356 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. (VoL. XXXII. 
Professor Henry, who is one of the ablest and most influential 
Experiment Station Directors in the country, treats his subject under 
three headings, dealing respectively with plant growth and animal 
nutrition, feeding-stuffs, and feeding farm animals. From his own 
large experience, and the voluminous literature of the Experiment 
Stations, he has compiled in a readily accessible but condensed form 
much information concerning the transmutations which organic 
matter undergoes from its origin in the leaves of plants to its return 
to the soil as vegetable or animal refuse. 
ZOOLOGY. 
The Sea Otter.— Among North American mammals doomed to 
practical extermination must be included the sea otter (Zatax lutris), 
unless the most rigid restrictions be speedily enforced for its pres- 
ervation. Formerly this animal was more or less abundant along 
nearly the whole Pacific coast of North America, from the Pribilof 
and Aleutian Islands south to northern Lower California. Indeed, | 
the islands of southern California and northern Lower California 
were, about the beginning of the present century, famous hunting 
grounds for the sea otter. Another portion of the seaboard where 
great numbers were killed was the coast of Oregon and Washington, 
where many were taken as late as 1876. Thence northward, also, to 
the Aleutian Islands they were killed in large numbers for many 
years. Only small remnants here and there, however, at present 
exist along this whole stretch of coast, their extermination, from a 
commercial point of view, having long since been accomplished. 
Even in Alaskan waters, during the last half of the eighteenth 
century, their indiscriminate slaughter had so far reduced their 
numbers that toward the close of this period the then newly formed 
Russian American Company placed restrictions upon the number 
allowed to be taken, and enforced other regulations by which the 
females were spared, and care insured against needlessly alarming 
these exceedingly timid and suspicious animals. The early whole- 
sale, unrestricted destruction of the sea otter exactly parallels that of 
the fur seals throughout their range, except where accorded govern- 
ment protection, and with the same sad result of practical extinction. 
Their numbers have now become so alarmingly reduced, even 
in» their last stronghold, the Aleutian Islands, notwithstanding 
attempted government restriction, that more serious measures for 
