Chapter IV: OF MEASURES THAT WILL BE EFFECTIVE.--The evil must be fought in (1)

its causes. These causes are detestable family customs, dictated by pecuniary considerations. These being the things to be reformed, and money being the cause of them, the beginning should be made with money. We have a right to demand energetic measures, severe if necessary, against the evil that is eating France. Those which we shall ask for here are only equitable. They shall fully respect individual liberty, and in some cases augment it. Their purpose is to teach the French people who do not know it the immense wrong which their mistaken selfishness is inflicting upon the country. They aim especially to modify customs, and to invoke for reasonably numerous families the profound respect and protection that are due them. And they seek to harmonize general with particular interests, a thing to which the present laws have precisely the contrary effect.

_It is just as much every man's duty to contribute to the perpetuity of his country as it is to defend it._ This is a moral truth which the French have forgotten, and it will have to be inculcated in them. The case is beyond the reach of the most eloquent sermons, and will have to be met, if the mass of men are to be convinced, by palpable facts that will touch all personally. This leads to the principle, which seems, moreover, self-evident, that the fact of bringing up a child should be considered a form of tax payment. The payment of a tax is, in fact, the imposition of a pecuniary sacrifice for the profit of the whole nation. This is what the father accepts who rears a child.

_A family, to be acquitted of the tax, should rear at least three children._ It takes two children to fill the place of the parents, and there should be a third in addition, for one in three families, on an average, will have no children. Hence the family which does not rear three children will fail of imposing sufficient sacrifices upon itself for the future of the nation. It is free to do this, but should pay damages for it. He, on the other hand, who rears more than three children imposes supplementary burdens upon himself, for which he should be recompensed every time occasion offers. The principle of a reduction of taxes proportioned to the number of children was applied in June, 1898, at the instance of the _Alliance Nationale_, by the city of Lyons. It has been adopted, very timidly at first, and then a little more broadly, by the Minister of Finance.[F] But it would be easy, and even necessary, to go considerably further in this direction.

[Footnote F: France is not the first country that has started on
this course. The spirit of justice has suggested similar reforms
in countries which have no questions of depopulation to deal
with. Reductions of taxes proportioned to the number of children
have been granted in Prussia, Saxony, most of the secondary
states of Germany, Servia, Norway, Sweden, several Swiss cantons,
and Austria.]

To accomplish this reduction without the treasury losing anything, it is only necessary to charge the less prolific families with one fifth additional tax. The demographic condition of France is, in fact, so deplorable that families of more than three children form only one sixth part of the whole number, or are 2,122,210 out of 12,127,023; hence, in order to clear fully from liability for taxes these two million families, it is enough to charge the other ten million families with supplementary taxes of twenty per cent--a thing that is entirely practicable. It may, however, seem more expedient to scale the supplementary impost, so that it shall fall in inverse proportion to the number of children. Thus, let bachelors more than thirty years old pay fifty per cent; households without children, forty per cent; families with one child, thirty per cent; families with two children, ten per cent; families with three children, the present tax without addition; while families with more than three children should be wholly exempt. A simple calculation will show that the treasury would gain by such an adjustment. It would lose 2,122,210 contributors of taxes, and would gain, against these, 2,456,112. Furthermore, families with more than four children are usually poor and hardly able to pay even light assessments, while those we propose to tax supplementarily are mostly wealthy, whence the tax against them would be generally productive.

These scalings and exemptions might be applied to all the various kinds of direct taxes, so that the state should say, in effect, to the infertile families: "You have done a wrong to your country. We have no thought of punishing you for it, but it is not right that you profit by it. You must pay damages for it."

The plan actually followed by the state, instead of making lighter the meritorious burden which the head of a numerous family assumes, does everything to make it harder. All the direct and indirect taxes seem to fall higher upon families having many children. It would not be exact to say that the law is indifferent to natality. It would be more just to say that it does all it can to discourage it, and that every Frenchman is officially invited, in his own interest and that of his posterity, to limit it as much as possible. The contrary is what should be done.

There are wealthy families which are in a position to contribute most liberally to the perpetuity of the nation, and yet, strangely, they are the most abstemious. It would not be fair to tax them according to the number of servants they have, for this must increase as children multiply; but the tax might be adjusted to the excess of servants over children.

As an objection to our plan, it may be asked if we really believe that those "neo-Malthusian" families who have only one or two children will decide to have four in order to save themselves from some taxes? We do not cherish this illusion; but the sordidness of the family customs of the country should not be exaggerated. Most of the families sin through selfishness, while they do not realize that their selfishness is culpable, harmful, and ignoble. This must be made clear to them, and no method of publishing the fact is as imposing and effective as the tax-collector's schedule. The reform in direct taxes which we propose will therefore have an educational influence.

The same principle might be applied in the military service by expediting the discharge of soldiers who are married. A bill to this effect has been introduced in the French Senate, and an amendment has been proposed extending the favor to the eldest son of a family of five children.

