2 
WARD'S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
WARD'S 
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PUBLISHED QUARTERLY 
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WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE ESTABLISHMENT. 
ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: 
BAKER. A. B.— Invertebrate Zoology, Oology. 
HORNADAY, WM. T.— Zoology, Taxidermy and Col- 
lecting. 
HOWELL, EDWIN E. — Geology, Mineralogy and 
Palaeontology. 
LUCAS, FREDERIC A.— Vert. Zoology, Osteology. 
PRESTON, H. L.— Mineralogy and Con etiology. 
STAEBNER, F. W.— Mineralogy and Petrography. 
WARD, HENRY A. — Miscellaneous. 
WEBSTER, FREDERIC S. — Ornithology. 
EDITORIAL NOTES. 
Many of our subscribers have expressed 
surprise at this late appearance of the 
Bulletin. To ourselves it is something 
of a wonder that we have succeeded in 
bringing this number out at all. The 
whole trouble lies with Professor Ward, 
and we do not shrink to tell this to him 
or to all who it may concern. 
He has promised certain articles for our 
paper concerning things seen and done and 
objects collected on his various voyages the 
world over, which we felt sure would enter- 
tain our readers .more than would our shop 
news. So we have waited for these arti- 
cles, and the longer we waited, the longer 
they seemed likely to be deferred, How 
we go to press with what we have of our 
own, and resolve that in the future we will 
depend only on ourselves. But we must 
admit in all candor, that we had no right 
to expect any aid from Professor. We 
know that there is not another man at 
our busy establishment as busy as he. Be- 
sides his presence with us more or less 
every day at the shops and the museum 
halls, he is beset with visitors from places 
all over the continent, who come to see 
our stores and who are not satisfied unless 
he shows them around in person. And 
then his correspondence is something pro- 
digious! Letters pour in by the dozen by 
every mail, from every State of the Union 
and from every country in the world, 
Australia, Hew Zealand, Java, Borneo, 
China, Japan, Alaska, British America, 
Mexico, South America, Africa, Mauri- 
tius, Madagascar, Egypt, India, Ceylon, 
and every country of Europe, are flowing 
in ; letters which must be answered, and 
many of these are in foreign languages 
which his clerks do not understand, and 
which he thus undertakes to attend to 
exclusively himself. Last week he told 
us that the letters and postal cards which 
we saw accumulated on his table before 
and during his ten days’ absence at Hew 
York were no less than one hundred and 
eighty ! We do not wonder at his defer- 
ring help to us on this Bulletin. 
We are now looking for aid to Mr. 
Howell, who has been absent in Europe 
since Hew Year’s. He has been traveling 
throughout " Sicily, Italy and all central 
Europe and Great Britain; and, if the 
observations which he has made are at all 
in proportion to the volume of specimens 
of minerals, rocks and fossils which he 
has collected, we shall expect from him 
some choice contributions to these 
columns. 
Since issuing our last number our 
trusted colleague, Mr. Baker, has left 
for an extended tour in the West for the 
advantage of his health. We greatly miss 
his pleasant face and the kindly, albeit 
sometimes vigorous words which he, in his 
capacity of foreman, was wont to address 
to us. 
Mr. Baker will travel through Kansas, 
Hebraska and Dakota, and we are expect- 
ing large accessions of birds and bird’s 
eggs, rodents and reptiles, and manifold 
species of fossils from him in his capacity 
of a trained collector. We know that he 
will do honor to the establishment wher- 
ever he goes. 
So, too, will Henry L. Ward, the 20- 
year-old son of the Professor, who. has 
lately started across the continent and on 
a collecting tour. His objective point 
seemed to be the Farallones Islands in the 
Pacific, oft the coast of California, where 
he will get seals and sea-lions and many 
species of rare marine birds. 
Good luck to you, Henry. We expect 
to receive at least tivo car loads of speci- 
mens from you when you get back to San 
Francisco ! 
The event of the season for us at the 
shops (so far, we mean, as we personally 
are concerned), has been the preparation 
for, and then the participation in the 
third annual exhibition of the Society of 
American Taxidermists, which took place, 
as our readers all know, at Hew York 
during the first week of May. Our part 
in that was large; no less than half of the 
important exhibitors having gone from — 
or sent their specimens from — ourHatural 
Science establishment. 
