534 



SCIENCE. 



results. Professor Harkness has great hopes of shoto- 

 graphy as an auxiliary in this direction. 



The Anthropological Society.— Four papers 

 were read in October, all of them mythological and all 

 of permanent value, to wit : the Buffalo Woman : an 

 Omaha Myth, by the Rev. Owen Dorsey ; Myths of the 

 Wintuns, by Major J. W. Powell ; the Stone God of the 

 Putepemni, by the Rev. S. D. Hurman ; and the Dangers 

 of Symbolic Interpretations, by Col. Gerrick Mallery. 

 It is impossible to give an abstract of a myth. We can 

 only say that Major Powell years ago conceived the idea 

 of studying myths by the Baconian method. He told 

 the writer of this sketch, " there are books and books 

 on mythology, but very few myths. I will collect a vol- 

 ume of well authenticated myths, from which mythologic 

 philosophy can be deduced." The Major has himself 

 gathered a great number, and Messrs. Dorsey and Hur- 

 man were for many years missionaries among the 

 Dakotas, speaking their language with the greatest free- 

 dom. Our readers will be pained to hear that Major 

 Powell has been confined for several weeks by an acute 

 attack of iritis. Colonel Mallery's paper was a thoughtful 

 treatment of the subject of symbolism, neatly considered in 

 its threefold aspect of signs, emblems, and symbols. The 

 North American Indians north of Mexico had not arrived 

 at that psychologic stage wherein true symbolism mani- 

 fests itself. 



The Biological Society of Washington. — The 

 opening meeting of the Biological occurred on the even- 

 ing when the city was all excitement over the reception 

 of our French and German guests. The session of 

 Friday, October 28th. however, was one of considerable 

 interest. Professor Lester F. Ward exhibited an exam- 

 ple from the petrified forests of Wyoming, mimicking the 

 paw of an animal, which elicited a discussion as to the 

 formation of agates and other minerals of that character. 



Mr. Henry Elliot's communication on the biology of 

 the Sea-Otter was very instructive. Little is known of 

 the habit of this animal, the stuffed specimens in the 

 museums conveying a very poor notion of its form. It is 

 supposed to breed on the great beds of kelp which float 

 in the northern seas, having one pup at a birth. Its fur 

 is a hundred times more valuable than all other fur pro- 

 ducts combined. The hunting is especially dangerous 

 and requires great skill. 



Professor Thomas Taylor exhibited and described a 

 freezing microtome, in which the cooling effect of a cur- 

 rent of water from salt and ice is used to produce the 

 hardening. The extreme cheapness, simplicity, and 

 practicability of this apparatus will enable the micro- 

 sccpist to dispense with the more costly and difficult 

 methods hitherto used for obtaining thin sections of tis- 

 sues and for examining the brain and other soft parts of 

 the body in a rigid condition. 



THE EVOLUTION OF FLYING ANIMALS. 

 By Charles Morris. 



There are some questions in Biological science which 

 it will be difficult, if not impossible, to settle by an ap- 

 peal to facts, and in the investigation of which we are 

 obliged to employ a degree of speculation. Thus we 

 have abundant reason to believe that birds are direct 

 derivatives from reptiles. We know, in fact, that these 

 animals resemble each other in such essential particulars 

 as to justify the grouping of them together in a single 

 vertebrate section, the Sauropsidae ot Huxley. We can 

 even trace, by aid of the palasontological record, some of 

 the steps by which birds arose from their reptilian pro- 

 genitors. And yet no definite hypothesis has been ad- 

 vanced as to how the scales of the reptile became the 

 feathers of the bird, how the quadrupedal habit of the 

 one became the bipedal habit of the other, or how the 

 walking changed to the flying method of locomotion. 



These questions we cannot now, and perhaps may 

 never be able to, answer with the argument of facts. 

 But if some probable mode by which such variations 

 may have arisen can be suggested, the speculation will 

 hardly be an empty one. All the great theories of science 

 have simply the force of highly probable speculations, 

 based on known facts ; and lesser theories, if given the 

 same basis, may prove equally desirable. 



One of the most striking features in animal life is its 

 tendency to spread outwards, functionally, in every pos- 

 sible direction, so as to occupy each field of nature in 

 every advantageous manner. One-half of the animal 

 world seeks to feed on the other half, while this second 

 half seeks to escape being fed upon. This is one of the 

 main elements ot natural selection. Every change in 

 organization that proves an advantage to the carnivorous 

 animal in assailing his prey, is apt to be retained. Every 

 change that aids his prey in escaping is likewise retained. 

 Through this cause there have been continual variations, 

 since every favorable change in the one class would 

 prove injurious to the other class, unless met by an equal 

 counter change. 



In this long continued process of adaptation to cir- 

 cumstances, every advantage offered by water and land 

 to their animal inhabitants, in overcoming their prey, or 

 in escaping from their enemies, has been long since 

 adopted, and an immense variety of animal forms has 

 arisen in consequence. But the air also presents favor- 

 able conditions both for escape and pursuit, and the 

 adaptation of animals to aerial flight is so obviously ad- 

 vantageous, that it must have arisen as soon as the devel- 

 oping organization of animal life, and the occurrence of 

 the necessary terrestrial conditions, rendered it possible. 



In considering the problem of how flight originated, 

 it will be desirable to take up successively the three 

 questions above given. First, how did scales become 

 feathers ? The three higher classes of vertebrate ani- 

 mals have each its peculiar dermal covering. The Rep- 

 tile has its bony plates, or its scales, the Mammal its 

 hairs, and the Bird its feathers. Scales, hairs, and 

 feathers are alike in origin, and are but specialized forms 

 of a similar epithelial outgrowth. Yet these three 

 classes of animals seldom invade each other's province. 

 No reptile has a hairy or feathery coating. If mammals 

 and birds were evolved from reptilian progenitors, the 

 change of scales into hairs and feathers forms one of 

 the processes of this evolution, and should be explicable 

 under the natural selection hypothesis. 



Certainly reptiles never became feathered through the 

 Lamarckian process. No effort to fly, however vigorous, 

 could have converted the scale of the reptile into the 

 feather of the bird. It would be useless for flight until 

 it had become almost a perfect feather, and therefore 

 there could be no moulding influence upon its intermed- 

 iate stages. The rudimentary feather must have arisen 

 under the pressure of some other influence, and its 

 adaptation to flight must have been a secondary resultant. 



If we ask, what is the rudimentary feather, we seem 

 to find it in the hair. In the larger land birds, as the 

 Ostrich, the feathers on some parts of the bodv are in- 

 distinguishable from hairs ; and in the tails of flying- 

 squirrels the hairs spread out in a manner that seems 

 preliminary to a development into the feathery condi- 

 tion. We may begin by asking, then, through what pro- 

 cess of natural selection did the scale develop into the 

 hair? 



In seeking to solve this problem we first ask, what 

 advantage has the hair over the scale as a dermal cov- 

 ering ? The only positive answer we can make to this 

 is, that it has greater warmth. It enables the haired 

 animals to endure degrees of cold which would be fatal 

 to the scaled animals. This difference in covering has a 

 marked effect on the lives of the two classes of animals. 

 Through the wide possibilities of increase in length and 

 thickness of their hairy coat, mammals can endure the 



