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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



That plants have the faculty of adapting 

 themselves to suit a new environment has 

 been curiously illustrated in the case of 

 some Australian acacias that were intro- 

 duced to the Neilgherrics of India in 1845. 

 At home, these trees flower in October, which 

 is there a spring month. The transplanted 

 acacias continued in India to flower in Octo- 

 ber till about 1860, when they were observed 

 to flower in September ; in 1870 they flow- 

 ered in August; in 1878 they flowered in 

 July; and lastly, in 18S2, they began to 

 flower in June, the spring month which cor- 

 responds most nearly with the Australian 

 October. The trees imported since 1845 

 have not yet gone so far back in the time 

 of their flowering. 



A female hippopotamus, which was pre- 

 sented to the London Zoological Society in 

 1853, by the Viceroy of Egypt, has just died, 

 with the exhibition of all the signs of old 

 age. Her mate died in 1S77, after having 

 lived twenty-seven years in the garden. As 

 the condition of the teeth and bones indi- 

 cate that the animals could hardly have been 

 able to live as long in their native wilds as 

 they did under attention at the park, the 

 conclusion is drawn that the limit of life of 

 the hippopotamus is about thirty years. 



Dr. Joseph Kidd relates, in " The Prac- 

 titioner," a history of the course of disease 

 in a family, the effect of which is to illus- 

 trate strikingly, if it does not demonstrate, 

 the transmissibility of Bright's disease. A 

 woman, two of whose brothers had died 

 of this disease in early manhood, who her- 

 self died of it when sixty years of age, was 

 the mother of twelve children, seven of 

 whom also died from it, and grandchildren, 

 of whom two at least are afflicted with kid- 

 ney-disease. 



A story is told of a woman in Boston 

 who discovered and located a leak in the 

 waste-pipe of a wash-bowl, by taking advan- 

 tage of the fondness of cats for the oil of 

 valerian. Having put two cats in the par- 

 lor, where an offensive odor was perceived, 

 the woman poured the oil into the basin 

 of an upper room and watched for the re- 

 sult. The cats shortly began to sniff the 

 air and move toward a closet through whieh 

 the waste-pipe ran, then jumped upon a shelf 

 and purred as if enjoying a great luxury. 

 The wall was cut away to expose the pipe, 

 and a considerable leak was found at the 

 very spot pointed out by the cats. 



The Russian admiral. Count Frederic 

 B. Liitke, known as the " Patriarch of the 

 Fleet," a distinguished navigator of more 

 than half a century apo, has recently died. 

 He circumnavigated the globe in 1817-18; 

 was employed during the four successive 

 summers, 1821-24, in scientific surveys of 



Nova Zembla, from which rich additions to 

 the knowledge of the Arctic regions were 

 derived; and from 1S26 to 1829 he com- 

 manded an expedition of the corvettes Se- 

 niavine and Moller to Kamchatka and other 

 parts of Northeastern Asia, Behring's Sea 

 and its archipelagoes, and Alaska, in the 

 course of which extensive collections were 

 made and much knowledge was acquired. 



Professor John Nichol, speaking in his 

 " Historical Sketch" of American literature 

 of the non-existence of international copy- 

 right, says that "this gross injustice to the 

 authors on both sides of the Atlantic, for 

 the benefit of the publishers on one, leads 

 to the intellectual market being glutted 

 with stolen goods. Considerations of inter- 

 est in business are of course everything ; 

 those of principle or art or patriotism noth- 

 ing." 



England has lost an active and highly 

 appreciated scientific student by the death 

 of Edward B. Tawney, Assistant Curator of 

 the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge. He 

 was the son of a clergyman, and was born 

 in 1841. For six years before going to the 

 Cambridge Museum, he had been Assistant 

 Curator of the Bristol Museum. He was 

 author of numerous papers on topics in ge- 

 ology, was versed in several Continental lan- 

 guages, and relished the masterpieces of 

 literature; thus showing in his life that 

 science is not narrow or its pursuit hum- 

 drum. 



The United States Commission of Fish 

 and Fisheries is about to build, in connection 

 with its new station there, an aquarium, to 

 be devoted to biological researches of every 

 description, at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts. 

 Preparations are being made at the adjoin- 

 ing station for the artificial propagation of 

 cod, mackerel, halibut, and other fishes use- 

 ful for food. 



The death is announced of Johann Bene- 

 dict Listing, a German philosopher who was 

 distinguished for his studies in recondite 

 questions in physics in such matters as the 

 world ordinarily does not, or does not try to, 

 understand. His most important discovery 

 was a law, called after him, Listing's law, in 

 physiological optics, which relates to the 

 position of the eyeball when it turns from 

 looking at one object to another, without 

 movement of the head. Other studies re- 

 lated to the geometrical qualities of knots, 

 the inversion and perversion of geometrical 

 figures, helices, the complexes of space, and 

 similar puzzling conceptions. 



Dr. Carl Hornstein, Professor and Di- 

 rector of the observatory at the Carl Ferdi- 

 nand University, Prague, died December 22d, 

 aged fifty-eight years. 



