242 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 162 



are steamed until pliable, when the}' are dressed and 

 colored. Often the small, cheap birds are cut up, 

 and the parts patched together in imitation of some 

 pretentious songster. The dyeing is a secret process ; 

 and the birds are so manipulated, that often a Hoosier 

 jay is palmed off as the rarest warbler of the tropics. 

 This year, owls promise to become popular west. 

 East they are already worn by the leaders of fashion. 

 You may look for tbem upon the streets here soon. 



11 The profits of this business are very large. The 

 Indianapolis collectors pay from seven to twenty-five 

 cents each for the skins of jays and yellow-hammers, 

 and from twenty-five cents to a dollar for owls. An 

 expert skinner can prepare from fifteen to twenty- 

 five an hour ; and. if birds are easily found, he easily, 

 therefore, makes money at the business. Prepared 

 for the milliners, the birds (exclusive of owls) cost, 

 on an average, from ttventy-five to forty cents : they 

 are sold to milliners at from a dollar to a dollar and 

 a half, and the milliners retail them at two dollars 

 and three dollars and a half. At the factories cheap 

 labor is employed. Girls at two dollars and three 

 dollars a week are competent to do all that is required 

 in preparing the birds for use." 



There are some statements in the above which I 

 doubt ; but, having no statistics to the contrary at 

 hand, I have given them without comment. 



The law of Indiana for the protection of its song- 

 birds is farcical in its language, and is rarely enforced. 

 It enumerates the species which are intended to be 

 protected : but so many English birds are included, 

 that one is forced to smile at the very thought of it. 



Amos W. Butler. 



Brookville, Ind.. March 1. 



A recent ice-storm. 



I think that the answer given by Mr. Philbrick 

 (Science, vii. 220), concerning the injury done to 

 trees during the ice-storm of Feb. 11-13, is hardly 

 sufficient to account for the facts. So far as I have 

 been able to learn, the damage was most severe in 

 localities along the coast, north of Boston. In this 

 immediate vicinity the mutilation was excessive. The 

 poplars suffered by far the most, and the elms sus- 

 tained nearly as great injury, and after them would 

 come the red- oaks, pitch-pines, maples, and white- 

 pines. The birches were little affected, and the apples 

 and horse-chestnuts not at all. In some cases the 

 poplar trunks were left nearly bare. The uppermost 

 limbs of the elms sustained greater injury than those 

 lower down, as Mr. Davis indicated. I attribute 

 that mainly to their position. They caught and held 

 so much of the rain, as it fell, that the accumulation 

 of ice was much less on the branches beneath. My 

 observations have not shown much splitting at the 

 point of bifurcation. A careful examination of an 

 extensive area has shown that most of the broken 

 limbs of the elms were twisted off, with splintering 

 of the wood for several inches, and only occasionally 

 one was found which had been broken off squarely. 

 It seems olear that this result was brought about by 

 a want of symmetry in the horizontal subdivisions of 

 the branches When sur^h branches were well loaded 

 with ice, gravity not only bent them downwards, but 

 also produced a considerable torsional effect at a point 

 usually quite near their union with the trunk. The 

 apples and the horse-chestnuts seem to have escaped 

 by reason of the fewness of their small limbs. 



L. A. Lee. 



Bowdoin college, Brunswick, Me., March ff. 



Apropos to Pteranodon and Homo. 



Professor Holder's explanation that the human 

 figure was simply put with Pteranodon for the sake 

 of comparison of size, reminds me that some years 

 ago I got from the cretaceous deposit of my neighbor- 

 hood enough fossil material to diagnose a new species 

 of reptile, which, although with powerful paddles, 

 was almost pythonic in structure, and warranted the 

 belief that the animal was hardly less than twenty- 

 five feet long. As an Irish digger had struck upon 

 the relics, and the too general habit is to destroy 

 rather than save these finds. I succeeded in enthus- 

 ing the laborers by drawing a restoration of this 

 1 sea-serpent,' to their amazement. This the boss 

 digger had framed and suspended in his cottage. To 

 my sorrow, the thing made me famous, for it became 

 so much talked about that reporters came from the 

 great city. A pictorial journal sent an artist, who 

 borrowed my crude sketch, and elaborated it under 

 his own conceptions. Judge of my surprise when, 

 with full credit to my name, the said journal ap 

 peared with an accouut of the resurrected ancient 

 sea-serpent, and an engraving of the same, sporting 

 in the ocean, and in the distance a three masted ship 

 in full sail ! As in Professor Holder's case, there 

 was no explanation given that the ship " was intro- 

 duced in the cut to give people some idea of the size 

 of the animal." Samuel Lockwood. 



Freehold. N.J., March 5. 



Is the dodo an extinct bird? 



Has the guardianship of the 'mysteries of theos- 

 ophy,' or his concern for the social organism of the 

 world, lest they escape him (see Washington Weekly 

 star. Nov. 20. 1885), so far rendered my aged friend, 

 Dr. Coues, insensible to the progress of American 

 ornithology, or current ornithological literature, as 

 to have him overlook the fact, that, twenty days 

 previous to my propounding the above question in 

 Science. I had k said in the Century magazine, " Of 

 all the birds extirpated within the last few centuries, 

 none can claim an equal share of interest with the 

 famous dodo" (January, 1886)? 



Since I published my opinion in the Century, many, 

 many people — not naturalists, but those who take 

 interest in such things — have asked me whether 

 science was absolutely certain of the extinction of 

 the dodo, as many quite recent popular works upon 

 natural history have it that it may still be found in 

 Madagascar. It was for these estimable people that 

 I asked the question in Science; and fortunate in- 

 deed are they, that it has been answered for them 

 by one of the leading ornithologists of this country, 

 and in whose opinion, upon this point at least, I 

 have most certainly always concurred. 



R. W. Shufeldt. 



Fort Wlngate, N. Mex., Feb. 25. 



Chinook winds. 



Warm west winds answering to the ' Chinook ' 

 winds occur as far south as southern Colorado, 

 though I have seldom beard the name 1 Chinook 

 applied to them in this region. They are here often 

 called Pacific winds, also 'snow-eaters' and 'zeph- 

 yrs.' They are the most violent winds we have at 

 this place, as we are sheltered from the northers. 



G. H. Stone. 



Colorado Springs. 



