udgment, 

 better qualified to draw reliable conclusions than 

 either the histologist or the embryologist. Modern lab- 

 oratory methods of zoological work, encouraged by 

 the imi^ortance of bacteriology, have been so generally 

 influenced by the microscope that they have pushed 

 beyond the short-line of safe induction, and we already 

 hear the murmurings of the reactionary wave which will 

 carry us back toward the more comprehensive methods of 

 the older school of naturalists whose names adorn the an- 

 nals of our science. The microscope, however important 

 in revealing the processes of growth, will yield us the 

 secret of heredity no sooner than it will yield us the se- 

 cret of life itself. 



The latent potentiality contained in the germ, and the 

 psychological directing force which modifies its later 

 development, must always escape such methods. What 

 we now most need to establish any sound theory of here- 

 ditj' is experimentation, intelligently planned and carried 

 on through a series of years, not alone during embryonic, 

 but during the whole development of the individual, and 

 to include all the elements in the problem. Such experi- 

 mentation on a sufficiently broad scale can hardly be 

 undertaken by individuals, and the institutions which 

 liberally endow and equip a chair of experimental zoology 

 to this end will deserve well of mankind. The zoologist, 

 while skejDtical of the ordinary theological and metaphy- 

 sical interpretations of mind phenomena, is not disj)osed 

 to dogmatize. His attitude is one of agnosticism on all 

 questions as to the origin, nature and end of life, whether 

 in its simpler or more complex manifestations; and he 

 simply insists with Wordsworth that, "to the solid ground 

 of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye !" 



The subdivisions of our science in which just now in- 

 vestigation is most active are those which shed light on 

 the general subject of animal evolution, and our program 

 shows that palaeontology, embryology, kinetogenesis, bio- 

 plastology, heredity and kindred subjects will not lack for 

 eminent exponents. It would be unwise to delay proceed- 

 ing with such an interesting program by further remarks 

 of my own, and I will at once call for the reading and dis- 

 cussion of the formal papers. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



^""^Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as a proof of good faith. 



On request in advance, one liundred copies of the number con- 

 taining his communication will be furnished free to any corres- 

 pondent. 



The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with 

 the character of the journal. 



Red Birds and a Grosbeak. 



A FEiEND of mine bought a pair of young red-birds, 

 from a lad who had taken them from the nest. At the 

 same time he gave her a rose-breasted grosbeak, which he 

 said he had found sitting on a bush, and "looking sick 

 like." The grosbeak had no wounds, and no broken 

 bones, and my friend placed it on a perch in the cage 

 with the red-birds. It remained there twenty-four hours, 



refusing food and drink, drawing itself into a heap, and 

 looking very miserable. Meantime the red-birds were 

 vociferously hungry, but ixnable to take food for them- 

 selves, and my friend was obliged to feed them by taking 

 them in her hand, and putting the food into their mouths 

 with a little stick. Tlie grosbeak surveyed this proceed- 

 ing very intently, with an expression of scorn for human 

 awkwardness ! 



As, during twenty-four hours, the grosbeak had 

 seemed to make no improvement, my friend, taking 

 him in her hands, gave him a minute examination, 

 and found on the back of the neck the skin raised in a 

 clear, tense bubble, as large as a bean, and of a yellow 

 hue. She clij)ped a little hole in this bubble, using a 

 pair of small sharpi scissors. Only air exuded, no pus 

 nor moisture; in a moment or two the rising was gone, 

 and the skin resumed its place. She rubbed the incision 

 with a drop of oil, restored the bird to the cage, and 

 within ten minutes he was eating, drinking and hoi^ping 

 about in fine style. 



He at once installed himself as foster-father to 

 the red-birds. He hung over them with soft 

 "feeding cells," holding the prejDared food, and drop- 

 ping it into their ojsen throats. The little birds throve 

 under his administration, and in a week were taking care 

 of themselves. 



A few months later, my friend being away from home 

 over night, the servant who had charge of the birds, neg- 

 lected to put any hard-boiled egg in the cage, putting in 

 only bread and seeds. When the lady returned the gros- 

 beak seemed to be alarmed and suffering, and, examining 

 •him, she found a wound on his back, some skin and a little 

 flesh being gone. Thinking that a mouse, or rat, or cat 

 near the cage might be the author of the trouble, she 

 dressed the injury with carbolic salve, and hung the cage 

 higher. All went well until she was again absent for two 

 days, and there was the same neglect of diet. On her return 

 she found the grosbeak in a very low condition, and this 

 time with a large hole in the fleshy part of the breast. 

 The servant said that "twice the red-birds had been fight- 

 ing the grosbeak." The fact was evident, craving 

 stronger food, they had helped themselves from the living- 

 body of their poor little foster-father. The care and 

 skill lavished on him, and a cage for himself, were not 

 sufficient to save him, and he died the next day from the 

 effects of his injury. J. McN.uk Whight. 



Space Relation of Numbers. 



With reference to the graphic presentation of numbers 

 in the imagination, narrated by Mr. Martin in a recent is- 

 sue of Science, I may add the following personal record. 

 I daresay it will be found, as in most such cases, that 

 what Mr. Martin imagined as peculiar to himself, exists in 

 some form or other in nearly all minds, though I do not 

 recollect having seen any reference to it, a fact due doubt- 

 less to the limited character of my reading on the sub- 

 ject. 



From an early age I remember noting the fact, at least 

 as early as my sixteenth year and I think a year or two 

 before, the period being one in which I passed from arith- 

 metic to algebra and geometrj% that it became apfiarent 

 to me that in the first hundred numbers the first ten ap- 

 peared to lie on a horizontalline, the next ten arose at 

 right angles and that the remaining numbers, from twen- 

 ty up to a hundred, lay with more or less distinctness, not 

 so much as visualized numbers as concepts of numbers 

 independent of symbol, in an inclined line at an angle of 

 about thirty or forty degrees with the horizon. Beyond 

 one hundred I have no imagination on the subject. I 

 may add that I was taught in the ordinary mental and 

 high school arithmetic before Grube's system had made 



