1 882.] Zodlogy. 59 



the train, for at least a mile and a half, but the train was 

 too rapid for them, and they finally turned aside and went 

 back in the direction whence they came. A strong head-wind 

 was blowing at the time, and the birds at some moments seemed 

 to sail squarely in its teeth without fluttering a wing. I watched 

 them with much interest, and I did not think I could be mistaken 

 in the belief that they were really trying to beat the train in the race. 

 Horses and dogs frequently race with railroad trains, and possibly 

 the instinct for sport and excitement may also exist in the wild 

 birds. — Charles Aldrich, Webster City, Iowa, Nov. p, 1881. 



Infusoria in Dew.— Mr. W. S. Kent states, in his Manual of 

 the Infusoria, that he gathered in a very foggy day in Regent's 

 Park a quantity of grass saturated with " dew," and found in every 

 drop squeezed from the grass great numbers of infusoria of dif- 

 ferent genera, such as Heteromita, Vorticella, etc., with Rotifer vul- 

 garis and other rotifers, and numerous Amceb«,Anguillula, and va- 

 rious diatoms, the collection as a whole being indistinguishable 

 from the ordinary microscopic fauna of a roadside pond. 



Zoological Notes.— The practical aspects of zoology must 

 be appreciably felt in India, where it is reported that no fewer than 

 21,990 persons were killed during the year 1880 by snakes and 

 tigers. The annual percentage of loss has increased during the 

 past five years, the number of victims in 1876 not exceeding 

 19,273- It also appears that the white ant in India costs the 

 government £100,000 a year for repairing wood- work, bridges, 



etc., caused by its depredations. A preliminary report, by P. 



H. Carpenter, on the Comatulae dredged by the U. S. Coast Sur- 

 vey, under the supervision of Mr. A. Agassiz, in the Gulf of 

 Mexico, the Caribbean sea, and the east coast of the United States, 

 appears in the Bulletin of the Cambridge Museum. The collec- 

 tion embraces forty new species of Comatulae, the number known 

 to inhabit the Caribbean sea alone being fifty-five ; the genus being 



essentially a shoal-water one. An additional case of supposed 



hybridity in birds is noticed by W. Brewster, in the Bulletin of 

 the Nuttall Ornithological Club, for October. He thinks that 

 Helminthophaga la, \rauchialis and //. lawcncci are hybrids 

 between H. pinus and H. ckrysoptera. Hitherto it was not known 

 to occur in any American birds, except among grouse and some 

 of the swimming birds. Among the Passeres Trotter's hybrid 

 swallow, and Ridgway's case of a supposed hybrid between 

 Hdwinthophaga pinus' and Oporomis fonnosa, have lately been 

 added. Mr. Brewster thinks there are several additional doubtful 



species, which " show strong traces of a hybrid origin." In the 



same journal, A. M. Frazer concludes that, instead of following 

 the land, a large number of species migrate direct from Central 

 America to the Mississippi valley, across the Gulf of Mexico, 

 and the scarcity of these species in Southwestern Texas is thus 