The inheritance tax is a particularly fitting form of impost in which insufficiently fruitful families might pay the indemnity which they justly owe the state on account of their sterility; for the prime object of the neo-Malthusians is to forestall the necessity of dividing their fortunes among too many children. The laws of succession are so framed now that _only_ sons pay less than others; not only are the expenses of notarial acts less for them than for families with several children, but the latter are liable to pay the tax several times, for when one of the heirs dies his brothers and sisters will have to pay new succession taxes. In all cases of this order the treasury burdens numerous families, and spares neo-Malthusian ones. The institution of heritage stimulates industry, and is one of the chief reasons for it. A great many men, we are sure, would work less and would certainly save less except for the prospect of leaving the fruit of their labor and economy to their children--or, too often, to their only child. But as the institution of heritage becomes under these conditions one of the prime factors of depopulation, it will have to be modified.

The state is as much interested in the fecundity of families as it is in their industry and thrift. To stimulate the latter virtues it guarantees them the right of inheritance. It might withdraw it or diminish it to its own profit, if their fertility was not judged sufficient for it. For such a measure to be effective its application should be severe enough to touch sensibly the fortunes of families which have given the country only one or two children. The state, for instance, might reserve to itself the disposable part of the inheritance--half, for instance, in the case of families having only one child; a third, of families where there are two children; and waiver of the extra tax where there are three children. The principle might be approximately expressed as that of treating single children as to their inheritance portions as if they had brothers. But as a proposition so worded would have but little chance of immediate adoption, we should have to be satisfied with a less radical reform. If it is objected that such measures would be too revolutionary and too much opposed to existing ideas and habits, the answer is that anodynes would be without effect upon so profound and inveterate an evil. French families must cease to have an evident interest in limiting the number of their children, and something more than half measures will be needed to achieve such a result.

Our principle is equality of burdens. We say to the French: "You have three chief duties toward your country: to contribute to its perpetuity, to its defense, and to its pecuniary burdens. We affirm that you have failed in the first of these duties. This being true, you must accept the other two with a supplement. With this principle severely applied, and with some other reforms, we hope to bring back to the country the idea of the respect that is due to numerous families and of aversion against the detestable habits that are destroying France."

The sums derived from the increased succession taxes which we have proposed to assess upon families that have given the country only one or two children might be reserved for the education of poor children or for the realization of some such plan as has been proposed by M. Raoul de la Grasserie for the pensioning of a retreat in old age for the parents of large families.

Another means of encouraging parentage may be found in instituting special honors and marks of esteem for the fathers and mothers of numerous children. Thus the General Council of the Drôme gives a gold medal on the 14th of July to each of the two women in the department who excel in this respect. A fund has been created at Nantes for providing rewards to those who have the most children under fifteen years of age. A system of rewards also exists at Meaux for those who have contributed most to the population.

The French law requiring the equal division of estates among all the children operates as a deterrent to parentage. A father who has built up a large business or accumulated a handsome domain is exceedingly averse to the prospect of having it cut up and dispersed, and is therefore careful to have but one child, so that it may descend unimpaired to him. The coincidence that France is the only country where this system prevails, and is, at the same time, the only one where the population is decreasing, is striking enough to suggest a connection between the two phenomena. The law works mischievously in this respect, and requires modification in the direction of giving the parent larger privileges of testamentary disposition.

Thus, the state should in every way and in every department of law and administration manifest its profound respect for large families; it should set the example on this point, for it is the party most largely interested.--_Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique._

WEST INDIAN POISONOUS FISHES.

BY JAMES MACDONALD ROGERS, F. R. C. S.,

STAFF SURGEON, R. N.

At a time when so much attention is being paid to the West Indian Islands as regards their politics, social condition, and natural history it may not be out of place to briefly consider the subject of the poisonous fishes to be found in the neighboring seas. Considering the number of unwholesome fish abounding in these waters and the numerous cases of illness caused by them, I was surprised on investigation to find that so little appeared to be known or written on the subject. During my three-years' cruise in the West Indies the study of those fishes reputed to be poisonous was forced upon me by reason of the numerous cases of illness among the sailors of my own ship. When it is asserted that there are no less than sixty varieties of noxious fishes to be found in Cuban waters alone, it seems desirable that those who are about to settle in these parts should have some general idea as to what fish to choose and what to avoid.

Colored fishermen are not too particular about hawking unwholesome fish in the streets, even when its sale is forbidden in the market, and numerous cases have come under my notice where the unwary purchaser has paid the penalty by a sharp and painful illness. One of the great delights of our sailors is to land on some sandy beach, provided with a large seining net, in order to catch fish, the consumption of which varies the monotony of salt beef and pork. On examining the hauls they made I invariably found some unwholesome specimens, which I advised them to reject, and by so doing every time they went seining had no more cases of fish poisoning on board.

In tropical seas some fish are found to be always poisonous wherever and whenever caught, but there are numerous instances where wholesome fish become noxious when found in certain localities, especially on coral reefs and shoals. Fish when feeding on decomposing coral polyps, medusæ, and poisonous mollusks found on these reefs often become noxious, as the following instance will prove: Midway between Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica lie the extensive reefs and shoals of the Formigas, which are several miles in extent and covered by a small depth of water. These shoals present a concentration of all the incidents to be found in West Indian fringing shore reefs. Arborescent corals and spreading millepores stretch on walls and ledges, interspersed with huge meandrinas and brainstones, among which lodge a profusion of _Holothurias_, starfishes, and a variety of sponges. This great mass of reefs, called from their clustering swarm the Ants' Nest, or the Formigas, abound with all sorts of fishes. As you approach the great submarine plateau, the odor of the slime and of the spermatic substances that find a resting place in the crevices and shallow pools spread through it is very remarkable--the pleasant blandness of the sea breeze suddenly changing to the nauseating smell of a fish market. Those who have waded on tropical shore reefs know not only the strong scent given out by the polyps that build there, but feel how sensibly the hands are affected, and how the skin of the thighs is susceptible of a stinging irritation from the slightest contact with the slime of corals. It has been found by invariable experience that all the fishes taken on the Formigas are pernicious; that the barracudas especially are always poisonous. Similar stretches of shoals among the Bahamas produce fishes deleterious as food.

