POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



285 



the precipitous nature of the sides, and the 

 fact that only one landing lies contiguous to 

 the breeding birds, the Great Bird Rock must 

 ever remain the stronghold of this interesting 

 colony of sea-fowl. There is no regular di- 

 vision of the birds into large colonies accord- 

 ing to species, but the separation is rather by 

 size, gannets occupying the highest and broad- 

 est ledges, and murres and razor-bills taking 

 what is left. 



A Buddha, and its Moaning. A bronze 

 Buddha in the United States National Mu- 

 seum, as described by Charles De Kay, is 

 thirty-eight inches and three quarters, or in- 

 cluding the halo, seventy inches high, has a 

 bronze halo, and differs from the famous 

 seated Buddha at Kamakusa in size and in 

 the position of the forefingers. These do 

 not touch each other along the two upper 

 joints, but lie one within the other. A slight 

 trait of this kind is of the greatest impor- 

 tance to a Buddhist. It marks the difference 

 between figures of the greatest of all Bud- 

 dhas at the moments of his ecstasy or absorp- 

 tion into the Nirvana, or it distinguishes the 

 Buddha from foreign or local saints who 

 have presumably reached Buddhahood by 

 meritorious pondering. The figure has the fa- 

 mous knob on the forehead, about which 

 many legends revolve ; also the short round 

 curls over the head, supposed to be the snails 

 which guarded Buddha from sunstroke, and 

 it carries the mark on the top of the head. 

 It has the large ears, with their lobes pierced 

 and distended, but no ear-rings. The figure 

 represents Buddha, after having taught his 

 doctrine, merging himself into Nirvana. To 

 an adept, the position of the thumbs and fore- 

 fingers expresses a world of hidden mean- 

 ings. The figure is luckily provided with 

 a copious inscription which is couched in 

 phrases anything but easy of translation. Its 

 name is " the Buddha of the Five Wisdoms," 

 and its motto, " All the world can share the 

 blessings of Buddhism." 



Biological Physiology. The Director of 

 the Marine Biological Laboratory (Wood's 

 Holl, Mass.) for 1891 calls attention to the 

 needs of physiology as one of the most im- 

 portant branches of biological science which, 

 for want of room, has thus far been neg- 

 lected. It is not animal or human physiol- 



ogy, as commonly understood, that the di- 

 rector has more especially in mind, but what 

 he calls biological physiology, or the prov- 

 ince of the biological economy of organisms. 

 " It is in this almost new province that we 

 meet the great problems of geographical and 

 geological distribution, and those of the in- 

 terrelations of species in both the animal 

 and vegetable kingdoms. It is here that we 

 study life-histories, habits, food ; the influ- 

 ences of the physical environment, and the 

 reciprocal relations, which are ever varying 

 according to the issues of the universal strug- 

 gle for existence. It is in this direction that 

 experimental physiology finds one of the 

 most inviting fields in the whole range of 

 biology." As instances of what varied and 

 interesting problems here await the experi- 

 menter, are mentioned the experiments of 

 Pfliiger and others to determine the influence 

 of gravitation on the development of the 

 egg; Boveri's experiments to determine 

 where the formative power resides, and 

 whether it is shared equally by both sexes ; 

 Fol's studies on fertilization ; Auerbach's 

 determination of the sexual distinction be- 

 tween the paternal and the maternal ele- 

 ments of the nucleus ; Weismann's studies 

 on the laws and causes of variation; the 

 effects of chemical agencies on germ-cells 

 as tested by Oscar and Richard Hertwig; 

 the experiments of Beudant, Plateau, and 

 Schmankewitsch in transferring animals from 

 fresh to salt water, and vice versa ; Semper's 

 observations on the effect of the volume of 

 water on the size of the creatures living in 

 it; and others. 



A Meteorological Poet. A curious paper 

 has been published by Naval Surgeon Gre- 

 maud, of Brest, France, on the tempest de- 

 scribed in the first book of Virgil's iEneid. 

 He answers some of the criticisms that have 

 been made of it, and shows that the critics 

 were not meteorologists. Having carefully 

 compared the latest accounts of cyclones 

 with Virgil's description, he has found the 

 descriptions of the dangerous semicircle, the 

 tractable semicircle, the plunging winds, and 

 the columns of water rising like a wall and 

 falling upon the ships to demolish them, cor- 

 rect ; and establishes a complete analogy be- 

 tween them and the determinations of sci- 

 ence. Hence, Virgil was not only a poet, 



