70 



NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan. 



Alligator River Tribes, Northern Territory, and by numerous urns and vases from 

 the burial mounds of Arkansas, U.S.A., as well as by a series of objects recently 

 obtained by the secretary, Mr. S. Sinclair, in the New Hebrides. Mr. Etheridge's 

 duties as curator of the Museum have necessarily interfered with his valuable 

 paljcontological work, since he has hitherto been practically the only palaeontologist 

 at the service of both the Museum and the Geological Survey. It is to be hoped 

 that he may receive some additional assistance in this department. We note that 

 while the average attendance on week-days of seven hours' duration is 330 per diem, 

 it reaches 660 per diem for the Sunday afternoons of three hours. 



We have received the Annual Report of the Provincial Museum at Lucknow for 

 the year ending March 31, 1895. The completion of the alterations in one of the 

 buildings has enabled Dr. Fiihrer, the Curator, to re-arrange the collections in a 

 more satisfactory manner, and a guide-book is now being prepared. The Government 

 grant for the purchase of specimens is still extremely small ; but the liberality of 

 private and official donors fortunately goes far to make up for this want of funds. 

 The Museum staff also collected 124 natural history specimens during the year. 

 The Curator being Archaeological Surveyor of the N.W. Provinces, many important 

 inscribed slabs and images have been secured for the Department of Archaeology, 

 including six pohshed marble slabs, with Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions, dating 

 from the middle of the 12th century a.d. 



The staff of the Department of Insects of the U.S. National Museum has been 

 re-organised as a result of the death of C. V. Riley. L. O. Howard, entomologist of 

 the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been appointed Honorary Curator of the 

 Department of Insects ; Wm. H. Ashmead, custodian of Hymenoptera, and D. W. 

 Coquillett, custodian of Diptera. All museum custodians are honorary officers. 

 M. L. Linell will remain as general assistant to the Honorary Curator. 



In view of the eleventh International Congress of Americanists, which was held 

 last October in the City of Mexico, the National Museum of Mexico prepared six 

 new catalogues, (i) of the collection of mammals, (2) of birds, (3) of reptiles, all by 

 A. L. Herrera, to whose remarks on nomenclature we allude on another page ; (4) 

 of the collection of Anthropology, by A. L. Herrera and R. E. Cicero. There was 

 also a guide to the Museum and a new catalogue of the Archaeological Department. 



The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain has sent us its " Museum 

 Report for the year 1S93-4," compiled by the curator. Mr. E. M. Holmes. This 

 consists chiefly of a list of plants used in medicine, of which specimens have 

 been presented or recently purchased. Useful information and references are given, 

 so that the book will be valuable to others than those visiting the museum. 



Mr. George W. Vanderbilt has started a museum and arboretum at his 

 home at Biltmore, in North Carolina. He has recently purchased the collection of 

 Southern plants which formed the material for Dr. Chapman's " Flora of the 

 Southern States." 



The Belfast Naturalists' Field Club is to be congratulated on the energy its 

 members are displaying in the pursuit of natural history. The course on Botany 

 (structural and systematic) which Professor Johnson, of the Royal College of Science, 

 Dublin, conducted under the Club auspices in the sprijig of this year is being con- 

 tinued this winter under the guidance of the Rev. C. H. Waddell, M.A., who himself 

 went through the spring course. Recently the Club has published a substantial 

 Supplement, by S. A. Stewart and R. H. Praeger, to the " Flora of the North-East of 

 Ireland," by Stewart and Corry. It is a matter for regret that the flora of the rest 

 of Ireland is not as well worked out as that of the north-east portion. But workers 

 so devoted as Mr. Stewart are rare. The Field Clubs of Dublin and Belfast began 