The low-spreading ledges and banks of the Virgin Islands, called the Anegadas, or the Drowned Islands, afford a similar unfavorable ground for fishing. In this way we may account for the remark of Dr. Grainger that fishes are poisonous at one end of St. Christopher while they are harmless at another. We get over, by these several incidents of those fishing grounds, the adventitious occurrence of poisonous among wholesome fishes, which become deleterious from the food on which they subsist at certain seasons on certain banks and coasts.

Again, in the tropics wholesome fish soon become virulently poisonous if kept too long, as the fierce heat favors rapid decomposition. In this short article I have only space for a description of the most common and injurious fishes met with in the West Indies. One of the commonest fish in these seas is the barracuda (_Sphyræna barracuda_), which can be easily recognized by its elongated body, covered with cycloid scales. The color is dark olive-green on the back, fading to a lighter green on the sides, while its under surface is silvery white. The mouth is wide and curved, with long and sharp teeth. These fishes are large and voracious, often attaining the length of six feet; and as they are usually found close inshore, amid the heaviest surf, they are as much feared by fishermen and bathers as the shark. Indeed, they are more to be feared, for the shark as a rule is timid, and unless extremely hungry is cautious in its voracity. The barracuda, on the contrary, is very bold. The shark flees from a splashing in the water, but the barracuda goes there to see what he may find, as he is only attracted by live bait. The wounds inflicted by the barracuda are exceedingly severe and sometimes fatal.

When young this fish is generally used as food, but having attained a certain size the flesh becomes exceedingly noxious, at least at certain seasons of the year. This change is said to be due to the poisonous fish on which they feed. When caught on certain banks, as the Formigas, their flesh is always extremely unwholesome, and, as Kingsley says, they have this advantage, that while they can always eat you, you can not often eat them with impunity. The Cubans, as a rule, will not touch this fish, and at Santa Cruz it is the custom never to eat it till the next day, and then not till after salting it; but that is apparently no safeguard, as four persons living in Kingston, Jamaica, suffered severely after eating "corned barracuda."

It is stated that when unwholesome, its teeth will be found of a blackened color at the base, and on inserting a silver coin into its flesh this will also turn black. The poisonous symptoms caused by this fish are peculiar, and were strongly marked in the case of a friend of mine who was a solicitor living in Barbados. He and several others who had partaken of the same fish suffered from severe gastro-intestinal disorder, with intense nausea and vomiting. His face swelled up and became tubercular like a leper; afterward, general muscular tremblings and acute pain about the body, particularly in the joints of his hands and arms, came on. The nails of his feet and hands became black and fell off without any pain, and his hair also fell out. For years after he suffered from debility and tubercular skin eruptions. Death sometimes follows, but those who do not die suffer for a long time from its effects, which in some cases last for twenty-five years.

The "yellow-tailed sprat" (_Clupea thrissa_) is common in the West Indies, and may be recognized by having its last dorsal ray prolonged into a filament. A black spot behind the gill cover is said to distinguish it from a somewhat similar fish, the "red-eared pilchard," which has a yellow spot behind its gill cover. Schomburgk gives testimony to the poisonous properties of the "yellow-tailed sprat" when found at certain periods of the year among the Leeward and Virgin Islands.

The eating of this poisonous "sprat" is said to be followed by most violent symptoms and rapid death. The common saying in the West Indies--that if you begin at the head you never have time to finish the tail--is almost literally true.

The eating of the roe of this "sprat" caused in Japan, in the year 1884, twenty-three deaths. The victims suffered from severe inflammation of the mouth and throat, strong abdominal pain, formication in the arms and legs, disorders of vision, paralysis, convulsions, and loss of consciousness. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea often occurred. Death followed in some cases in a quarter of an hour, but mostly in from two to three hours.

Lacroix describes a case of poisoning through eating the "sprat" which occurred on board a French man-of-war. Out of a crew of fifty men, thirty were dangerously ill and five died. The men experienced strong muscular cramps in the arms and legs, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea. Afterward congestion of the brain, delirium, and coma supervened.

Most of the cases of fish poisoning which I have met with in the West Indies have been due to eating various kinds of "snappers," especially the "gray snapper." The tropical species are very numerous and difficult to differentiate, owing to their frequent change of color according to age and surroundings. In 1897, at St. Georges, Grenada, twelve persons who partook of a large gray snapper were attacked with severe symptoms of fish poisoning. A few hours after the meal all these were suffering from pain and fullness in the stomach, followed by persistent vomiting, severe cramps, watery evacuations, weak, thready pulse, and labored respirations. One of the victims was examined by me four months afterward, and he stated that, owing to intense weakness, he had been forced to keep his bed for several months, during which period he suffered from various nervous disorders. He had shooting pains and tingling of the limbs, dimness of vision, and quick, thready pulse.

