i6 



HARD WICKKS SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



the seed tin on the top of its water tin, where it left 

 this, apparently quite satisfied with what it had accom- 

 plished. This may be instinct, or it may be reason, 

 but I watched the whole performance, unseen by the 

 bird, and it appeared to be carried out as carefully 

 as if executed by a man cognizant of the laws of 



gravitation. 



Edward Lovett. 

 Croydon. 



OUR SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORY. 



[It is our desire to bring out a Scientific Directory in the 

 monthly pages of Science-Gossip, feeling certain that it would 

 be very useful for our readers to know what scientific societies 

 had been formed in their own neighbourhoods. We shall there- 

 fore feel very much obliged if Secretaries of any kind of 

 Scientific Society, in any town or part of the country, will send 

 us the full name and title of each Society, together with the 

 names of the President and Hon. Secretary.] 



> T r> HE Royal Society : President, Professor Stokes : 

 JL Secretaries, Professor M. Foster and Lord 

 Rayleigh ; Foreign Secretary, Professor A. W. 

 Williamson. 



The Geographical Society : President, The Marquis 

 of Lome ; Secretaries, Clement R. Markham& D. W. 

 Freshfield ; Foreign Secretary, Lord A. Russell. 



The Royal Microscopical Society (founded 1839) : 

 President, Rev. Dr. Dallinger, F.R.S. ; Secretaries, 

 Frank Crisp, LL.D, and Professor F. Jeffrey Bell, 

 M.A. 



Liniican Society of London : President, Sir John 

 Lubbock, Bart., F.R.S. ; Secretaries, Messrs. B. D. 

 Jackson, and W. Percy Sladen. 



Geological Society of London : President, Professor 

 T. G. Bonney, D.Sc. ; Secretaries, Dr. W. T. 

 Blanford, F.R.S. ; Professor Judd, F.R.S. ; Foreign 

 Secretary, Warington W. Smyth, F.R.S. 



Liverpool Science Students' Association : President, 

 Mr. A. Norman Tate, F.I.C. ; Hon Secretaries, 

 Mr. W. H. Read and Miss Helen Fryer. 



Hertfordshire Natural History Society: President, 

 Dr. John Attfield, F.R.S., Hon. Secretaries, Messrs. 

 R. B. Croft, F.L.S., and F. G. Lloyd. 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Sir Joseph Hooker, F.R.S., has resigned the 

 Directorship of the Kew Botanical Gardens, after 

 holding the post for twenty years. His son-in-law, 

 Professor Thistleton Dyer, succeeds him. 



A NEW edition of Mr. H. B. Woodward's impor- 

 tant work on the " Geology of England and Wales " 

 is announced. 



A pension of .£300 per annum has been conferred 

 on Professor Huxley from the Civil List Fund, on 

 account of his distinguished services to science. 

 This is as it should be. 



We are pleased to see that Mr. J. H. A. Jenner 

 has republished his valuable "List of the Land 

 and Freshwater Mollusca of East Sussex," from the 

 Proceedings of the Eastbourne Natural History 

 Society. 



A capital paper on " Boulder Glaciation," by 

 Hugh Miller, F.G.S., appears in the Transactions 

 of the Tyneside Field Naturalists' Club ; and one 

 on " River-Terracing ; its Methods and its Result," 

 (by the same author), in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Physical Society. 



It is stated that the telephone system of Paris, 

 almost entirely subterranean, numbered at the end 

 of last April as many as three thousand eight hundred 

 subscribers. 



It appears that the specimen of Archreopteryx in 

 the British Museum, the first that was found, was 

 purchased for ^1000, and the second, more perfect, 

 was sold to the Berlin Museum for ^1000. Another 

 specimen has just been found at Solenhofen. 



The discovery is announced of a tree, the Butyro- 

 spennum Parka, which grows in abundance in dense 

 forests in Central Africa, and which yields gutta- 

 percha. Mr. Edward Heckel, the discoverer, is of 

 opinion that the tree can be transplanted into the 

 English and French colonies. 



Mr. L. Upcott Gill, the publisher, is bringing 

 out in yd. parts, a series of most useful and original 

 works, among which those now in issue are on 

 "Poultry," " Fancy Pigeons," " Book of The Goat," 

 " British Cage Birds," &c. 



We draw special attention to Mr. Joseph Smith's 

 paper (republished from the " Midland Naturalist '"), 

 on " Anthropology : Its Meaning and Aim." 



In Sir F. Abel's Address to the Society of Arts 

 (published in "Nature"), there is a sharp satire 

 on the way in which pseudo-philanthropists "attack 

 the problem at all points " of explosions in coal- 

 mines, by offering rewards of ,£500 for safety-lamps 

 which can never be forthcoming, and so reaping a 

 cheap and temporary notoriety thereby. 



We have received a copy of Dr. Ricketts' impor- 

 tant paper on "Some Erratics in the Boulder Clay 

 of Cheshire, and the Condition of Climate they 

 Denote." 



Dr. Currier, of New York, has invented an 

 apparatus by which the large class of deaf persons, 

 who have some amount of latent hearing, can learn to 

 speak with greater uniformity and exactness. 



M. Plateau, a French zoologist, has shown that 

 the palpi of insects are not essential to the recognition 

 and seizure of food, as has hitherto been imagined. 

 Beetles, cockroaches, &c, can be deprived of them, 

 and still retain the power of identifying and mastica- 

 ting their food. 



