Estrays from Civilization.—A curious study of a community of estrays from civilization who are leading the life of savages is published by M. Zaborowski in the Revue de l'École d'Anthropologie and La Nature. The settlement is about a mile from Ezy, on the eastern edge of the plateau of Normandy, in a group of caves that were excavated and used as wine cellars when, several hundred years ago, wine culture flourished in the now uncongenial region. Later the spot was a resort for picnics till the old buildings fell into decay, and about fifty years ago it was given up to wanderers. About eighty men, women, and children live there, the adults, though not perhaps really criminals, having been lost to society on account of some offense committed against it. They have no regular means of subsistence, are beneath the tramps in grade, and possess, with one or two exceptions, no articles of property other than what they pick up. Their beds are wooden bunks set upon stones, filled with leaves, and the coverings are wrapping canvas. A "family" of seven persons lived in one of the cellars with only a single bed of this kind. Their kitchen utensils are old tin cans picked out of rubbish heaps, and their stoves are obtained in the same way, or often consist of plates and pieces of iron adjusted so as to make a sort of fireplace. They have a well from which they draw water with some old kettle suspended on a hooked stick, each "family" having its own hook. Their clothes are rags, partly covering portions of the body, and it is not considered necessary that the younger ones should have even these. Their housekeeping and their ideas of neatness are such as might correspond with these conditions. One woman, mother of four children, and the only one that was adequately dressed, was a native of a neighboring village, and had been brought to the cave by her mother when she was eight years old. An old man had been a charge upon the town and was sent to the cave by the maire to get rid of him. He had found a woman there and had several children. A woman, still active, who had lived in the caves three years, had children living in Ezy. The complaint, so common in other parts of France, that the natural increase of population has failed, does not apply to the caves. Five or six of the "families" have four or five children. On these children, of whom only the most vigorous survive, "the influence of their debasing misery and of the vices of their parents impresses a common aspect. Their mental condition has fallen shockingly low, and, their physical needs satisfied, they seem to want nothing further. No attraction will induce them to attend school, which is like imprisonment to them. Their mode of life and the marks of degradation in their faces separate them from others. Earnest attempts to develop their intelligence and moral consciousness have been without result."
German School Journeys.—It is very common in Germany, says Miss Dodd, of Owens College, in one of the English educational reports, to find definite teaching taking place outside the school walls—in the gardens attached to the schools, and in the neighboring forests, where the children are instructed in observation of the local forms of plant and animal life. Further, they are often taken on longer expeditions to spend the whole day in the forest or on the mountain with their teachers, who direct them "what to see, and how to see it." More definite and more ambitious than these minor excursions is the school journey, which may last from three days to three weeks. It is usually taken on foot, and is as inexpensive as possible, with plain food and simple accommodation. Each boy carries his own knapsack charged with a change of underclothing, towels, soap, etc., and overcoat or umbrella; while for the common use of the party are distributed clothes brushes and shoe brushes, needles, thread, string, and pins, ointment for rubbing on the feet, a small medicine chest, a compass, a field glass, a pocket microscope, a barometer, and a tape measure. The district visited is chosen on account of its historical associations or the geographical illustrations it furnishes, or the richness and variety of plant life to be studied. Constant pauses are made to afford opportunities for the examination of features inviting study; and the scenes visited are often closely connected with the subjects included in the year's work of the school. In a journey, of which Miss Dodd was a member, preparations were begun three months beforehand, with the collection of subscriptions, drawing of road maps, and special lessons. The fifty boys from ten to fifteen years old, marched off in groups of four, assorting themselves according to their affinities for companionship, with advance and rear guards; the regions passed through were explored for what might be found in them; the roads were marked and identified, mountains and rivers were named, and the courses of streams determined; and at each place of considerable interest its characteristic features and associations of Nature, art, and history were discussed and studied.
The Huichol Indians of Jalisco.—The Huichol Indians of Mexico, the subject of a study by Carl Lumholtz, four thousand people living in the mountains of northern Jalisco, have a tradition that they originated in the south, got lost underneath the earth, and came forward again in the east, in the country of the Kikuli, near San Luis Potosi. Franciscan missionaries converted them nominally to Christianity, but there are now no priests in their country, and there is probably no tribe in Mexico where the ancient beliefs have been so well maintained as with them. Their exterior conditions have been somewhat altered by the introduction of cattle and sheep, and cattle are now the favorite animals for sacrifice at the feasts for making rain during the dry season. The people are healthy, very emotional, easily moved to laughter or tears, imaginative and excitable. Young people show affection in public, kissing or caressing one another. They are kind-hearted and not inhospitable to those who can gain their confidence, but have the reputation of being wanting in regard for truth. They live mostly in circular houses made from loose stones, or stones and mud, and covered with thatched roofs. Their temples, devoted to various gods, are of similar shape, but much larger, with the entrances toward sunrise. Outside of the door is an open space surrounded by small rectangular god-houses, with gabled and thatched roofs. The god-houses are also frequently found in the forests, and are sometimes circular. There are nineteen temples in the country which are frequented at the times of the feasts, when the officials and their families camp in the small god-houses. Idols are not kept in the temples, but are hidden in caves or in special buildings. There are a great many sacred caves devoted to various gods, and generally containing some pool or spring that gives them sanctity, and the water of which is supposed to have salutary virtues. Much religious importance is attached to the Kikuli cactus, which produces an exhilarating effect on the system. Ceremonial arrows are inseparably connected with their life, the arrow representing the Indian himself in his prayers to the gods. They have other interesting ceremonies and ceremonial objects, and a curious system of distilling, which Mr. Lumholtz describes at length.
