Whether or not this little note throws a single ray of light on the much debated question of the cause of the rise of sap in plants I must leave to botanists to decide. I cannot hope that it does, for Julius Sachs, than whom no one appears to have more carefully considered the subject, says, at page 677 of the recently published English translation of his textbook of botany, that "although the movements of water in plants have been copiously investigated and discussed for nearly two hundred years, it is nevertheless still impossible to give a satisfactory and deductive account of the mode of operation of these movements in detail." As a chemist and physicist myself, knowing something about capillary attraction, exosmose, endosmose, atmospheric pressure, and gravitation generally, and the movements caused by chemical attraction, I am afraid I must concur in the opinion that we do not yet know the real ultimate cause or causes of the rise of sap in plants. Ashlands, Watford, Herts. * * * * * THE CROW. [Footnote: Abstract of a recent discussion before the Connecticut State Board of Agriculture.] Prof. W. A. Stearns, in a lecture upon the utility of birds in agriculture, stated that the few facts we do know regarding the matter have been obtained more through the direct experience of those who have stumbled on the facts they relate than those who have made any special study of the matter. One great difficulty has been that people looked too far and studied too deeply for facts which were right before them. For instance, people are well acquainted with the fact that hawks, becoming bold, pounce down upon and carry off chickens from the hen-yards and eat them. How many are acquainted with the fact that in hard winters, when pressed for food, crows do this likewise? But what does this signify? Simply that the crow regulates its food from necessity, not from choice. Now, carry this fact into operation in the spring into the cornfield. Do you suppose that the crow, being hungry, and dropping into a field of corn wherein is abundance to satisfy his desires, stops, as many affirm, to pick out only those kernels which are affected with mildew, larva, or weevil? Does he instinctively know what corns, when three or four inches beneath the ground, are thus affected? Not a bit of it. To him, a strictly grain-feeding and not an insect-eating bird, the necessity takes the place of the choice. He is hungry; the means of satisfying his hunger are at hand. He naturally drops down in the first cornfield he sees, calls all his neighbors to the feast, and then roots up and swallows all the kernels until he can hold no more. There is no doubt the crow is a damage to the agriculturist. He preys upon the cornfield and eats the corn indiscriminately, whether there are any insects or not. That has been proved by dissection of stomach and crop.