In 1893 seventeen persons living in Bridgetown, Barbados, were attacked by similar symptoms to those mentioned above. All these had eaten of a fish which had been hawked about by a fisherman, and which was subsequently identified as a "gray snapper," though sold under a more innocent name.

A Spanish naval surgeon, Don Anton Jurado, while serving on board the gunboat Magallanes had an opportunity of proving Poey's statement that the fishes caught on the coast of Cuba are often very poisonous. No less than twenty-seven of the officers and men were taken ill, most of them with gastro-intestinal disturbance of a more or less severe nature; the others suffered from nervous symptoms.

The horse mackerel, green cavalla, and the jack are often found most unwholesome when caught in West Indian waters.

In Barbados a whole family were seized with symptoms simulating cholera from eating "green cavalla."

The editor of The Barbadian writes: "We think it right to caution people against the fish called 'green cavalla' from being purchased by their cooks. Some years ago we know that several individuals were extremely ill from eating this fish, which is frequently very poisonous. The night before last a whole family in Bridgetown, except the master, who fortunately had dined out, were seized with violent cholera after having partaken of cavalla."

The "jack" (_Caran plumieri_) is found to be poisonous in some seasons of the year, and it is said that at such times two small red lumps appear in its gills. When they are suspected of being in a poisonous condition an experiment is tried upon a duck by giving her one of them to swallow, and if at that season it is poisonous the duck dies in about two hours. The "rock hind," or "smoky hind," after attaining a certain size becomes most unwholesome, and often infested with parasites. Numerous instances of severe symptoms attacking persons after eating this fish are recorded.

Toadfish, or _Tetrodons_, are occasionally met with, and are to be avoided as being extremely poisonous, especially if the roe or liver be eaten. A family of coolies in Trinidad, in spite of being warned, ate one of these fishes, with a fatal result. The symptoms were blunted sensibility, trembling, general muscular weakness, difficulty of breathing, vomiting of blood, convulsions, and death.

The _Diodonts_, "trunkfishes," are not nearly so poisonous as the _Tetrodonts_, but they are found to be very noxious at certain times or in certain localities, more especially if the gall bladder, liver, and intestines are not removed before cooking. It is reported that those persons who had eaten them suffered from loss of sensibility, cold sweat over the whole body, and stiffened limbs. Death followed in some cases.

The "prickly bottle fish" (_Diodon orbicularis_), met with in the Gulf of Mexico, is said to be injurious when eaten.

The _Ostracion triqueter_, called in the West Indies "fair maid," "plate fish," "trunkfish," is often eaten with no ill effects by the negroes, who, after cleaning it, bake it in its hard shell-like covering. There is, however, a gelatinous matter near the tail which is called "the jelly," and a similar substance is found near the head. When only part of this jelly has been eaten its effects are a peculiar vertigo, nausea, vomiting, pains all over the body, more especially in the limbs. The feeling of vertigo is similar to that of intoxication, hence the fish has been called "drunken fish."

The "filefishes," or "trigger fishes," when found in the tropics, where they feed on coral polypi, have the reputation of being most unwholesome.

In the West Indies "sea eels," or murenas, are only eaten by the negroes. The blood of eels is said by Mosso to contain a poison like that of vipers. It is related that a man drank some eel's blood mixed with wine, and was in consequence seized with severe diarrhoea, disturbance of vision, foaming at the mouth, and stertorous breathing. He ultimately recovered after vigorous treatment.

Dr. Gordon, of Montego Bay, Jamaica, records a case of death from eating the flesh and liver of a species of coast conger (_Gymnothorax restratus_). In spite of treatment, the man died after a lingering illness.

Space will not permit me to dwell in this article on the remaining noxious fishes, but it is to be hoped that enough has been written to teach people to be cautious in their selection of fish when in the West Indies.

THE COLORS OF NORTHERN FLOWERS.

BY JOHN H. LOVELL.

For profusion of bloom and brilliancy of coloring, the land of the tropics, with all its luxuriance of vegetation, can offer nothing to compare with a New England meadow in June. Along the great rivers of the South or in the islands of the East strange and beautiful flowers occur individually or in small groups, but the traveler looks in vain for myriads of blossoms giving a distinctive coloring to the landscape itself. It was long the popular notion that the colors of flowers were of no importance except as they gave human pleasure. This idea has been made familiar by a well-known line of Gray's Elegy. It was a German pastor, Christian Conrad Sprengel, at the close of the last century, who first pointed out their true significance. So enthusiastically did he pursue his botanical studies that he neglected the duties of his office, and finally even omitted the Sunday sermon. The natural result followed, that he was deprived of his parish. In straitened circumstances he then sought unsuccessfully to maintain himself at Berlin by giving lessons in botany and Sunday excursions in search of plants. His book, now a botanical classic, attracted but little attention; his publisher did not even send him a copy of it, and in disgust he turned from the study of plants to that of languages. The title of the work, The Secret of Nature in the Form and Fertilization of Flowers Discovered, affords us the pleasure of knowing that he rightly estimated the importance of his observations. Sprengel clearly states that the bright hues of flowers, as is now well established, serve as signals to attract the attention of nectar-loving insects flying near by. He was led to this conclusion very fitly by the study of _Myosotis_, the "forget-me-not." He has not been forgotten. His name and theory were rescued from obscurity by Darwin; his book a few years ago was reprinted at Leipsic, and is now universally recognized, says H. Müller, as having "struck out a new path in botanical science."

