336 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the experiment has been so successful that a similar lot has been sent 

 this spring, the last consignment leaving by the ' Dunvegan Castle ' on 

 June 10th. 



Without expressing any opinion on the subject of vivisection, in con- 

 nection with the death of Mr. Lawson Tait, the well-known surgeon of the 

 Midlands, it is interesting to recall some words written by him in a letter 

 addressed to the ' Medical Press and Circular ': — *' Some day J shall have 

 a tombstone put over me, and an inscription upon it. I want only one 

 thing recorded on it, and that to the effect that he laboured to divert his 

 profession from the blundering which has resulted from the performance of 

 experiments on the sub-human groups of animal life, in the hope that they 

 would shed light on the aberrant physiology of the human groups." 



At the meeting of the Zoological Society, on June 20th, Dr. Woods 

 Hutchinson read a paper on Zoological Distribution of Tuberculosis from 

 Observations made mainly in the Society's Gardens. Of 215 autopsies 

 made in the Prosector's Room during the past six months, forty-nine pre- 

 sented the lesions of tuberculosis, i.e. 25'3 per cent, of the mammals and 

 birds. This mortality fell most heavily upon the Ruminants and Gallina, 

 and least so upon the Carnivores and Raptores. Race or family appeared 

 to exert little influence upon susceptibility, mode of housing only a small 

 amount, and food and food-habits much more. A close correspondence 

 appeared to exist between immunity and the relative size of the heart in 

 both birds and mammals. 



It is estimated that the loss to farmers from the " warbled " condition 

 of the hides of their cattle by the well-known Ox Warble Fly, or Bot Fly 

 (Hypoderma bovis), averages £16,000 for every 100,000 hides. Mr. Child, 

 the Managing Secretary of the Leeds and District Hide, Skin, and Tallow 

 Co., Ltd., we are informed, calculates that on 30,000 hides that passed their 

 hands in one year, the net loss to the farmers was no less than £1500 from 

 this cause alone. 



We greatly regret to announce the death, on the 1st inst., of Sir William 

 Henry Flower, President of the Zoological Society, and late Director of the 

 Natural History Department of the British Museum. An obituary notice 

 by Dr. P. L. Sclater will appear in our next issue. 



