j MARCH 21, 1884.] 
tinuation of his paper, ‘A study of the singing of our 
birds,’ the first instalment of which has appeared in 
The auk. The portion of the paper read consisted of 
a consideration of the arrival, departure, and song 
periods, with their duration and lapse, of thirty-eight 
birds. His observations were made at Riverdale, 
N.Y.——A paper was presented by Dr. C. Hart 
Merriam, giving a life-history of the woodchuck as 
he had found it in the Adirondack region; recording 
its change of abode from the meadows to the edges 
of the woods as the hibernating-time approached, 
its weak attempts at tree-climbing, its almost total 
abstinence from water, the rare exercise of its swim- 
ming-powers, its occasional evidence of carnivorous 
-propensities; and closing with an extract from the 
laws of New Hampshire that offer a bounty of ten 
cents for each woodchuck destroyed in that state. 
Dr. E. A. Means stated that about two per cent of 
the Adirondack woodchucks were melanistic. —— 
Notes concerning: a few early spring birds were 
given by Mr. N. T. Lawrence; and Mr. William 
Dutcher spoke of the recent capture of a fine female 
Archibuteo lagopus Sancti-Johannis in black plu- 
mage on Long Island. —— Mr. E. P. Bicknell men- 
tioned the blooming of those early spring flowers, 
the skunk-cabbage and the golden saxifrage, at pres- 
ent at Riverdale, N.Y. 
Cincinnati society of natural history. 
March 4.— Mr. Charles Dury read a paper on 
North-American hares, with notes on the peculiarities 
and distribution of all the known species and varieties. 
He said that in Kansas and Colorado the common 
prairie hare, Lepus campestris, is commonly though 
erroneously called the jackass-rabbit. The true jack- 
rabbit, L. callotis, has a more southern range. A 
skin of a specimen shot by Mr. Dury in New Mexico 
was exhibited. He had measured tracks of this hare 
which were twelve feet apart. ‘The flesh of L. callo- 
tis Mr. Dury found to be very coarse and unpalatable. 
Not so, however, that of the little sage hare, L. 
Nuttalli, which was very good, providing the animal 
be drawn immediately after being killed. If the 
intestines are allowed to remain for even half an 
hour, their contents give the flesh a sagy flavor. — 
Prof. Joseph F. James read an abstract of notes on 
some plants of the vicinity of Cincinnati. He ex- 
hibited a series of specimens of Cardamine (Dentaria) 
laciniata and C. (Dentaria) multifida, which showed 
that the two species could not be separated, and 
should be included under one specific name. Mr. 
Davis L. James read a notice of Mr. Thomas W. 
Spurlock, a botanist of local reputation, —a sort of 
Tam Edwards, who followed botanical pursuits from 
a pure love of them, and who, by his liberal distribu- 
tion of rare specimens, and by his simple and child- 
like love for flowers and plants, had laid collectors 
under many obligations, and made his memory dear 
to them. 
Engineers’ club, Philadelphia. 
March 1. — Mr. William Ludlow described tests of 
the erushing-strength of ice which were made by him 
in order to learn approximately the strength required 
SCIENCE. 
307 
for an ice harbor of iron screw-piles, in mid-channel, 
at the head of Delaware Bay. Eighteen pieces were 
tried with government testing-machines at Frankford, 
Philadelphia, and at Fort Tompkins, Staten Island. 
The specimens were carefully prepared six-inch and 
twelve-inch cubes, and roughly cut slabs about three 
inches thick, of different qualities and from different 
localities. For pure Kennebec ice the lowest strength 
obtained was three hundred and twenty-seven pounds, 
and the highest a thousand pounds, per square inch. 
For inferior qualities the strengths varied from two 
hundred and thirty-five to nine hundred and seventeen 
pounds. The higher results were obtained generally 
when the air temperature in the testing-room was 
from 29° to 36° F., as against 55° to 68° F. for the 
lower results. The pieces generally compressed half 
an inch to an inch before crushing. The secretary 
exhibited for Mr. C. A. Ashburner a set of blue prints 
of some yet unpublished details of the Chicago cable 
railways. —— The secretary presented a note, by Prof. 
W.S. Chaplin, upon a prevalent error in data given 
for determining the true meridian, by observing the 
instant at which Polaris and Alioth come into the 
same vertical, and then following Polaris for a certain 
time, at the expiration of which it.is said to be on 
the meridian. He gives as the true time the follow- 
ing: latitude 40°, 25 m. 36s.; latitude 50°, 25m. 24s. ; 
latitude 60°, 25 m. 5 s.; latitude 70°, 24 m. 29 s. 
Mr. C. J. Quetil exhibited models of the wire truss 
recently described by him. —— Professor Mansfield 
Merriman presented a statement of the progress of 
the triangulation carried on in Pennsylvania by the 
U.S. coast and geodetic survey. 
Academy of natural sciences, Philadelphia, 
Feb. 28.— Dr. Joseph Leidy directed attention to 
some parasitic worms, which included specimens of 
supposed leeches from the mouth of the Florida alli- 
gator. Herodotus states that the crocodile of the Nile 
had the inside of his mouth almost beset with leeches. 
The truth of this assertion has been confirmed by 
modern zodlogists, the species being the Bdella nilo- 
tica. The Florida specimens are, however, not leeches, 
but pertain to a species of Distoma or fluke, appar- 
ently not previously described, for which the name 
Distoma oricola was proposed. Of several Filariae, or 
thread-worms. exhibited, two, a female and a male, 
belong to the species Filaria horrida. The former is 
twenty-eight, and the latter eleven, inches long. They 
were obtained from the thorax of the American os- 
trich. Other specimens were found in the abdomen 
of the marsh-owl. Two species of thread-worm have 
been previously observed in the bodies of owls, to 
neither of which the specimens under examination 
appear tobelong. ‘They so closely accord, however, 
with the descriptions of another species, Filaria la- 
biata, infesting the black stork of Europe and northern 
Africa, that, notwithstanding the remote relationship 
in the host, the speaker believed them to belong to 
that species. Dr. N. A. Randolph spoke of the 
changes which occur in milk during boiling. Although 
but little difference can be detected by the unaided 
senses between raw and boiled milk, it was well 
