i88i.J 
Notes. 
6 93 
The resolution in favour of vivisection unanimously adopted 
at the late International Medical Congress leaves something to 
be desired. It asserts merely “ That this Congress records its 
conviction that experiments on living animals have proved of the 
utmost service to medicine in the past, and are indispensable for 
its future progress ; that, accordingly, while strongly deprecating 
the infliction of unnecessary pain, it is of opinion that, in the 
interest of men and animals, it is not desirable to restrict com- 
petent persons in the performance of such experiments.” It 
seems to us that the resolution covers only experiments made 
with a distinctly medical purpose. The word “ competent ” is 
further, invidious. We regret the want of union between the 
medical profession and non-medical biologists on this important 
subject. 
Mr. Harley Barnes (“ American Naturalist ”), whilst denying 
that animals possess reason, neatly refutes himself by admitting 
that they “ reason from cause to effect.” 
Prof. W. J. Beal, addressing students of botany, most wisely 
says “ Beginners should study plants and refer to books, and not 
study books and refer to plants.” 
An Italian, upon whom adjectives would be wasted, has lately 
been boasting of the numbers of swallows which he has shot. 
We should like to have him stripped naked, and tied to a tree in 
a certain district in the Lower Danube Valley. Before the next 
morning the mosquitoes and sandflies would have convinced him 
of the value of bird-life. 
The blackbird is now recognised as having an occasionally 
carnivorous and predatory character. 
Prof. Von Pettenkofer, at the recent meeting of the German 
Congress of Naturalists and Physicians, maintained that the 
sanitary condition of the soil was of the highest moment, whilst 
the air and the waters, if polluted, soon purified themselves 
again. 
The larva of Crambus vulgivagellus, a small moth belonging 
to the Pyralidas, has this year destroyed the grass over many 
hundreds of acres in the State of New York. 
The Hon. W. Bross, in a paper read before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, ascribes the origin 
of canons not to the erosive action of rivers, but to “ some great 
convulsion of the earth’s surface, or the contraction of mountain 
chains from their igneous condition in the early history of the 
planet.” 
Prof. Owen (“Journal of British Dental Association ”) main- 
tains that the alleged cases of a third set of teeth are merely the 
reappearance of old and worn stumps, in consequence of the 
shrinkage and absorption of the jaw. 
