SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 28 



Addresses giving various phases of Mr. 

 Gushing' s life and work were then made by 

 President W J McGee, Major J. W. Powell, of 

 the Bureau of Ethnology, in which Bureau Mr. 

 Gushing was a brilliant worker, Mr. L. O. 

 Howard, Secretary American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, who was a classmate 

 in Cornell ; Professor W. H. Holmes, spoke of 

 his work for the National Museum ; Mr. Stuart 

 Gulin, of his researches in behalf of the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania; Mr. J. D. McGuire, of 

 his genius in the technological and archaeo- 

 logical field ; Dr. Washington Matthews, of 

 his discoveries in Zuni and the Salado Valley 

 and of his organization and explorations with 

 the Hemenway expedition ; Mr. P. B. Pierce, 

 of his character as a pei-sonal friend ; Miss 

 Alice C. Fletcher, of Mr. Cusbing's wonderful 

 mind and his ability to discern similarities and 

 forge the connecting links between the thoughts 

 of primitive man and the archieic remains with 

 which he was surrounded. The consensus of 

 opinion was that Mr. Gushing occupied a field 

 peculiarly his own and that he ranked as one 

 of the few real geniuses of the world. 



Letters of regret were read from Dr. Franz 

 Boaz, of the American Museum of Natural 

 History and Mr. Wm. Wallace Tooker and 

 Wells M. Sawyer. 



The resolutions were adopted by a rising 

 vote. 



J. H. McGOEMICK. 



Secretary. 

 DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



HUMANIZING THE BIRDS. 



Bird Lore for December last contained an ex- 

 cellent article by Garoline G. Soule, entitled 

 ' Humanizing the Birds,' and protesting against 

 the too common practice of ascribing to them 

 human qualities which they do not possess and 

 mental traits with which they are not endowed. 

 The title might well serve as the text for a long 

 discourse on the subject, for there is all too 

 much of this ' humanizing ' indulged in now-a- 

 days, not only by those who write about birds, 

 but by writers in all branches of natural his- 

 tory, and it is not confined to stories written 

 for the instruction of small children, but in 

 articles intended for the edification of children 



of a much larger growth. Writers on evolution 

 are all too prone to humanize their subjects, 

 and it is so favorite a sin with those discussing 

 problems of mimicry that in his Dictionary of 

 Birds Professor Newton follows that caption 

 ' with the prefix unconscious, which in every 

 department of zoology should always be ex- 

 pressed or understood.' For it is a common 

 fault to make the mimicking process active in- 

 stead of passive, to say, for example, that 

 "Many butterflies escape destruction by mim- 

 icking the colors and markings of uneatable 

 forms," as if the butterflies had given serious 

 thought to the matter. When an author writes 

 that ' ' Butterflies are often attracted by the ex- 

 creta of birds and a spider takes advantage of 

 this fact to secure his prey," he implies a con- 

 siderable amount of reasoning power in the 

 spider. That this implication is not intended 

 is shown a little later by the statement that 

 "The whole combination of habits, form and 

 coloring afford a wonderful example of what 

 natural selection can accomplish," but the 

 damage has been done and the suggestion made 

 that the mimicry is intentional. 



When we read that the " witch-hazel, know- 

 ing that neither boy nor girl, nor bird nor beast 

 nor wind, will come to the rescue of its little 

 ones, is obliged to take matters into its own 

 hands ' ' we realize that it was written for a child, 

 although we may deplore this manner of writing 

 and wish that the case had been difierently 

 stated. But here is a statement almost, if not 

 quite as bad, taken from an important work on 

 zoology and not written with the view of in- 

 teresting a child : "In the Mediterranean the 

 embryos [of sponges] * * * escape from the 

 tissues of the parent when they have arrived 

 at the blastula condition * * *, in the same 

 species on the shores of the English Channel 

 the young are retained until after gastrula- 

 tion * * *." The explanation of this it is 

 said is not difficult : "In the Mediterranean 

 there are no strong currents and is evidently 

 best for the parents to get rid of the young 

 at as early a moment as possible, thus escap- 

 ing longer drain upon its energies. In the 

 English Channel, on theother hand, the current 

 is very strong, and were the embryos to be set 

 free at the stage at which they are in the Medi- 



