NATURAL HISTORY. 



3°7 



in February, Governor Morton, the Presi- 

 dent, announced that Mrs. Antoinette Eno 

 Wood, daughter of the late Amos R. Eno, 

 had subscribed $5,000 to the building fund 

 of the society. Mr. Morton also announced 

 a subscription of $1,000 from Roswell P. 

 Flower, and Madison Grant, secretary of 

 the society, announced that Samuel Thorne 

 had raised his subscription to $5,000. These 

 subscriptions increase the building fund to 

 $128,000. 



Plans for the antelope house were ap- 

 proved and its immediate erection was 

 directed. Work on the foundation of the 

 monkey house was also ordered com- 

 menced. As soon as the additional $70,000, 

 still needed, has been raised the funds in 

 hand will complete the park sufficiently to 

 open it during the coming summer. 



Apropos the numerous articles appearing 

 in Recreation regarding the " passing of 

 the birds," let me call the attention of your 

 numerous readers to the bird murderers of 

 the " Key of the Gulf," Key West, Fla. In 

 April of each year regular expeditions are 

 fitted out at Key West for a raid on the 

 rookeries at Bird Rock, a point off the 

 coast of Florida, near the Bahama Banks, 

 for the wholesale robbing of birds' nests. 

 These raids are participated in even by 

 officials of the State and city, and are of 

 annual occurrence. Thousands of birds' 

 eggs are consumed in Key West each sea- 

 son, and are sold on arrival of the boats 

 from their raids. No wonder our bird life 

 is being destroyed when such wholesale 

 methods of robbing their nests are con- 

 tinued, year after year. The only wonder 

 is that any birds are left. 



J. S. W., Boston, Mass. 



I have noticed a number of articles in 

 different issues of Recreation concerning 

 the castration of squirrels, and the odium 

 is usually listed with the many misdemean- 

 ors of the red squirrel. In Eastern Iowa, 

 where there are no red squirrels, it is 

 charged to brother gray or fox squirrels. 

 That this condition, in most cases at least, 

 is only apparent will be readily understood 

 when we recall the anatomical fact that in 

 the rodentia the testes are retained within 

 the abdomen, descending only during each 

 period of rut. Ira A. Eberhart, M.D., 



Chicago Lawn, 111. 



Here is a bombshell in the enemy's camp. 

 After all it would seem that about 90 per 

 cent, of the crimes charged to the red squir- 

 rel were never really committed by him or 

 anyone else. — Editor. 



good, the large end will be warm and the 

 small end cold. 



I am of the opinion this is merely a mat- 

 ter of weather or of environment. I have 

 taken eggs out of hens' nests in the barn 

 along toward Christmas when both ends 

 were cold, and I have taken them again in 

 the dog days when both ends were warm. 

 If my friend should take a case of eggs out 

 of a refrigerator where they had rested for 

 24 hours he would no doubt find both ends 

 cold, and if he should take them out of a 

 lumber drying kiln where a temperature of 

 180 had been maintained for 24 hours, it is 

 likely that both ends of the egg would be 

 warm. 



Two quails were sent to the Michigan Agricultural Col- 

 lege by a farmer who wrote that he killed them because 

 they were eating his grain. He wished an examination 

 made of the crops of the birds. This was done, and the result 

 made public. In neither crop was found any grain, but in 

 one of them were about 4,500 seeds of the false nettle, a 

 troublesome weed. This goes to show that the quail, in- 

 stead of being an enemy of the farmer, is in reality a great 

 help. Professor Barrows, of the Agricultural College, 

 says that quails eat a large variety of weed seeds, beside 

 grasshoppers, chinch bugs and other injurious insects. He 

 once examined a quail's crop and found it filled with span 

 worms and measuring worms, both of which are among 

 the farmer's numerous enemies. — Michigan Christian Ad- 

 vocate. 



I did not suppose there was a man in 

 Michigan, or anywhere else, mean enough 

 to begrudge a quail the little bit of grain 

 it would eat in a year; but here's another 

 record breaker. — Editor. 



Does the black bear have both cubs of 

 the same color, or one black and one brown, 

 or both black? I have found them both 

 ways — the black being the smaller. Are 

 the black bear and the brown of the same 

 species, or not? 



Wm. H. Cramir, Stevensville, Mont. 



The black bear and the brown bear are of 

 one and the same species. Yes, and the 

 colors vary, as in domestic animals, though 

 not so widely. It frequently happens that 

 in a family of cubs one may be black and 

 another brown. Tn other instances, both 

 are black, while the mother is brown, and 

 in still others both are brown, and the 

 mother black. The matter of color seems 

 to be purely accidental. — Editor. 



A subscriber at Ripon, Wis., writes me 

 that a good way to ascertain the quality of 

 eggs is to touch the tongue to each end 

 of the egg, and states that if the egg is 



I saw at Algonquin, 111., a mounted 

 specimen of a squirrel which is undoubt- 

 edly a cross between a red and a gray. I 

 wonder what Mr. Clark will say to that? 

 I do not deny that the red may destroy 

 eggs or fight with the gray squirrel. The 

 gray gets the worst of the fight because he 

 is not so fast or so strong. 



A. H. Wichert, Chicago, 111. 



You doubtless mean the large red squir- 

 rel, or fox squirrel, while the beast that has 

 been on trial for so long is the little red 

 devil; the pine squirrel. He is only half as 

 big as a gray and not found in Illinois, so 

 far as I know. - 



