{72 The American Naturalist. [February, 
ance—were just as clear to my vision as when he really called, a little 
later. It was clear daylight ; I was as wide awake as I am now while 
writing this item. Fifty years ago I listened to just such a story, and 
the narrator declared she “‘ had seen a ghost.” I am not in the least 
superstitious, and even had this been a “ ghost,’’ and I had known it, 
I should have felt no alarm, for I never knew those intangible folk to 
harm a living mortal,—even in the days when ghosts were so generally 
“believed in.” Thinking the matter over immediately afterwards, I 
tried to recall any feature of this “‘second sight’ which was in any 
sense abnormal, The only fact I could remember was that the doctor 
seemed to walk rather faster than usual, but I thought he only wished 
to overtake me before I entered the house. I thought he kept his eye 
on me, and continued to look at me ina very interested manner. I 
only wish I had kept my gaze upon him, and noted the spot and how 
he so completely vanished. I was never more thoroughly taken aback 
than when I went out to meet him, not more than thirty seconds after 
I saw him, and no one was in sight /—CHARLES ALDRICH, Webster 
City, Lowa, December 15th, 1890. 
ARCHAOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 
The Societe d’Anthropologie at Paris.—4 Sketch of Its Or- 
ganization and Work.\—The theory of evolution, and so the origin of 
species, which has been credited by many people to Charles Darwin, is 
in France credited, or attempted to be credited, to the naturalist La- 
marck, and there was organized in 1884, under the protection, or at 
least the shadow, of the Society of Anthropology, an organization 
called the “ Réunion Lamarck.”’ 
Born of the same idea as was the School of Anthropology, the Society 
of Anthropology, on the proposition of Monsieur Mathias Duval, in- 
augurated a course of lectures, which, under the name of ‘‘ Conferences 
Transformiste,”” were intended to popularize the doctrine of evolution 
and the mutability of species, and so the origin of man. 
In this course have been delivered the following lectures : . 
“The Development of the Eye,” by Monsieur Mathias Duval, 1883. 
“ The Evolution of Morality,” by M. Letourneau, 1884. 
“ Evolution of Language,” by Monsieur Hovelacque, 1885. 
“ The Paleontologic Evolution of Animals,” by M. G. de Mortil- 
let, 1886. | 
1 Continued from Page 8s. 
