gling and screaming in the talons of its adversary. The hawk, evidently finding considerable difficulty in dispatching the bird, dragged it along the ground to a shallow pool, where he put its head under the water and stood on it till his victim was drowned. Dr. Riley, in his last entomological report, does not take a very hopeful view of the immediate prospects of silk-culture in the United States. In his opinion it requires a temporary stimulus, and he would suggest a duty on reeled silk imported from foreign countries. It is possible, however, that there are ways enough for Americans to make money without adding to the list of "protected" articles.
Professor W. Mattieu Williams disputes the validity of the recently published conclusion of a German philosopher, that accidents from lightning are increasing, and that the increase is owing to the multiplication of factories with their towering chimneys, and the consequent loading of the air with smoke, steam, and particles of dust. It does not agree with the accepted theory of lightning-conductors, that the multiplication of such agencies tends to the dissipation of atmospheric electricity and the rendering of it harmless. The real increase is not in the number of accidents, but in the regularity with which they are reported.
The King of the Belgians' prize of five thousand dollars, which was offered this year to the competition of the world for the best essay on "The Best Means of improving Sandy Coasts," has been awarded to M. de Hey, engineer, of Bruges, against fifty-nine competitors. The prize is alternately international and confined to Belgians. The subject for the next international competition is "The Progress of Electricity applied to Motive Power and Illumination: its Applications and Economical Advantages." The essays must be presented in French.
A correspondent of "Science Gossip" tells of a pair of swans which, having completed their nest on the bank of a dike, shortly proceeded, as if they were anticipating danger, to raise the structure two feet higher. On the next day a great storm occurred, with floods, that would surely have swept the nest away but for the precaution the birds had taken to secure it.
A French doctor, Sandras, claims to have discovered a way of producing extensive modifications of the voice—in vibration, force, and range—by the inhalation of different substances. Among the typical experiments which he exhibited recently before the Medical Society of the Pantheon, were extension of the register by the inhalation of Botot water; producing hoarseness and extinction of the voice with coal-tar; giving a drunken man's voice with alcohol; and by using other inhalants correcting the effects of cold in the head and of coal-tar inhalations.
Dr. Edward Tuckerman, Professor of Botany in Amherst College, died March 15th, at the age of sixty-nine years. He was recognized as one of the leading lichenologists of the day, and as first in that branch on this continent.
Thomas Edwards, the self-taught naturalist of Banff, Scotland, died April 27th, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. His father was a hand-loom weaver, and he learned the shoemaker's trade. The passion for collecting dominated in him; and his devotion to science brought him considerable fame. He was elected a member of several learned societies in 1865, and afterward acted as Curator of the Banff Museum. He wrote many papers concerning his own discoveries for the scientific magazines. Mr. Smiles published a biography of him which made him generally known. This was followed by a subscription of £333 for relief in his old age, and the award by the Queen of a pension of §50 a year.
M. A. Lallemand, a distinguished French physicist, has just died at Poitiers, in the seventieth year of his age. He had served as Professor of Physics in several French colleges, and was for a number of years dean of the faculty at Poitiers. He was the author of important investigations on electro-dynamic action in the illumination of transparent bodies, and of researches in organic chemistry, among the results of which was the discovery of thymol.
M. Melsens, chemist, of Brussels, has recently died, in the seventy-second year of his age. He was the author of the discovery of iodide of potassium as an antidote for mercurial and lead poisoning.
Johann Georg Varrentrapp, one of the most distinguished and venerable hygienists of Germany, died at Frankfort, March 10th, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was for thirty years physician in the Heiligen Geist Hospital at Frankfort; he was one of the founders of the poor-clinic and of the medical society of Frankfort; he paid special and practical attention to questions of prison discipline and of school organization; he founded the special Section for Public Health in the Association of German Naturalists, and the German Association for Public Health. The "Berliner klinische Wochenschrift" mentions him as the earliest German sanitarian who considered the question of the cleansing of towns, and calls him the father of the practice of public health. In politics he was an active liberal.