A day's stroll through the fields and woodlands is sufficient to show that yellow and white blossoms are in Nature more common than red or blue. From an examination of 741 New England and Eastern species belonging to 48 families (see table) it appears that 164 are yellow, 283 white, 71 red, 136 blue and purple, and 87 green. Greenish flowers occur in 25 families, yellow in 29, white in 32, red in 16, purple and blue in 22.

_The Predominant Colors of the Flowers of Ranunculaceæ to Cornaceæ in the Northern States._

--------------+---------+--------+--------+--------+---------+--------
| Yellow. | White. | Red. | Blue. | Green. | Total.
--------------+---------+--------+--------+--------+---------+--------
Ranunculaceæ | 19 | 19 | 2 | 14 | 6 | 60
Magnoliaceæ | 1 | 4 | .. | .. | 1 | 6
Anonaceæ | .. | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 1
Menispermaceæ | .. | 2 | .. | .. | 1 | 3
Berberaceæ | 2 | 3 | .. | .. | 1 | 6
Nymphæaceæ | 3 | 2 | .. | 1 | .. | 6
Sarraceniaceæ | 1 | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 2
Papaveraceæ | 4 | 2 | 2 | .. | .. | 8
Fumariaceæ | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | .. | 8
Cruciferæ | 17 | 37 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 65
Capparidaceæ | .. | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 1
Resedaceæ | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1
Violaceæ | 4 | 6 | .. | 8 | .. | 18
Cistaceæ | 4 | .. | .. | .. | 4 | 8
Droseraceæ | .. | 3 | 1 | .. | .. | 4
Hyperaceæ | 18 | .. | 2 | .. | .. | 20
Elatinaceæ | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 1
Caryophyllaceæ| .. | 32 | 15 | .. | 6 | 53
Portulaceæ | 1 | .. | 3 | 1 | .. | 5
Malvaceæ | 5 | 4 | 10 | 3 | .. | 22
Tiliaceæ | .. | 2 | .. | .. | .. | 2
Camilliaceæ | .. | 2 | .. | .. | .. | 2
Linaceæ | 3 | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 4
Geraniaceæ | 3 | 2 | 2 | 6 | .. | 13
Rutaceæ | .. | 2 | .. | .. | 1 | 3
Anarcardiaceæ | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 5 | 6
Vitaceæ | .. | .. | .. | .. | 7 | 7
Rhamnaceæ | .. | 3 | .. | .. | 4 | 7
Celastraceæ | .. | .. | .. | 2 | 1 | 3
Sapindaceæ | 2 | 2 | 2 | .. | 5 | 11
Polygalaceæ | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | .. | 14
Leguminosæ | 19 | 28 | 6 | 61 | 2 | 116
Rosaceæ | 19 | 44 | 13 | 2 | 2 | 80
Calycanthaceæ | .. | .. | .. | 3 | .. | 3
Saxifragaceæ | 2 | 20 | .. | 1 | 13 | 36
Crassulaceæ | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 9
Hammelaceæ | 1 | 1 | .. | .. | 1 | 3
Halorageæ | .. | .. | .. | .. | 9 | 9
Onagraceæ | 15 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 30
Melastomaceæ | .. | .. | .. | 3 | .. | 3
Lythraceæ | .. | 1 | .. | 8 | .. | 9
Loasaceæ | 1 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1
Cactaceæ | 3 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 2
Cucurbitaceæ | .. | 2 | .. | .. | 1 | 3
Umbelliferæ | 8 | 33 | .. | 2 | 2 | 45
Araliaceæ | .. | 3 | .. | .. | 3 | 6
Cornaceæ | .. | 11 | .. | .. | 2 | 13
|---------+--------+--------+--------+---------+--------
Total | 164 | 283 | 71 | 136 | 87 | 741
--------------+---------+--------+--------+--------+---------+--------

Yellow appears to have been the first color developed, and flowers with this coloration are usually simple and regular in structure, as the buttercups and five-fingers. But why, it will be asked, should yellow have been the primitive color? The spores and spore-cases of the club mosses, and the pollen of all cone-bearing trees, and, in fact, of most plants, are yellow, and the yellow coloration of the first petals is doubtless correlated with this fact. Flowers of this tint are peculiarly attractive to yellow-banded flies, and when dull are avoided by beetles. Yellow flowers vary greatly in size, but pale yellow flowers are usually small, and bright or orange-yellow are large. _Ranunculus abortivus_ and _R. sceleratus_, which grow in wet places, are small and pale, while _R. bulbosus_ and _R. acris_, the familiar buttercups of our meadows, are an inch broad. An apparent exception to the above rule is offered by the globe-flower (_Trollius laxus_), found in dense swamps, which has solitary, very large, pale greenish-yellow flowers. As the cultivated European and Asiatic species have bright yellow flowers, the coloring of the sepals of _T. laxus_, for the petals are wanting, has probably retrograded from growing in dense shade.

