May 6, 1887.] 



SCIJEN'CE. 



437 



— Two years ago Professor Baird conceived the 

 idea of procuring one of the prehistoric Easter 

 Island idols to be added to the collection at the 

 national museum. After much labor and patience, 

 his efforts, aided by the government, have been 

 successful, and the idol arrived in Washington on 

 Monday last, together with a number of other 

 valuable antiquities. The curiosities have been 

 brought over without injury and without expense, 

 naval vessels conveying them for the entire ocean- 

 voyage. There are hundreds of these images on 

 the island concerning which there is no knowl- 

 edge whatever. One of them was taken from the 

 island by the German government recently, and 

 is now in the national museum at Berlin. 



— The forthcoming report of the department of 

 agriculture on the English sparrow will be a very 

 interesting document. It will contain about four 

 hundred printed pages, in which will appear the 

 experiences of about thirty-two hundred people 

 with this destructive biped. Dr. Merriam, the 

 ornithologist of the department, who has charge 

 of the preparation of the report, says that the in- 

 dictment against the sparrow is a terrible one ; 

 and it has scarcely a friend in the whole country. 

 Farmers who devote their time to the cultivation 

 of grain, report that the sparrows, wherever they 

 are thick, do frightful damage to cereals. Market- 

 gardeners and the raisers of small-fruit, in the 

 vicinity of cities, say, that, since sparrows began 

 to multiply, the profits of market-gardening have 

 almost vanished. The only known use for the 

 sparrow is as a substitute for reed- birds. One 

 man in Albany, N.Y., reports that he sells hun- 

 dreds of dozens of sparrows every month to the 

 restaurants in that city for reed-birds. They make 

 excellent table-birds. 



— The Smithsonian institution has just re- 

 ceived a large collection of bii-ds collected by Mr. 

 Robert Henderson in the West India islands. Mr. 

 Henderson, who has just returned from his trip, 

 has been engaged in this work since last Decem- 

 ber, and has covered all of the islands except 

 Ruatan, Turneff', and Cosomel in the lower part of 

 the Caribbean Sea. He will make a second trip 

 this summer to the above islands. 



— The West American scientist, a monthly is- 

 sued at San Diego, Gal., has enlarged to a twenty- 

 four-page magazine with its third volume. 



— The New York mineralogical club has recent- 

 ly been organized in this city. The objects of the 

 club are, to create and stimulate an interest in 

 mineralogy, and to collect, describe, and preserve 

 all suitable material available in New York City 

 and vicinity ; such collection to be deposited in 

 some public institution, so as to preserve a miner- 



alogical record of places soon to be covered with 

 buildings. It has been decided that all meetings 

 of the club, if possible, shall be held at the resi- 

 dences of the members, for the purpose of examin- 

 ing collections as well as promoting sociability. 

 Meetings will be held on the last Tuesday of every 

 month, the chairman of each meecing to be the 

 host of the occasion. The officers of the club are, 

 George F. Kunz, secretary ; B. B. Chamberlain, 

 treasurer ; Prof. D. S. Martin, Rev. J. Seldon 

 Spencer, and Edgar A. Hutchins, executive com- 

 mittee ; L. P. Gratacap and A. Woodward, cu- 

 rators. There are already over forty members on 

 the roll. 



— Mr. Stephen Salisbury of Worcester, Mass., 

 has just given to the Technical institute of that 

 city one hundred thousand dollars, to be used in 

 the erection and equipment of a building for 

 laboratories for mechanical, physical, and chemi- 

 cal science, as a memorial to his father, the late 

 Stephen Salisbury, who for a great many years 

 was president and chief patron of the institute. 



— A remarkable illustration of the puzzling 

 migratory habits of the herring has just been ob- 

 served, says Nature, on the south-west coast of 

 Norway, at the so-called Jaederen, between the 

 towns of Stavanger and Egersund. This district 

 used to be one of the richest herring-fishing 

 grounds in Norway during the spring, but about 

 twenty-five years ago the fish suddenly and com- 

 pletely disappeared from the coast. In March 

 enormous shoals once more came under shore, 

 first ' striking land ' at the same spot as in former 

 times. The quality of the herring is exactly the 

 same as it was twenty-five years ago, and the 

 shoals were accompanied by numerous ' herring ' 

 whales. 



— According to Engineering for April 23, Russia 

 proposes to press forward vigorously with the con- 

 struction of the Samarcand railway from the 

 Caspian Sea to the Amu Daria. It is stated that 

 when the line is finished it will bo possible to make 

 a journey from Paris to Samarcand in seven days. 

 The line will commence at Ouzoun-Ada, a small 

 port on the Caspian, the distance from that point 

 to the Amu Daria being in round figures 635 miles. 

 Of this distance, 543f miles of line are now en- 

 tirely completed, and open for the conveyance of 

 passengers and goods. The present terminus of 

 the fine is Tchardghoni, to which place it was 

 completed Nov. 30, 1886. The construction of the 

 line was commenced by General Arrenkoff. in 

 May, 1885, and 418f miles were completed in 

 eighteen months. The number of persons en- 

 gaged in the construction was about 3,300. Not 

 only was the permanent way laid through to 



