Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/182

 �[Vi)[„ v., No. I08.J

��would prove a. great convenience to Ihe business and 8CieQtiDc public, and equalize the time value of the calendar monLlis and quarter*.

A very auiiabla opportmiily to introduce the Im- proved calendar would lie oa the first recurrence ol the lenp-year. iu 1S8S. In the mean time the proposed cfa&nge could be fully diacuHaed and ventllaied.

The following table will show tliR relations of the old and the new calendar to each other; —

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L

��U,d«U.„d.,.

�Stw aicBiu.

�,1-lt.

�ai

� �31

� � � �iS-B

� �MM»

� � �Muc

�'' "

�—

� �K

�Murcti 31

�Aprl

�-M

� �1»- 1

�12Z

� � �SI

� �161-2

�163

� �June

�^°

�-

� �m

�June SO

� �31

� �211- 3

�213

�July 30 •

� �31

� � �2«

� �H.pl.

�*'

�—

�ST3.«

�a-*

�arpt. 30

�0...

�31

� �304-5

�30&

�Ol 31 "'

� �ao

� �334-5

�SM

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� � � �.

� �s;j

� � �a.

� � � � � � � � � � � �mlpodiifl w

� ��30 dns. .^hJu, evplsrabrr, April, Joni-, u/doveiDbcr, >V6rMDf¥ und DtcrmlitT;

El>WAilD P. Gbay. Ingei^oU'a 'Country couaina.'

Absence from hnme has delayed until to-day my ■Pciiig thc>eilorided (and therefore hlf;h1y compllmen' tary) notice of niy " Country cousins : short studies In the natural history of the United States," to whicb ytm were good enough to give space in your issue of Feb. 6.

Acknowledging its kindly tone throughout, I wlslt to retort with equal courtesy (If possible) upon your writer at the point where he seeniH to Bud most fault; namely, my assertion that the flukes of the whale and other cetaceatis represent the hinder flip- pers of the seal and the hinder legs of terrestrial quadrupeds. That anybody should deny this, sur- prised me. The language in which I expressed the staiemebt was teis precise Ihnn that demanded by a technical treatise, as 'Country cousins' makes no claim to be; but only a captious conalructlou could make out that 1 meant more by what I said than that in a general way lbs flukes o( the Celacea were rep- reseulatlve (In a greatly altered condition, of course) o( the hinder flippers of a seal, and structurally were quite OS distinct as tijey, from the forked tail of a Ush.

��Leaving my assertion and possible evidence out ofl the question, I should like to know what the c parative anatomists of the country have to say as Ibis point between my critic and mvself. Do n-. Dr. Elliott Coues and Dr. Theodore Gill teach that m whole's fluke is directly homologous with the inte^it-'n mentary portion of the hinder limbs of the rest of the Mammalia? Of course, every one knows there ai bones there. Has not Profei-sor John Kyder discov- ered, since my page? were in type, that the nerves which supply ilie flukes are not those which pass along the splue into the tall (where It exists), but. on tbe contrary, are bomologues of those in the higher mammals, which, branching From the spinal coiS In the lumbo-sacral region, supply the hinder limbs? What has emhryoloey to show as to the genesis of the flukes? Do they arise atructuralty as the forks of a tail, or as limb-appendages? It la just possible that the inaccuracy and carelessness with which I have been rather freely accused have been over-estimated,

EltNEST LNOGRSOLI. New Hsvcn.

(In respect to the criticism of ' Country cousins,' to which the author of the work so warmly but courW- ously objects, it may be sufficient reply to quota Um . statement criticised by the reviewer, which Is as fol- J lows: " If 1 had the lime, I could prove to you tfaabl the diSeretice between the iin of a fish and the boa*-] leg of an oiler or of a dog, or of our own arm, la not f BO very great; audit would beeasy toshowbownMirlj alike the flipper of (he seal and fore-leg of a land mammal really are. . - - The same comparison will hold good for the hlud-feet of the otter and the blnd- fllppeisor 'tail' (which la not a tail) of the seal;: It is equally true of the walrus, and of the whale, f poite, yrampus. black-fitli, and other eetactaiut." No^d a word Is said about the ' flukes ' of a whale, nor Is KOfM reference mode to the ' forked tail of a Gsb,' in tlHtfl passage criticised. We again submit that this is * e~ ~^ language. — Rbvibwi£k.|

��A very large proportion of tho time of a faithful curator of a growing entomological cabinet is de- voted to the re-arrangement of his collections, —to simply pulling pins from one place iu a cork-llneU box, and putting them into another. In large and well-endowed museums this labor can be lessened somewhat by leaving spaces in Ihe boxes for addi- tions; but in an ordinary entomological cabinet this is obviously impracticable, and, even where this plan is adopted, It affords only partial relief. The ad- vance <.f knowledge is coustantly changing our Ideas as to the sequence of species; and from time to time the appearance of a monc^raph necessitates the re- arrangement of our collections. If we would have them represent the present state of science.

But *o great is this iatwr of re-arrangement, that only few if any of the larger collections are kepi in any thing like perfect order. And the faithful cura- tor is forced to give to mere manual labor, lime which oUierwise would be devoted to original re-

< years ago I devised and pnt Into use a

��n application to entomological cabinets of the cipie which underlies the slip system of keeping ?8. lis fumiamenlHl idea is to fasten In eacE

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