864 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



have been suggested for their vanishing, 

 among the chief of which the farmers and 

 shepherds name the work of such natural 

 enemies as the owl, kestrel, rook, blackhead 

 gull, buzzard, stoat, and weasel animals 

 which foolish man is industriously trying to 

 exterminate. 



According to Meehan's Monthly, the large 

 majority of plants are scentless, and proba- 

 bly not one tenth of the hundi-ed thousand 

 flowering plants known to botanists are 

 odorous. Of the fifty known species of the 

 mignonette family, only the one so highly 

 prized in our gardens is fragrant, and only 

 about a dozen of the one hundred species of 

 violet are scented. In many large genera 

 the scentless varieties are as one hundred to 

 one, and sweet-smelling varieties are com- 

 paratively rare among our wild flowers. 



It was observed by the late Mr. Wollas- 

 ton that most insects inhabiting the Atlantic 

 islands are either strongly winged or incapable 

 of flight. The explanation of the phenom- 

 enon is found in the fact that insects exposed 

 to gales are very liable to be blown out to 

 sea. Hence it is almost equally to their ad- 

 vantage either to be gifted with strong 

 enough powers of flight to be able to make 

 their way back when they have been blown 

 away, or never to fly at all, and thus escape 

 the risk of being blown away. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Prof. Heinrich R. Hertz, of the Univer- 

 sity of Bonn, who won fame by his demon- 

 stration of the intimate connection of light 

 and electricity, died at Bonn, on New-Year's 

 day, of blood poisoning induced by a chronic 

 disease of the nose. He was born at Ham- 

 burg on the 22d of February, 1857 ; entered 

 the Engineering School in 1875; afterward 

 devoted himself to physics, studying in Mu- 

 nich and Berlin ; became an assistant to 

 Helmholtz in 1875 ; settled in Kiel in 1883 

 as a. jjriuat doccnt in theoretical physics; was 

 appointed in 1885 Professor of Physics in the 

 technical Hofschule in Carlsruhe ; and in 

 1885 succeeded Clausius as Professor of 

 Physics at Bonn. The apparatus with which 

 he made his famous demonstration was shown 

 at the Klectroteehnic Exhibition at Ham- 

 burg, where it attracted much attention, par- 

 ticularly from men of science. His own ac- 

 count of his demonstration of the identity of 

 light and electricity was published in vol- 

 ume xxxviii of The Popular Science Month- 

 ly, December, 1890. We hope, at some fu- 

 ture time, to publish a biographical sketch 

 and portrait of him. 



The distinguished Belgian zoologist. Prof. 

 Pierre Joseph van Beneden, of the Univer- 

 sity of Louvain, died in that city, January 

 8th, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. His 

 first scientific position was that of keeper of 



the Natural History Collections at Louvain. 

 In 1835 he was made an assistant professor 

 at the University of Ghent, and in the same 

 year professor in the Catholic University of 

 Louvain. He was author of a large number 

 of zoological and biological papers, particu- 

 larly on parasites, worms, etc. ; joint author 

 with Du Mortier of the Natural History of 

 the Fresh-water Polyzoa, and with Paul Ger- 

 vaise of the Zoologie Medicale ; and author 

 of Recherches sur le Faune littorale de Bel- 

 gique, and of the book on Animal Parasites 

 and Messmates in the Internationjil Scientific 

 Series. He had artistic skill, and contributed 

 illustrations to his works. 



Prof. Arthur Milnes Marshall, of 

 Owens College, Manchester, was killed, De- 

 cember 31, 1893, by a fall on the peak of 

 Scafell, Cumberlandshire, England. He was 

 born in 1852; entered St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, in 1871, where he was one of the 

 earliest students in the school of biology, 

 and whence he was graduated on completing 

 the course ; entered upon the study of medi- 

 cine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1876 ; 

 and was appointed Professor of Zoology in 

 Owens College in 1879. He was author of a 

 series of papers on the Cranial Nerves, on 

 the Pennatulidce, and on the Nervous System 

 of Antedon, and of works on Vertebrate Em- 

 bryology, the Frog, and Practical Zoology ; 

 was secretary and afterward chairman of the 

 board of studies of Victoria University ; was 

 a Fellow of the Royal Society ; and was an 

 active worker in the university extension 

 movement. He had ascended the mountain 

 with a party on the day of his death, and 

 was standing at a point higher than the oth- 

 ers, when a rock fell, carrying him with it. 



The eminent zoologist and paleontologist. 

 Dr. Paul Henri Fischer, who died in Paris, 

 November 29, 1893, was born in Paris in 

 1835 ; became Demonstrator of Paleontology 

 in the Museum of Natural History of Paris 

 in 1861 ; and rose to be assistant naturalist 

 there. From 185(5 he edited the Journal 

 de Conchylioiogie in collaboration with M. 

 Crosse. He studied very successfully the 

 marine animals of the coast of France and 

 their geographical and bathymetric distri- 

 bution. He and the Marquis de Folin, ex- 

 amining the Fosse du Cap Breton in the 

 Gulf of Gascony, discovered a large number 

 of forms previously unknown, some of which 

 resembled fossil forms. With M. Delesse he 

 made researches on the submarine sediments 

 of the French shores. He took part in the 

 expeditions of the Travailleur and the Tal- 

 isman. His works, books, pamphlets, and 

 memoirs include three hundred titles. 



The death, at Kiel, in November, 1893, is 

 reported of Baron von Bulow, founder of the 

 Bothkamp Observatory, the first observato- 

 ry in Germany devoted to astro-physical re- 

 searches. 



