386 Scientific I tUelligence.— Zoology. 



and was thus enabled to prove that the substance in question 

 was Skfiew metal, to which he gives the name Vanadiumy after an 

 ancient Scandinavian deity. We have had communicated to 

 us the following additional notice. Humboldt presented to the 

 Institute specimens of Vanadium, the new metal recently dis- 

 covered in the iron of Estersholm by Mr Sestrom, and which 

 also exists in Mexico in a brown ore of lead of Zimapan. M. 

 del Rio, Professor in the School of Mines of Mexico, had ex- 

 tracted from that ore a substance, which, to his apprehension, re- 

 sembled a new metal, to which he gave the name of Erythronium, 

 M. Collet Descotils, to whom he sent a specimen, could not agree 

 in erythronium being a simple substance, and believed he had 

 demonstrated that it was an impure chrome. It would appear 

 thai Professor del Rio agreed in this opinion, and there was not 

 longer any idea of its being a new metal. But since the dis- 

 covery of Sestrom was known to Voller, he, struck with the 

 resemblances which exist between the properties of vanadium 

 and that which the Mexican chemist attributes to his erythro- 

 nium, has repeated the analysis of the brown ore of lead of 

 Zimapan, and from which he has obtained a simple body, per*, 

 fectly identical with that of the iron ore of d'Esterholm. It is 

 worthy of remark that so rare a metal should have been dis- 

 covered in two places so far asunder as Scandinavia and Mexico. 



tg-f.- . .o 3i Ji ^jUOlUi'\i i^ 



V. ZOOLOGY. ,,nIi!:>^.i(AV.,. .. 



^il9. Four-spined Stickleback. — ^A variety of the Stickleback 

 {Gasterosteus aculeatus) with four spines on the back, was dis- 

 covered in a pond in the Meadows by Mr John Stark, in 

 September 1830. The common three spined stickleback was 

 numerous in the same pond ; and, of a number taken in a net 

 at random, about one in ten or twelve proved to be of the four- 

 spined variety. This variety (or perhaps species), does not ap- 

 pear to have been previously noticed. It is somewhat smaller 

 than the common three-spined stickleback when full grown, the 

 specimens procured not exceeding one-fourth of an inch in length. 

 The arrangement of the spines is also diiFerent, being placed in 

 twos at regular distances, corresponding to the length of the 

 spines. The two anterior spines are much longer than the other 

 two, the second longest. — Stark. 



20r Himala Ornithology, '•^We learn, in regard to the ornitho- 