Yellow flowers in their natural state exhibit but little variation of color. They change most readily to white, and less often to red or blue. Under cultivation sudden variations from yellow to white have been observed. A double yellow hollyhock, according to Darwin, suddenly turned one year into a single white kind, and a chrysanthemum has been seen to bear both yellow and white flowers. It will be observed in the accompanying table that in all families in which yellow flowers are common, white are also common, except in the _Hyperaceæ_, which contain no white-flowered species. Some species of mustard regularly fade to white, while many white flowers show that they are descended from ancestral yellow forms by retaining vestiges of this color on the base of the petals, as in the water-crowfoot. The pale yellow flowers of _Oenothera laciniata_, of the cultivated _Ribes aureum_, and of _Diervilla trifida_ in fading change to rose or red, exhibiting a tendency to develop red coloration. _Aquilegia canadensis_ produces scarlet flowers, which are yellow inside and rarely all over. There are two other species in the Northern flora which exhibit similar coloring, _Lonicera sempervirens_ and _Spigelia marylandica_, and the former is sometimes yellow throughout. _Myosotis_ is at first pale yellow, and changes to sky-blue. But the best illustration of the transition from yellow to blue is exhibited by the violet family; the smallest and simplest species is yellow, the most highly specialized is blue, and all the intermediate stages are presented by _Viola tricolor_.

Honey-guides are exceedingly rare among yellow flowers. _Cassia chamæcrista_, which has nearly regular, showy yellow flowers, has two or three petals with a purple spot at base, while four of the anthers are yellow and six purple. It is interesting to compare with this flower the change of color presented by _Arnebia_. When the flower opens, each lobe of the yellow corolla is marked by a dark purple spot, which soon begins to fade, and by the next day has entirely disappeared. _Saxifraga aizoides_ has golden flowers spotted with orange, and attracts a large number of insect visitors, and the yellow violets have their petals marked with dark-brown lines leading to the honey glands. Sulphur-yellow flowers are visited chiefly by bumblebees, and their coloration seems to have been developed by their selective influence from red or purple-flowered ancestors. Müller observed that the sulphur-yellow flowers of _Sempervivum Wulfenii_, which are unlike the primitive yellow of the _Crassulaceæ_, are purple at base. This purple coloring he believed to be a remnant inherited from an earlier purple-flowered form. _Hibiscus trionum_, which is sulphur-yellow with a blackish eye, has perhaps been derived from a red-flowered ancestor, for the three other species of the genus are rose or flesh colored.

White flowers, in the opinion of the writer, are due to retrogression, and are derived from yellow, red, or blue, and in some instances from the primitive green, as in the involucre of _Cornus_. As a whole they present no advance in specialization over yellow flowers, and are often smaller and less conspicuous. When the petals of blossoms containing yellow, red, or blue pigments are placed in concentrated alcohol they turn to white. To produce these pigments is evidently more or less a tax upon the energies of the plant, which, whenever possible, is avoided. They are not present in the embryonic buds, and may not develop until they are well advanced in size. In _Gentiana crinita_ the yellowish-white bud is nearly an inch long before the purple coloring appears, and the corolla always remains white at base. A stimulus to the growth of the plant makes itself apparent in the increased brilliancy of the flowers, as when they are exposed to clear sunlight or are treated with nitrate of soda, and may also be observed in the flushing of tulips, by which they lose their variegated colors when treated with strong manure. On the other hand, a check in nutrition and growth will cause a diminution of the perianth in size, accompanied by retrogression in color. When double red poppies are transplanted the whole plant is dwarfed, while the flowers are much smaller and pure white. This view of the origin of white flowers explains why they are the commonest in Nature, accounts for their being most numerous in families in which yellow flowers are likewise numerous, and why they are most true to name under cultivation. Many white flowers also exhibit other evidences of degeneration in their structure. Numerous species of _Cruciferæ_ and _Caryophyllaceæ_ have small white flowers, which regularly fertilize themselves; and in _Lepidium_, _Stellaria_, and _Sagina_ the petals are sometimes present and in other instances are wanting.

White flowers often develop red or blue coloration. It is interesting to note that the red and white varieties of the hyacinth were derived from the wild blue form earlier than the yellow. Darwin gives an instance of a white and red rose produced on the same root, also of white and pink flowers on a single plant of _Antirrhinum majus_. _Cratægus oxyacantha_, a dark pink hawthorn, has been known to throw out a tuft of pure white blossoms. Every stage of the transition from white to red is placed before us by the rose family. The thorns are white, rarely tinged with rose; in the pear and apple the flowers are white, regularly shaded with red; and one of the _Spiræas_ is rose, rarely white, while in the roses proper the six species are rose-colored, but the prairie rose changes to white. Under cultivation the wild geranium has been seen to produce upon the same plant both white and blue flowers. Good examples of the transition from white to blue and from blue to white may be met with in the _Ranunculaceæ_ and _Leguminosæ_. _Delphinium tricorne_ is bright blue, sometimes white, _Viola canadensis_ has the petals white inside but the upper ones tinged with violet beneath, _Astragalus_ has a part of the species white and a part purple, while it is common to find blue and white varieties of _Hepatica_ growing on the same grassy bank. White flowers pass more readily into red, blue, or yellow than any one of these colors can be converted into any other, since it is easier to develop a new pigment than to transform one already existing. This is confirmed by the experience of florists, who always seek to obtain a white variety from which to develop the desired hue.

