236 NATURAL SCIENCE. Sept.. 



The Swiney Lectures on Geology, under the auspices of the trustees of the 

 British Museum, will this year again be delivered by Professor H. Alleyne 

 Nicholson, who will take for his subject " The Making of the Earth's Crust." 

 The lectures, which are on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from the ist 

 to the 26th of October, will be delivered in the Lecture Theatre of the South 

 Kensington Museum, since the proposed and much-needed lecture theatre of the 

 Natural History Museum is still in niibibns. We further understand that this is 

 the last year, for the present, in which the post will be filled by the very popular 

 lecturer, Dr. Nicholson. For the ensuing year, at least, the well-known anthro- 

 pologist, Dr. J. G. Garson, has been appointed Swiney Lecturer, and is expected 

 to deal with the Geological History of Man. Meanwhile the Natural History 

 Museum at Torquay is to have its Lecture Theatre built out of the ^'1,360 sub- 

 scribed as a memorial to the late Mr. W. Pengelly. 



The new Norwich Castle Museum, of which we published a detailed descrip- 

 tion (vol. i., p. 692), is now nearly completed, and the removal of the collections 

 is in active progress. The formal opening, by the Duke of York, is announced to 

 take place next month. 



Next month the local collections of the Natural History Society of Tromso, 

 Norway, will be removed from the present inconvenient house to a fine new stone 

 building, which has been occupied during the summer by the Tromso Centenary 

 Exhibition. The Museum is of two storeys, with convenient work-rooms and an 

 attic for stores, and has been built by the town and district, aided by a Government 

 grant. The Tromso Society, though small, displays remarkable vigour and has 

 formed one of the finest collections of a local fauna and flora to be met with in any 

 Continental Museum. It has also obtained a large series of fossils from Spitzbergen 

 and Novaya Zemlya. 



Mr. a. Haly, the Director of the Colombo Museum, Ceylon, has issued his report 

 for 1S93. The chief object of this museum is to give a full representation of the 

 products of Ceylon, both natural and artificial, and Mr. Haly points out how 

 necessary it is that such a collection should be accompanied by a complete 

 collection of the literature relating to Ceylon. He does not, however, find much 

 value in the " Descriptions of Ceylon species published in various scientific 

 periodicals." "In most cases," he says, "the descriptions of insects are un- 

 accompanied by any figures, and are quite useless for the purpose of naming the 

 species described, apart from authoritatively named specimens. Entomologists, please 

 note ! This museum has recently acquired very fine specimens of the Dugong — 

 male, female and young. The female is 11 feet long, and is said to be the largest 

 ever seen. A new kingfisher has been found on the island, apparently allied to the 

 S. Indian species, Alcedo bavani of Walden. A new starred tortoise has also been 

 found, which appears to be peculiar to Ceylon. A fish of the genus Duymaeria, is 

 the first representative of that genus recorded from the Indian Ocean. A process of 

 preservation by gum and glycerine is now used for fish, crustaceans, starfish, and 

 holothurians. Instead of cork for insect boards, Mr. Haly uses a mixture of saw- 

 dust and cocoa-nut fibre. 



Mr. Zenker, head of the station at Taunde in the Cameroons, has sent a large 

 collection of bird-skins to the Royal Zoological Collection in Berlin. Dr. Stuhl- 

 mann also has sent many interesting novelties from Usaramo, in East Africa. Both 

 these collections will be described in the Journal filv Ovnithologie. A propos, we learn 

 that Dr. A. Reichenow's work " Die Vogel Deutsch-Ostafrikas " will be published 

 in the autumn of this year by Dietrich Reimer, in Berlin. 



The Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society has issued its Report 

 and Transactions for 1893-94. The most important paper is a critical list of the 

 Lepidoptera of Cornwall and theScilly Islands, by the President, Mr. W. E. Baily. 

 Many local lists have already been published, but this is a more general summary 



