HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



257 



At a recent meeting of the Haggerston Entomolo- 

 gist Society, a discussion was held on Mr. South's 

 new list of British Lepidoptera, and the universal 

 opinion was, " That many of the alterations were 

 micalled for, and that a re-issue of the Doubleday 

 list, with the addition of the new species discovered 

 since the date of its publication, would have been far 

 more acceptable to the great body of British 

 Entomologists." 



MiCROSCOPiSTS will hear with regret of the death of 

 Col. J. J. Woodward, of the United States Army, 

 whose name frequently occurred in the discussions 

 reported in the " Monthly Journal of Microscopy," 

 when Dr. Lawson was editor. One of the most 

 important of the many papers he published was 

 " Applications of the Photograph to Micrometry," 

 which had special reference to the micrometry of 

 blood in criminal cases. 



Mr. F. Enock, of Woking, has just issued an 

 exquisite slide of the gall cynips, the smallest of its 

 kind. With spot-lens the delicate structure of the 

 wings comes out exquisitely. It is a most interesting 

 nbject, beautifully mounted. 



A Committee of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science has been appointed to secure 

 (Government aid in the investigation of fungoid 

 diseases. 



We beg to call attention to the Diatomescope, 

 invented by Lord S. C. Osborne, made and sold by 

 -Mr. Ernest Hinton, of Upper Holloway, as a most 

 useful instrument for out-of-door work, and par- 

 ticularly for identification of diatoms, &c. 



The "Naturalists' World" for October publishes a 

 sheet of autographs of the following naturalists : — Dr. 

 Alfred K. Wallace, W. F. Kirljy, Professor W. H. 

 Flower, Sir John Lubbock, Grant Allen, Dr. J. E. 

 Taylor, the Rev. J. G. Wood, Richard Jefiferies, Dr. 

 M. C. Cooke, W. Saville Kent, Professor Huxley, W. 

 Mathieu Williams, R. Bowdler Sharpe, Dr. F, 

 Buchanan White, and Worthington G. Smith. 



Mr. B, Piffard, of Hemel Hempstead, has for- 

 warded us some beautifully mounted slides, of much 

 value to science teachers and students. Among them 

 are sections of the fasciculated stems of the sweet pea, 

 vertical section of Lccaiiora tartarca (a lichen) 

 showing asci, &c., section ofleaf of coltsfoot, showing 

 cluster-cups (a^cidium) in situ, and a slide of the 

 male perichsetum of Atnchiiin intdu/afit/n, showing 

 antherozoids. 



Mr. Charles Collins, jun., micro-naturalist, 

 has sent us three admirably mounted slides. One of 

 the head of the cockroach, another of the soldier 

 beetle (these two illustrating the structure of biting 

 mouths), and the last of the head of the water 

 measurer (illustrating sucking-mouth). The names 

 of the subkingdom, class, order, family, genus, and 

 species are on each slide. 



M. Balbiani, professor at the College de France, 

 was commissioned a short time ago by the Minister 

 of Agriculture to report upon the best mode of de- 

 stroying the winter eggs of the phylloxera, as it has 

 been found that it is in this way the progress of the 

 parasite is very materially checked. M. Balbiani 

 tried several fresh experiments, among others a 

 mixture of oil, naphtha, quicklime and water. This 

 mixture has been tried upon a very large scale in the 

 vineyards of the Lot-et-Garonne and the Loir-et- 

 Cher, and it possesses, according to M. Balbiani, the 

 double recommendation of being effectual and cheap, 

 as the cost is under a franc for a hundred stocks. 



The best coral grounds yielding the most and best 

 red coral are still those on the Algerian coast, fished 

 for that purpose from the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, the others being the coasts of Sicily, Corsica, 

 Sardinia, Spain, the Balearic Isles, Provence. Over 

 500 Italian boats manned by 4200 men, are employed 

 in the coral fishery, 300 of these boats being from 

 Torre del Greco in the Bay of Naples. The quantity 

 gathered by these 500 boats amounts in all to about 

 56,000 kilogrammes annually, valued at 4,200,000 

 lire ; that by other boats, Spanish, French, «S:c., to 

 22,000 kilogrammes, at 1,500,000 lire — total for the 

 year, 78,000 kilogrammes at 5,750,000 lire. The 

 gro.ss gains per boat may be set down at 8,000 lire 

 for the season, and the expenses at 6033 lire, leaving 

 only 1967 lire net profit. In Italy are sixty coral 

 workshops, of which forty are in Torre del Greco 

 alone, employing about 9200 hands, mostly women 

 and children. 



The sunset glories of last autumn are being re- 

 peated. In the earlier part of October over the 

 Yorkshire Wolds a most brilliant effect was observ- 

 able for about two hours. The sky above the horizon 

 was a mass of gorgeous colours, orange tints pre- 

 dominating. 



A CAPITAL and highly readable paper by Mr. 

 Worthington G. Smith, F.L.S., was late'y read at 

 the meeting of the Essex Field Club on " The Politics 

 of the Potato Fungus — a Retrospect." It appeared 

 in full in the "Journal of Horticulture " for October 9. 



The new salt-field in Western New York is ex- 

 pected to produce six hundred thousand bushels of 

 " the finest salt in the world " this year, and expects 

 to double the production next year. A wide belt of 

 country, the extent of which is not yet determined, is 

 underlaid at a depth of from twelve hundred to 

 sixteen hundred feet, with a deposit of pure rock-salt 

 from sixty to ninety feet in thickness. 



The various phases in the eclipse of the moon 

 were viewed with much interest on the night of 

 October 4th. In most cases the sky was quite clear, 

 so that stars of the twelfth magnitude were plainly 

 visible close to the moon. 



