i6 



THE ATLANTIC SLOPE NATURALIST. 



for bird songs was astonishing. While 

 not deficient in memorizing musical 

 sounds, I have sometimes found it diffi- 

 cult to distinguish between certain species; 

 for instance, the note of the Yellow War- 

 bler {Dendroica cestiva) and the Chest- 

 nutsided Warbler (Z>. pennsylvanica) are 

 very similar, but I never knew my uncle 

 to make a mistake. In this case I proved 

 the accuracy of his memory by securing 

 both songsters ; one proved to be an 

 olive-sided Flycatcher {contopus borealis) 

 and the other a fine specimen of the Mourn- 

 ing Warbler ( Geothlypis Philadelphia), as 

 he had surmised. We collected six males 

 of this W 7 arbler. They were unquestion- 

 ably breeding in the vicinity, but the most 

 diligent search failed to disclose the nest. 

 Mr. Chris. Wood made a trip to Toby- 

 hanna immediately after our return, but 

 found a forest fire raging and failed to 

 secure a single specimen. On our way 

 home we stopped at the Delaware Water 

 Gap ; here I found a nest of the Black 

 and White Creeper {Mniotilla varia) con- 

 taining young ; the nest was on the side 

 of a hill upon the ground, and was a fine 

 specimen of bird architecture. 



Leprosy from Eating Fish. 



Jonathan Hutchinson, F. R. S., says the 

 New York Sim, has returned to Eng- 

 land after a tour of investigation in India 

 as to the cause and prevention of leprosy, 

 especially in reference to the hypothesis 

 which assigns the foremost position 

 among the causes of the disease to the 

 use of unwholesome food. 



Twelve years ago the Prince of Wales's 

 committee, which was sent to India, re- 

 jected this hypothesis, but Dr. Hutchin- 

 son's latest investigations have convinced 

 him that the committee, if it had pursued 

 its researches more deeply, would not 

 have rejected it. Dr. Hutchinson's gen- 

 eral conclusion is that the facts do not 

 controvert the hypothesis, while some of 

 them affoid unassailable support of it, the 

 truth of which his inquiries in South 

 Africa last year convinced him. 



Dr. Hutchinson's tour of India included 

 visits to Colombo, Madras, Lahore, Cal- 

 cutta and Bombay, where he held public 



meetings and discussions, and also visits 

 to the leper asylums at Colombo, Madras, 

 Calcutta, Purula, Asonsal, Agra, Tarn- 

 taran, Jullundur and Bombay. 



He visited in Ceylon all the lepers who 

 had been fish eaters. In Madras and Cal- 

 cutta each of the lepers, with the single 

 exception of a high-caste Brahmin, denied 

 that they had ever eaten fish. In Bom- 

 bay there was one doubtful exception. 

 In Agra, Tarntaran and Jullunder there 

 were several exceptions. Of the 500 in- 

 mates of the Purulia asylum, all had 

 habitually eaten of fish, and many be- 

 lieved that this had caused the disease. 

 Some had left off eating it on that ac- 

 count. The majority of those who had 

 not eaten fish were patients who had con- 

 tracted the disease in early life. 



In accounting for these, Dr. Hutchin- 

 son suggests " commensal communica- 

 tion " spreads the disease to a slight ex- 

 tent in a community where it has once 

 originated, without it becoming con- 

 tagious in the ordinary sense of the word. 

 Commensal or mouth communication 

 conveyed the disease by eating food di- 

 rectly from the hands of a leper, or other- 

 wise receiving the bacillus by the mouth. 



The prevalence of the disease in the 

 whole population of India is not greater 

 than five in 10,000, which is about the 

 same percentage as in Norway, but not a 

 single district is entirely free from the dis- 

 ease. It is always more prevalent in or 

 near the fishing places. In Ceylon, where 

 the fisheries are so unproductive that the 

 greater portion of fish consumed must be 

 imported, the incidence of leprosy is less 

 than two per 10,000. In Minicoy, the ad- 

 jacent fish-exporting island, where the 

 inhabitants eat fish four times a day, the 

 percentage is 150 in 10,000. In the Bom- 

 bay asylum there are 400 inmates, the 

 majority of whom are from the great fish- 

 ing district of Konkan. During eight 

 years there have been no Jains and only 

 one Parsee patient. The Jains are strict 

 vegetarians. During the same period the 

 island of Salsette, which has a population 

 of 50,000, was the only Christian com- 

 munity which sent patients to the asylum 



