1884.] 
Notes. 
691 
lives, and mottoes and texts written by eminent hands are 
eagerly sought after. A good literary degree in China implies 
a marvellous amount of study of the Chinese classics, which, to 
secure the highest excellence, have virtually to be committed to 
memory. The competitive essays on given themes are judged, 
not by their substance, but by their style, that is to say, by the 
writer’s ingenuity in filling his paper with laconic but recondite 
classical allusions which would be unintelligible to a reader not 
conversant with the whole range of Chinese literature. This 
system makes such exhaustive demands, not only on all the 
best years but all the half-hours of life, as to leave absolutely no 
room for natural science, even if the taste for it existed. It 
follows, as a natural consequence, that a Chinese literate is 
more ignorant than a European child of everything in earth, air, 
and sea. — “ Mining World.” 
[May we English not almost say to ourselves, “ Mutato 
nomine de te Fabula narratur.” 
At the Blois meeting of the French Association for the 
Advancement of Science Dr. Voisin described his successful 
experience in the hypnotic treatment of lunatics and sluggards. 
If he could hypnotise certain mischievously-active persons, and 
reduce them to a state of harmless idleness, he would deserve 
thanks. 
We read that “ the electric light is a great boon to fruit 
growers near the cities in California. At Los Angelos, it is 
reported, several bushels of moths are killed every night, while 
at Sacramento it is believed that the black beetle has been 
nearly exterminated.” But what if species useful in the 
fecundation of plants are killed off also ? 
The quantity of solid excrementitious and refuse matters at 
Paris is 2,500 cubic metres daily. The volume of the sewage is 
300,000 cubic metres per twenty-four hours. 
Dr. Ogston, of Aberdeen, describes, in the “ British Medical 
Journal,” a decided and fatal case of scarlet fever in a canary. 
We share the regret expressed by our medical contemporaries 
at the hesitation — to use the mildest term — shown by Mr. 
Mundella in suppressing the ruinous system of overwork in 
elementary schools. 
The walnut tree may be most advantageously felled for timber 
at the age of 250 to 300 years ; the Spanish chestnut at 200; 
the lime-tree at 125 ; the beech at 95 ; the fir at 90 ; the white 
willow at 40 ; and the alder, the birch, and the poplar at 50 to 60 
years. 
An abnormal specimen of a species of the genus Homalomya, 
having seven legs, was exhibited by Mr. Billups at the October 
meeting of the Entomological Society. 
