226 NATURAL SCIENCE [April 



aboriginal population. After the luxuriant cultivation of the 

 low country, the travellers traversed a very wooded region, in 

 which fig-trees, camphors, palms and tree-ferns predominated. The 

 camphor-trees are particularly magnificent there, but already they 

 are being destroyed by the dealers. Higher up, Chamaecyparis and 

 Cryptomeria predominate, and yet higher are other conifers. No 

 part of the ascent appears to be difficult ; the slopes are not abrupt, 

 and the soil is covered with trees or verdure to within a short 

 distance of the summit, which is at an altitude of 4305 metres 

 (14,000 feet). The mountain is not volcanic; it is composed of 

 slate and quartz. There was no snow, the time of the ascent being 

 autumn. The aboriginal population is agricultural, and affords an 

 interesting study. 



The Gipsy Moth 



The latest bulletin (No. 11 n.s.) which we have received from the 

 Entomological Division of the U.S.A. Department of Agriculture, 

 deals with the history of the ' Gipsy ' Moth {Porthetria dispar) 

 in North America. Mr L. O. Howard tells us that the insect was 

 introduced in 1869 at Medford by Prof. Trouvelot, who wished to 

 experiment with various European silk-spinning caterpillars. Some 

 of his ' Gipsy ' caterpillars escaped out of the window and established 

 themselves in a neighbouring wood. After twelve or fifteen years' 

 struggle with a hard climate, insectivorous birds, and occasional 

 fires, the moths began to multiply and to spread about the surround- 

 ing parts of Massachusetts. In 1889 the caterpillars became a 

 perfect plague at Medford, stripping trees completely of their leaves, 

 falling about the road in thousands, invading houses, and getting into 

 the food and the beds. During recent years the species has spread 

 through a great part of eastern Massachusetts, but stringent efforts 

 have been adopted to keep it in check, and it is hoped that the 

 undesirable immigrant will ultimately be altogether exterminated. 



The excessive multiplication of this moth in its new country 

 will be of interest to British entomologists. Always with us a 

 local insect, it is now probably extinct as a wild species in England 

 though it is still kept up by moth-breeders in a ' domesticated ' 

 state. 



The Muscle Scabs of Fossil Cephalopod Shells 



A PAPER of much interest and importance was read before the Linnean 

 Society at their meeting on 3rd February last, " On the Muscular 

 attachment of the Animal to its Shell in some Fossil Cephalopoda 

 (Ammonoidea)," by G. C. Crick, of the British Museum (Natural 



