638 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 512. 



to allay the irritation caused by parasitic 

 worms, since the two are by no means found 

 together; they are not taken in with food, not 

 merely because they are found in the stomachs 

 of young seals, but in those adults that have 

 fed on squid caught in the open sea. On page 

 68, Vol. III., 'Eeport of Fur Seal Investiga- 

 tion,' it says : " It is evident that these things 

 are not swallowed haphazard, but are selected 

 with considerable care from among the articles 

 strewn along the shore, and that a preference 

 is exhibited for rounded objects. This is 

 shown by the fact that, as a rule, only articles 

 of one kind are found in one stomach, al- 

 though seals do not discriminate between frag- 

 ments of barnacles and fragments of gastro- 

 pods. Moreover, pebbles of serpentine and 

 chalcedony are now and then found on the 

 hauling grounds under conditions indicating 

 that they were brought there by the seals, while 

 the pup seen gathering pebbles on Lukanin 

 did so with great care, by no means taking 

 the first that came to hand. The most striking 

 example of this discriminative selection is, 

 perhaps, shown by the pup which had swal- 

 lowed a buckshot, while the chance of finding 

 such a thing must be, at a guess, about one in 

 a million." 



Furthermore, it may be said that as the 

 fur seal regurgitates bones and other indi- 

 gestible things, the supply of stones must be 

 renewed from time to time. 



That there is any connection between the 

 presence of stones and the presence of a giz- 

 zard does not follow. F. A. Lucas. 



Brooklyn Institute Museum. 



animals at rome in ancient times. 



Since the publication in Science (No. 506) 

 of a short article entitled ' Ancient Natural 

 History Lore,' the attention of the writer has 

 been called to an interesting essay on a 

 kindred subject by Countess Cesaresco. It is 

 to be found in the August number (1904) of 

 the Contemporary Review, under the title of 

 ' Animals at Home,' and presents a tolerable 

 conception of the state of natural history 

 amongst Romaifi of the Augustan age. 



A work that was highly popular frori the 

 third century onward, and regarded as a J ind- 



ard authority on zoology, though compara- 

 tively little known at the present day is 

 Elian's treatise on the ' Nature of Animals.' 

 The fifteenth book contains the earliest men- 

 tion in history of the use of the artificial fiy, 

 and gives particulars of other modes of fishing 

 in vogue during the olden time. 



C. R. E. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 



ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM THE NEW YORK 



ZOOLOGICAL PARK. 



A NUMBER of common terns {Sterna hi- 

 rundo), least terns {Sterna antillarum), black 

 skimmers {Bhynchops nigra) and laughing 

 gulls {Lams atricilla) have recently been 

 hatched from eggs in an incubator and reared 

 in the New York Zoological Park. The eggs 

 were all collected on the coast of Virginia. 



Some interesting observations have been 

 made for two seasons in connection with these 

 birds, of which certain facts possess a special 

 value and conclusiveness on account of the 

 absolute isolation of these young sea-birds 

 from adults of their species. 



The sight of small but entire fish excites a 

 newly-hatched black skimmer much more than 

 does macerated fish, but the reverse is true of 

 the terns until after the first week. Half- 

 boiled and macerated fish does not quite take 

 the place of what the parents of the terns 

 would provide, but fish regurgitated by wood 

 ibises after being held in the crop for two 

 hours is a perfect substitute. 



All the birds which were hatched in my ex- 

 periments refused salt water, for both drinking 

 and bathing, when fresh water was provided. 



The remarkable disparity in the length of 

 the upper and lower mandibles of the black 

 skimmer is distinctly foreshadowed in the 

 embryo of about the beginning of the third 

 week. 



The call, flock and alarm notes of all four 

 species are wholly instinctive; neither taught 

 by the parents nor learned by imitation. The 

 first class of notes are uttered at the instant 

 when the egg-tooth pierces the shell. The 

 utterance which I have called the floch note 

 differs decidedly from the call of. the young 

 for food, and is not uttered until the bird is 



