more than ten months old. In a third test of this same butter known to be genuine, 10 c. c. KH O were required. This butter was at the time in a state of good preservation, and was perfectly palatable. Hehner & Angell, in their work on butter analysis, found that the insoluble fat acids of butter increased somewhat with age. This being the case we might expect some decrease in the per cent. of soluble fat acids, and this result, therefore seems to be in accord with the report of Hehner & Angell.

Three other samples of butter, tested in a similar way, but no attention paid to the condition of temperature, gave results as follows:

If one suspects a butter of being adulterated with an artificial butyrate, and attempts to dissolve such an adulterant by the use of alcohol it seems necessary to use an alcohol of known strength, and to have a known quantitive relation between the alcohol and butter fat employed. If the fat, undissolved by alcohol, be then examined he must expect to find the quantity of volatile fat acids diminished somewhat even in genuine butter.

Using the method I have adopted, I should judge that the undissolved fat of a genuine butter ought to require 9 c. c. KHO to neutralize the usual distillate from 24 grammes. If less than nine are required, there would be reason to suspect adulteration.

n

I am inclined to think that more information would be gained by applying Reichert's method to the fat undissolved by alcohol than by applying it to the original fat if we adopt 9 c. c. KHO as the amount of alkali required to neutralize the distillate from 23 grammes of fat, strictly following Reichert's method. This would, in most cases, show at once the adulteration even in case of an added butyrate, when the same method applied to the suspected butter would not detect this.

The per cent. of volatile fat acids in the above table, was determined in each case by the process of repeated distillations and calculated as butyric acid.

Experiments made with wood alcohol, show similar results. I here give results of two such experiments, the proportion of alcohol to fat being 10 c. c. to 1 gramme.

SAMPLE.

SAMPLE.

The second sample of butter was the same as mentioned above, and was ten months old.

From the above work it is very evident that the portion of fat dissolved by methyl or ethyl alcohol is rich in volatile fat acids. We conclude, therefore, that while the glycerides of the volatile fat acids are present in butter, in such a condition as not to be readily dissolved by alcohol, yet a part of them yields to the solvent action of this re-agent more readily than some of the other fats of the butter. This excess of volatile fat acids in the fat dissolved by alcohol is not due simply to the solvent action of alcohol upon any free fat acid which may be present, as my method of experimenting eliminated this possibility.

Hübl's iodine test also shows that the composition of fat dissolved by alcohol differs from the portion undissolved.

In the following tests the fat was dissolved in wood alcohol of sp. gr. 0.8170 at 60° F. The proportion of alcohol used was 10 c. c. to one gramme of fat:

Below are two determinations of the iodine numbers when ethyl alcohol 90 per cent C2 H, O was used to dissolve the fat:

6

The fat dissolved by alcohol has a very low melting point, remaining liquid at all ordinary temperatures, while the undissolved portion has a melting point higher than pure butter fat. In one case the undissolved portion had a melting point of 106° F.

An attempt was made to determine the character of the fat acid condensed in condenser during distillation, with the following result: The fat acid collected in condenser was dissolved in neutral alcohol and titrated with baric hydrate; this formed a heavy precipitate. Weight of Ba. salt thus formed = 0.1325 grammes.

Weight of Ba SO, produced from this salt = 0.063 grammes.

4

4

Weight of Ba SO, which would correspond to 0.1325 grammes of Ba (C10 H19 O2)2 0.0644.

The melting point of the fat acid collected in condenser was twice determined, and in one case was found to be 80° F. and in the second case 86° F. The last melting point corresponds to that of capric acid. From the above results I judge that the fat acid collected in condenser is composed mostly of capric acid.

Before concluding this article I wish to say that in my opinion the standard of 12 c. c. KH O, as frequently adopted for Reichert's method, will need some modification. While fresh butter will give results as high as this standard or exceeding it, I believe that in case of butters that have been kept for some time we may obtain results short of this. At least this has been my experience with butter made. at my home in the fall and kept over winter, although the butter was still very palatable.

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.

THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON USEFUL BIRDS.

By C. C. MUSSELMAN, Chairman.

Reports on agricultural topics, such as fertilizers, dairy, apiary, fruit culture, &c., make the work upon such subjects comparatively easy, as agricultural periodicals are full of information on these topics; but the subject of birds, or ornithology, is rarely mentioned in connection with agriculture. Therefore your committee can only give a few practical observations and suggestions in comparison to the importance of the subject.

Birds are universally favored, and insects are as universally despised, especially by farmers. Hence, popular feeling is all on the side of what are often called our "feathered friends." We will consider the question briefly and see how far this statement is warranted by the facts.

We have divided birds into three classes: Those which are fruit or seed-eating, those having a mixed diet, and those which are purely insect-eating. Those of the first class, viz: fruit or seed-eating birds, are evidently injurious to man by what they take from the fruits of his labors. At best, they can be but neutral agents in our service. It is a mistaken idea to suppose that birds can so change their habits as to discard the diet for which their structure has fitted them. A purely granivorous bird cannot be converted into a purely carnivorous or insectivorous one without changing its structure and nature, notwithstanding all that can truthfully be said in favor of such birds.