Red flowers are much rarer than blue, and both are seldom common in the same family. For instance, in the pink family red and white blossoms prevail, and there are no blue shades. The pinks are crimson and scarlet, often with elegant markings and a strong aromatic odor. The honey is deeply concealed, and they are visited almost exclusively by butterflies and millers. Twenty-eight species of diurnal _Lepidoptera_ have been collected upon a single variety of _Saponaria_. Of the eighty species of _Rosaceæ_, thirteen are red and two purple, but the forty-four white flowers are very generally tinged or tipped with red. The two purplish-flowered species, _Geum rivale_ and _Potentilla palustris_, belong to genera in which yellow predominates, and this primitive color is still evident in both their calyx and corolla. There are no blue or violet flowers. This family exhibits a marked tendency both in stem, leaf, bud, flower, and fruit to develop reddish coloration, a tendency which is probably due to the chemical constitution of the sap. There are no flowers in this family adapted to _Lepidoptera_, but they are visited by a mixed company of flies, beetles, and _Hymenoptera_. The smaller and less specialized _Rosaceæ_ are yellow and white and are visited by a variety of short-lipped insects. With the increase of the flower in size and conspicuousness the number of insect visitors greatly increases, and the enlargement of the flower is attended by red coloration. Owing to the chemical constitution of the nutritive fluid, probably to its acidity (for when the petals of a rose are treated with ammonia they become blue), there has been no opportunity for the development of blue coloration by insects. With the enlargement of the perianth and the increased flow of sap, red tints have tended to appear by process of oxidation.

The correlation of red coloring with an increased flow of sap is well illustrated by the galls of the wild-rose tree, which are often "as rosy as the rosiest apple." An abnormal flow of sap is caused to the part stung by the insect, and red coloration is due to the action of light, for it is of no service to the plant. Again, when the flowers of _Cratægus coccinea_ are stung by the gall-fly the different organs all become bright red, and the change in coloring is accompanied by an increase in size. In some instances red colors, according to Darwin, indicate greater vigor on the part of the plant, and I have also observed that the dwarfing of red flowers under cultivation may cause them to revert to white.

It was long, indeed, believed that the same species could not produce yellow, red, and blue flowers. But this doctrine, to use the words of Dr. Lindley, "must now be laid up in the limbo of pleasant dreams." This supposed law is contradicted by the hyacinth, pansy, _Delphinium cardinale_, and many other plants. Though red and blue coloring never occurs among the roses, a hyacinth has been seen to produce a perfectly pink and a perfectly blue blossom on the same truss, and the _Borraginaceæ_ afford examples of flowers turning from red to blue in even a short space of time.

Blue is the highest color of the floral world, and is preferred by bees. Blue flowers are, as a rule, highly specialized both in form and color, and often possess marvelous mechanisms which aid in disseminating the pollen. This coloring is very common in the mint and pulse families, and in this district there are in the former forty-nine and in the latter sixty-one species of blue flowers. Their structure is such that few insects besides the long-tongued bees can gain access to the honey, and in some instances a single species of flower is visited by a single kind of bee, as one of the larkspurs by one of the bumblebees. While this high specialization of the flower may insure intercrossing, it is yet open to many objections, such as scarcity of proper guests, mechanical imperfections, perforation of the flowers by bees, and development of the perianth at the expense of the essential organs.

It is noteworthy that when genera occur containing three or more species they are seldom all blue or purple; one species at least, and frequently more than one, is yellow, white, or red. In _Trifolium_, _T. pratense_ is rose-purple, _T. repens_ white, and _T. agrarium_ yellow. In the genus _Astragalus_ a part of the species are violet or blue and a part white, and the same is true of _Lespedeza_ and _Vicia_; in _Lathyrus_ three species are blue-purple, one yellow, and one yellowish white. It is probably more advantageous in these genera for a part of the species to be of one color and a part of another than for all to be blue. When species are closely allied bees tend to visit them indiscriminately, as has been observed to be true of the buttercups, _Spiræas_, and golden-rods. During an afternoon the writer carefully collected the insect visitors to _Solidago bicolor_, our only cream-colored golden-rod. Both the number of species and of individuals taken was much larger than upon the yellow-flowered and more abundant varieties of this genus growing near by. There could be no doubt that the whitish coloration was beneficial in enabling insects to distinguish it more readily. Many purplish flowers are regular, often showing indications of degeneration, are devoid of honey, and are self-fertilized or adapted to _Diptera_, or, as in _Hepatica_, which is visited by bees for the pollen, open to a wide circle of visitors. In the sea purslane (_Sesuvium maritimum_), a prostrate maritime herb, there are no petals, but the five-parted calyx is purplish inside. The genus _Ammannia_ of the _Lythraceæ_ has the petals small, purplish, and in one species they are wanting; the axillary flowers of _Bracenia purpurea_ are small and dull purple; in the common papaw the lurid purple flowers are large and adapted to _Diptera_, as are probably the lurid purple flowers of _Calycanthus_. Blue flowers may revert to red, white, or yellow. The fringed _Polygala_ of Britain is usually bright blue, but often reverts to pink and white; there is a pure white variety of the blue-eyed grass; _Mertensia virginica_ is purple-blue, rarely white; the larkspur is bright blue, sometimes white, and a white variety of the purple _Trillium_ frequently occurs; there is, indeed, no improbability of a white-flowered form of every species being discovered. _Viola calcarata_ is normally blue, but sometimes changes to the ancestral yellow.

