Proceedings of Natural History Society. 183 



mounds will furnish worthy objects of exploration to the 

 archaeologists of the western Provinces of Canada, whose 

 special property they are, and on whom devolves the duty 

 of their scientific study. 



We are indebted to Dr. Edwards for a very full account 

 of the various and insidious ways in which arsenic is intro- 

 duced in injurious quantity into the human system, and to 

 Prof. Penhallow for two important papers on new points of 

 vegetable physiology. Dr. E. Bell gave us the results com- 

 piled from various sources as to the distribution of Canadian 

 forest trees, so important to this country, in many prac- 

 tical ways, as well as the chief ornament of our hills and 

 valleys. Mr. A. W. MacKay, of Pictou, Nova Scotia, has 

 recently studied with much success the fresh-water sponges 

 of that Province and other parts of Canada, some of which 

 were described in our journal several years ago by Dr. Bower- 

 bank and by Dr. G-. M. Dawson, and Mr. MacKay has very 

 properly favoured us with the very valuable and large addi- 

 tions which he has made to previous knowledge. 



The subject of the destruction of small birds for purposes 

 of ornament is one that has recently attracted much atten- 

 tion in the United States. Naturalists there seem indeed to 

 be alarmed lest our feathered songsters should be altogether 

 sacrificed to the exigencies of ladies' bonnets. The quantity 

 of birds destroyed for such purposes seems to be enormous, 

 though perhaps the fears which have been entertained may 

 be somewhat exaggerated. The powers of multiplication of 

 these creatures are great, but there can be little doubt that 

 in some localities their numbers have been seriously thinned, 

 and while we lose the pleasure derived from their beauty 

 and their songs, we lose also the advantage of their services 

 in the destruction of injurious insects. Our laws in the 

 Province of Quebec provide for the protection of small birds, 

 and in many places at least are fairly well enforced ; but 

 ^e are deeply interested in the question as it affects the 

 United States. Our birds are migratory. They spend their 

 winters in the South, and if they are not protected in the 

 districts through which they pass in spring and autumn and 

 in which they winter, our summer fields and woods will be 