Herrings at Dinner.—The food of the herring consists of small organisms, often of microscopic dimensions. It is entirely animal, and in Europe, according to those who have investigated the matter, it consists of copepods, schizopods (shrimplike forms), amphipods (sand fleas and their allies), the embryos of gasteropods and lamellibranchia, and young fishes, often of its own kind. In the examination of about fifteen hundred specimens of herring at Eastport, Maine, and vicinity, in the summer and fall of 1893, Mr. H.F. Moore, of the Fish Commission, found only two kinds of food—copepods or "red seed," which appeared to constitute the sole food of the small herrings, and shrimps the principal food of the larger ones. In many cases the stomachs of the fish were densely gorged with these shrimps, which are extremely abundant in the waters of the vicinity. Excepting the eyes and phosphorescent spots beneath, which are bright red, the bodies of the crustaceans are almost transparent, yet such is the density of the schools in which they congregate that a distinctly reddish tinge is often imparted to the water. They are very active, and frequently avoid the rush of the fish by vigorous strokes of their powerful caudal paddles, which throw them several inches above the surface. To capture them requires some address on the part of the herring, and the fish likewise frequently throw themselves almost clear of the surface. When feeding upon copepods the movements of the herrings are less impetuous. They swim open-mouthed, often with their snouts at the surface, crossing and recrossing on their tracks, and evidently straining out the minute crustaceans by means of their branchial sieves. After they have passed the stage known as "brit," the herrings appear to feed principally at night, or if they do so to any considerable extent during bright daylight it is at such a depth that they escape observation. At night it is often possible to note the movements of the fish at a depth of several fathoms, and at such times Mr. Moore has seen them swimming back and forth, "apparently screening the water, their every movement traced by a phosphorescent gleam, evoked perhaps from the very organisms which they were consuming." The herrings evidently follow their prey by night, and the fact that the shrimps possess phosphorescent spots may explain the apparent ability of the fish to catch them then.
MINOR PARAGRAPHS.
The phosphorescence, which is so beautiful a characteristic of certain forms of animal life in the sea, has been the cause of much speculation among the fishermen and scientists; none of the proposed theories have been entirely satisfactory. It is now stated, however, that an adequate and provable cause has been discovered in a so-called species of photo-bacteria; by means of this germ it is stated that sea water, containing nutrient media, can be inoculated and rendered phosphorescent; that newly caught herrings with the sea water still fresh can be rendered phosphorescent by a treatment which favors the growth of the photo-bacteria. Oxygen is an essential to their growth.
Personal equation was defined by Prof. T.H. Safford, in a paper read at the American Association, as in reality the time it takes to think; and as that time is different in different persons, observations are liable to be affected by it unless correct allowance is made for it in the case of each one. It has been a subject of discussion since the end of the last century. The Astronomer Royal of England discharged a good assistant in 1795, because he was liable to observe stars more than half a second too late. Bond, several years afterward, took the subject up and found that astronomers were liable to vary a little in their observations; some to anticipate the time by a trifle, and others falling a little behind. The subject has since been studied by Professor Wundt. In the days when the eye-and-ear method of observation prevailed, the astronomer had both to watch his object and to keep note of the time; with the introduction of the chronograph, the errors resulting from this necessity are in part obviated. But error enough still exists to be troublesome.
The Educational Extension Work in Agriculture of Cornell University Experiment Station is carried on by the publication and distribution of leaflets, visitation of teachers' institutes, and other means that may bring the station in contact with the people. The results of the work have been generally satisfactory. Eight leaflets, on such subjects as How a Squash Plant gets out of the Seed, A Children's Garden, etc., were published last year in from two to six editions, and still meet a lively demand. Thirty thousand teachers were enrolled on the lists as receiving leaflets, or as students of methods of presenting Nature study to their pupils, sixteen thousand school children were receiving leaflets suitable to them, and twenty-five hundred young farmers were enrolled in the Agricultural Reading Course. Much interest seems to have been shown by farmers in sugar-beet culture, in investigations of which more than three hundred of them are cooperating with the station, and two hundred in experiments with fertilizers.
NOTES.
An important feature in the evolution of trade journalism is pointed out in the presidential address of E.C. Brown, of the American Trade Press Association, in the establishment of small trade journals, covering limited fields. Such industries as brickmaking, stenography, advertising, acetylene, hospital practice, etc., are ably represented by their respective trade journals; and this tendency is promoted by the complementary one of the trades, in their centralization and concentration, compelling even journals in the same business to make their field distinct and restricted. The public demands specific information, not for the purpose of catering to a passing interest, but for its application directly in the conduct of business or the formation of a policy; and those trade journals succeed best which supply accurate information of value to their readers.