The English sparrow is an example of this class. It was imported into this country with the hope, or belief, that it would rid our trees of their caterpillars. But that blundering experiment has resulted in introducing a very dangerous element, which has already done great harm, and is likely to do us till more. We now have two nuisances instead of one, for the sparrows are true graniverous birds, helping themselves to grain, small fruits, and sometimes even the buds of fruit trees when driven by hunger, scarcely touching insects of any kind. English sparrows are increasing to an alarming extent. Useful and

beautiful species, such as the martin, swallow, blue bird, wren, yellow bird, bobolink, robin, peewee, "tomtit," &c., are driven away by this pugnacious little intruder, that has neither beauty, nor does he seem to understand the first principles of vocal music, verily with nothing to recommend him.

The English sparrow is no longer confined to cities and towns, but is spreading over the whole country, and if not arrested in its progress, it will become a pest to the United States, as much so as the locusts mentioned in holy writ, were to Egypt. Your committee have been instrumental in procuring the passage of an act of Assembly, making the English sparrow free game, and that act alone, were nothing else contained in this report, should weigh much in our favor.

With the second class of birds, those living on a mixed diet, we are comparatively litttle concerned, since they are very uncertain in their habits as to diet. The common blackbird and crow are examples of this kind, beneficial at one time and injurious at another. But from all the observations and evidence at hand, your committee is inclined to give this class of birds "the benefit of the doubt," and render a verdict of not guilty.

The third class is the one whose claims we need to investigate more closely. At first sight it would seem that all insectivorous birds are useful, but this assumes that all insects are injurious, which is entirely erroneous. For, considering the habits of insects, they can, like the birds, be regarded under three classes, the beneficial, the harmless. and the injurious. The first class we should favor and encourage, their service to us is incalculable, since by their structure and mode of life, they will do for us what we can but imperfectly perform ourselves. They are among our best friends.

To the second class of insects we may be indifferent, they are neither a benefit nor an injury. Among the third class are our great tormentors. Now, the question is not, do birds eat insects, but do birds discriminate between injurious and beneficial insects? What birds to kill, and what birds to protect, are questions that your committee is not able to answer in this short report.

The destruction of a number of our most useful species of birds is going on at a most alarming rate. The country is made bleak and cold by the destruction of the forest, the natural shelter and abode of the birds. Many birds are destroyed, during the breeding season, such as the meadow-lark, "tomtit," starling, and other species that hatch on the ground, by fire, farm implements and machinery. But it remains for wicked and thoughtless men and boys to destroy by wholesale their most innocent and best friends-the birds. Some do it for sport, some do it simply to gratify an evil propensity to kill, others do it for the lust of gain. They kill everything that wears feathers to satisfy the demands of fashion and its votaries.

Although it is impossible to give the exact number of birds killed each year, some figures have been published which give an idea of what the slaughter of innocent birds must be. A single local taxidermist handles 30,000 bird skins in one year, and a single collector brought back from a three months' trip 11,000 skins, and from one small district on Long Island about 70,000 birds were brought to New York in four months time. In New York one firm had on hand February 1, 1886, 200,000 bird skins. The supply is not limited to home consumption. American bird skins are sent abroad. The great European

markets draw their supplies from all over the world. In London there were sold in three months from one auction room 404,464 West India and Brazilian bird skins, and 356,389 East India birds. In Paris 100,000 African birds have been sold by one dealer in one year. One New York firm recently had a contract to supply 40,000 skins of African birds to one Paris firm.

These figures tell their own story, but it is a story which might be known even without these figures. We may read plainly enough in the silent forests and hedges, once vocal with the morning songs of birds, and in the deserted fields, where once their bright plumage flashed in the sunlight.

This cruel and wanton destruction of bird life if continued will not only deprive us of the most attractive features of rural life, but it will surely work a vast amount of harm to the farmers, by removing one of the most efficient checks on hurtful insects.

The food of our small birds consists largely of insects which feed on plants grown by farmers. And insects multiply with such astounding rapidity that a single pair, in the course of one season, may become the progenitors of several billions of their kind. All through the season at which this insect life is most active, the birds are constantly at work destroying for their young, and for themselves, tens of thousands of hurtful creatures, which, but for them, would swarm upon the farmers' crops and lessen the results of their labors.

Birds have wonderful appetites, and the insect-eaters do great execution among the enemies of the agriculturist. This is illustrated by Prof. Woods' estimate that a man would have to consume, in each twenty-four hours, sixty-seven feet of a sausage nine inches in circumference in order to eat as much in proportion to his bulk as the redbreast, whose daily food is considered as equivalent to an earthworm fourteen feet long.

A painstaking naturalist, not very long ago, who watched the nest of a pair of martins for sixteen hours, from 4 A. M. till 8 P. M., just to see how many visits the parent birds made to their young. He found that in that time three hundred and twelve visits to the four young were made; one hundred and nineteen by the male and one hundred and ninety-three by the female. If we suppose only six insects to have been brought at each visit, this pair of birds would have destroyed, for their young alone in this one summer day, not far from two thoussand insects.

The important relations which our birds bear to agricultural interests is justly recognized by all State governments. Laws have been enacted for the protection of birds, but these laws are constantly violated by the lack of an intelligent public sentiment to support them. These laws are nowhere enforced. Is it not time that we call a halt to this wanton destruction of our best friends, the birds?

Birds are killed by the thousand; yes, by the hundred thousand, for millinery purposes; even the innocent and beautiful humming birds are not spared, and so long as fashion demands feathers, birds will be slaughtered. If this enormous destruction of birds can be put in its true light, interest aroused, sentiment created, perhaps a stringent law passed and enforced, not until then will this great wrong cease.

All true women should prefer birds as live pets rather than dead ornaments.

"There is an element of savagery in the use of birds for personal decoration which is in grotesque contrast with our boast of civiliza