1883. | Zoology. 11g! 
Reptiles —In a letter from Cape Town in the Proceedings Zodl. 
Soc. London (1883, 32), G. H. R. Fisk mentions two ways in 
which the naturally large and rapid increase of snakes is pre- 
vented. A specimen of Saurophis laid four eggs in captivity; 
these were swallowed by another snake (Coronella). Lizards 
also destroy snakes, biting them one-third of their length from 
the head. 
birds—Two years ago, says the Scientific American, eighty- 
four English skylarks were imported and loosened in Bergen 
county, New Jersey. This was in the spring, and it was ascer- 
tained afterward that about fifty of them paired and remained not 
far from where they first beat the free air of America with their 
wings. The lark is not a migratory bird, and it was feared that 
our northern winters would prove too severe for them, but during 
the next summer they were heard in Bergen and Passaic counties. 
This, the third summer of their liberty, shows yet stronger proofs 
of their naturalization and ability to breed here. They have been 
heard in more places——A call for a meeting of ornithologists, 
to be held in New York city, Sept. 26, has been signed by J. A. 
Allen, Dr. E. Coues and W. Brewster. The name proposed for 
the organization, which is for scientific as well as social objects, 
is the American Ornithological Union.——Science says that when 
obliged to wash birds, collectors wili find it an advantage to use 
salt and water, instead of plain water. The salt prevents the 
solution of the blood-globules and consequent diffusion of the 
red hemoglobin. A new petrel from Alaska is described by 
Mr. R. Ridgway in the Proceedings U. S. Nat. Mus (v, 656) un- 
der the name of Gstrelata fisheri, or Fisher's petrel. Dr. H. 
Gadow has an important illustrated paper in the- Proceedings of 
the Zoological Society of London, on the suctorial apparatus of 
the Tenuirostres 
ence is sufficiently rare to be worthy of note, and at this “a 
of the year it may be inferred that a considerable part, at least, © 
the voyage was performed on an iceberg or floe 
of the animal gave little chance to observe peculiarities OF s 
the only ones observed being its extremely savage disposition, 
a degree far greater than I have ever seen in the camin , 
and its habit of floating in the water with the ai of the body 