The possession of a strong scent may, however, in many instances more than compensate for the absence of color. This is well illustrated in _Lepidium sativum_. The flowers are small and inconspicuous and in rainy weather do not fully open, yet, as it is odoriferous, Müller found it more abundantly visited by insects than any other crucifer. It is their strong odor, rather than their color, that renders so many umbellifers so attractive to a great variety of insects. Nocturnal flowers, which are visited by moths, are usually white and sweet-scented, though the evening primrose is yellow and _Saponaria officinalis_ is rose-colored. Kohler and Schübeler have shown that a larger proportion of white flowers are fragrant than of any other color. Of 1,193 white flowers examined by them, 187 were odoriferous; of 951 yellow, 75; of 923 red, 85; of 594 blue, 31. But neither color nor odor will long alone serve to insure the visits of insects. The common elderberry exhibits the disadvantages which may attend the want of honey when there is but a limited supply of pollen. There are great masses of odoriferous flowers which convert the shrub into a huge bouquet, but it blooms at midsummer, when it must contend with many nectar-yielding plants. As a result, it is almost wholly deserted by insects. Only four species of flies have been taken upon it, and repeatedly the blossoms were examined without discovering a single visitor, and yet upon the jewel-weed and the red-osier cornel, a few yards away, scores were at work.

* * * * *

Among the more recent applications of electricity is one for the
desiccation of wood, by the Nadon Bretonneau method, by which
wood is made as fit for use for certain exact processes in as
many months as it has formerly taken years. It is also proposed
by Mr. Shaw, an English mining engineer, to substitute water and
steam for gunpowder in mine blasts, a cartridge of water being
placed instead of the powder cartridge, and vaporized by passing
the electrical current through it.

SKETCH OF OSCAR SCHMIDT.

Oscar Schmidt was characterized by Ludwig von Graff, his successor at Grätz, as a real naturalist who, keeping up with the advances of science and philosophy all his life, as a zoölogist spanned the whole domain of that science, giving equal interest to every part and branch of it. The animal as a whole, as a living being in the series of organisms, was the object of his concern, and all the parts of the animal and all the processes that go on within it were alike interesting and important to him; and the ultimate purpose of his study of that object was to gain from the facts disclosed a philosophic view of Nature.

EDUARD OSCAR SCHMIDT was born at Torgau, Prussia, February 24, 1823, the son of a military chaplain who was descended from an old family of clergymen--"a man of fine Saxon culture, with no very great taste for theology, and open-minded to a ripe old age," and who died in 1875. His mother was of French and German (Hamburg) descent, and counted the great Aristotelian Petrus Ramus among her ancestors. The father was a gentle instructor to the son; and the latter, attending in the intervals of study to duties of the household and the farm and making good use of his opportunities for relaxation, enjoyed a young life that was invigorating to mind and body. He thus acquired tastes that led him frequently in his later life to leave the city and his study and go into the country to build and plant, whereby he endeared himself to the Badenese farmers. On rainy days and winter evenings, as he gleefully told of himself in 1858, the boy of eleven or twelve years of age entertained himself and had his fancy stimulated by reading Campe's old accounts of his travels. He thus became interested in geography, and acquired a thirst for travel that was never quenched.

Having finished his elementary schooling at Weissenfels, on the Saale, where his grandfather had served as superintendent, he went in 1836 to the celebrated Royal School at Pforta, of which his father was an alumnus, and whither he himself took his son thirty years later. He was much impressed by the teaching of Koberstein, the historian of literature, who unlocked for him the world of Goethe and of romance; and he went out from Pforta into life with a full conviction that the soundness of our culture depends upon its humanistic foundation. He went to Halle in the fall of 1842 to fulfill his military obligations and study mathematics and natural science, and became interested in other branches. At the Berlin Hochschule, whither he went next, he further broadened the scope of his culture, pursued philosophical studies, and finally settled upon the organic sciences. His interest was gradually diverted from mathematics, and he took up zoölogy with enthusiasm. Johann Müller--whose portrait, his son Erich Schmidt says, in the memorial address from which we draw most of the facts of his life, always adorned his room--permitted him, in 1845, after a summer term in comparative anatomy at Heligoland, to take part in a research upon sea animals, and impressed a stamp on the young investigator's view of Nature that lasted till the Darwinian revolution. Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg interested him in the investigation of the minute life of the infusoria, and, besides being his teacher, had a fatherly affection for him.

In 1846 Schmidt obtained a promotion to Doctor of Philosophy at Halle, the subject of his still unprinted dissertation being the sacred _Scarabæus_. He passed the higher teachers' examination in Berlin, and thereby avoided a year of probation at a realgymnasium. In August, 1847, he habilitated himself at Jena. He presented, on the occasion, a paper entitled Morphological Fragments, in which, while the name of Oken was mentioned appreciatively in the introduction, the gap between his philosophy and the current zoölogy was insisted upon. He became Professor Extraordinary of Natural History in this university in 1849, and Director of the Grand Ducal Zoölogical Museum in 1854. While at Jena he published the Handbook of Comparative Anatomy (1849), the Hand Atlas of Comparative Anatomy (1852), and a historical study on the Development of Comparative Anatomy (1855). Some results of a journey to the North in the course of his studies of the _Turbellaria_ were embodied in a lecture on the Faroe Islands (1848), and Pictures from the North, collected during a Journey to the North Cape (1854), a versatile work, in which his sharp powers of observation were well illustrated. A work of somewhat different character was a lecture on Goethe's Relation to the Organic Natural Sciences, which was delivered in the Berlin Singakademie and was printed in 1853.