And it occurs to us that it might have 
been a little more fair if in our remarks 
at the commencement of the present arti- 
cle we had acknowledged that it is also 
this meeting of the Taxidermist’s Society 
which has delayed this number of the 
Bulletin. This latter reason no longer 
exists, and neither it nor the former one 
shall hinder our next (July) number from 
coming out with reasonable promptness. 
NOTES. 
We are all familiar with the vast destruction 
of birds for millinery purposes, but now a new 
enemy has arisen in the shape of the fashion for 
stuffed Owls. We knew that it must take a great 
many to supply the demand, but were neverthe- 
less astonished to learn that one dealer mounted 
150 during the past season, while another con- 
fessed to no less than 350. 
If this demand goes on, the ranks of the Owls 
will be perceptibly thinned and the farmers will 
have cause to regret this new mania. Owls may 
not be pretty birds, but they are very useful in 
destroying field mice, which in their turn destroy 
the fanner's grain. Remove the Owls and the 
mice will not only carry on their depredations 
unpunished, but by multiplying in numbers, 
rapidly increase in destructive power until the 
damage they do is only too plainly visible. 
But man is not only perpetually interfering 
with nature, but adds insult to injury by com- 
plaining of the troubles he thus brings upon him- 
self. Man cuts down the forests and finds fault 
with the freshets, kills the birds and swears at 
the boys-, despoils the lobster of his mossy bed 
and then doesn’t like it because lobsters are small 
and dear. For one cause of the decrease in lob- 
sters is the raking of the “Irish moss ” from their 
breeding grounds, and thus 
The truth is that it is dangerous to interfere 
with the economy of nature. The joy of the 
Bostonians at the arrival of the English "Sparrow 
will only be equalled by their joy at its departure, 
provided he ever can be induced to leave. And 
the New Zealanders who introduced rabbits now 
wish they hadn’t, for the little animals have over- 
run the country and become so terribly destruc- 
tive to the crops that strong efforts are being 
made to exterminate them. 
It is a singular fact, that if a plant or animal 
can thrive at all in a foreign clime, it acqunes 
new vigor and proceeds to drive out the original 
inhabitants. The ability to harmonize with its 
new surroundings gives it a small, but decided 
advantage over those who could merely hold their 
own when to the manor born. 
One of the cases where an animal has been 
introduced and proved beneficial, is that of the 
importation of the Mongoos into Santa Lucia and 
Martinique, for the purpose of destroying snakes. 
The Mongoos has thriven and multiplied, and is 
doing good work in killing off the venomous 
snakes so common in these islands. 
In some ways man partially compensates for 
indulging in his destructive propensities. For 
example, the great destruction of small birds by 
collecting their skins and eggs, is largely offset 
by killing off their natural enemies and by culti- 
vating the ground and thus affording them in- 
creased facilities for procuring food. 
Nevertheless, indiscriminate collecting should 
be discouraged; and while we approve of school 
museums and would like to see them in every 
town; we don't approve of every boy making 
a collection of skins and eggs simply because the 
boy next door has one. Too often the collection 
is merely an excuse for that reckless killing of 
every living thing, which seems to be a part of 
our nature, and which is really a relic of the time 
when man had to depend on the chase for his 
living. 
One of the worst instances of wanton destruc- 
tion that ever came to our notice, was that of a 
pair of mighty Snipe hunters, who killed sixty-five 
Scarlet Tanagers in one morning, merely because 
they were pretty, and not because they wanted 
them for any earthly purpose. 
If this desire to slay could only be turned to 
account in the destruction of the English Spar- 
row, it would be a good thing. Like the Chinese 
he must go, and the sooner the better. The few 
friends he has, regard him from a sentimental 
rather than a practical standpoint; and jf one 
wishes to see how overwhelmingly the evidence 
is against the Sparrow, one has only to consult 
Dr. Cone’s careful compilation of the literature 
on the subject. Incidentally we will mention 
that the Sparrow makes a very palatable pot-pie. 
