I30 NATURAL SCIENCE. February, 



reference, when such exists and is universally accessible. It is^ 

 perhaps, too much to expect that the publications of our National 

 Museum shall set a universal and permanent fashion in zoological 

 nomenclature, but some consummation of this kind is devoutly to be 

 wished. 



New Serials. 



The Monatschvift jiiv Psychiairie und Neurologie, edited by Professor 

 Wernicke, of Breslau, and Professor Ziehen, of Jena, and pubhshed 

 at Berlin, began with the present year. 



We learn from the Daily News that the Imperial Natural History 

 Society of St. Petersburg intends to publish a flora, first of European 

 Russia, and afterwards of Russia in Asia and the Caucasus. 



Nature announces, though without stating the price or place of 

 publication,, the appearance of a new German weekly journal, devoted 

 to pure and applied science, to literature and to art, Die Umschan, 

 edited by Dr. J. H. Bechhold. The first number contains, among 

 other articles, one on ethnology by Dr. Max Buchner. 



Messrs. Schleicher Freres, of Paris, announce " L'Annee Biolo- 

 gique : Comptes rendus annuels des travaux de Biologie Generale," 

 published under the direction of Professor Yves Delage, with the 

 assistance of a committee, to whom Dr. G. Poirault is secretary. 

 The first volume deals with the literature of 1895, ^"d is in large 8vo. 

 We have not yet seen a copy. 



Middlesex Hospital is starting a journal of its own. 



Scraps from Serials. 



The American Journal of Science for January prints a letter by Dr. 

 Webb, of St. Augustine, Florida, stating that the body of an immense 

 octopus, 18 feet in length and 10 feet in breadth, has been washed 

 ashore near that city. The arms no longer remain. Mr. A. E. 

 Verrill, commenting on this, suggests a weight of four to five tons for 

 the body and head, and states that the dimensions are larger than 

 those of any of the well-authenticated Newfoundland specimens. He 

 thinks that it may be a species oi Architeiithis. 



Mr. J. Collinson, of Wolsingham, Co. Durham, a well-known 

 crusader against cruelty to animals, writes to the Farmer's Gazette for 

 January 2, praising the refusal of the British Produce Supply Asso- 

 ciation to trade in larks, which are valuable friends to the gardener 

 and farmer. The lapwing, too, as he quotes from the Gardening 

 World, although of priceless value to agriculturalists on account of the 

 vermin it destroys, is subject to ruthless persecution in spring by 

 those who want its eggs for varnish or for food, in autumn, " by 

 people who foolishly imagine they are eating something of a dignified 

 and gamey nature." 



The Zoologist for January is no longer edited by Mr. J. E. 

 Harting, its editor of the last twenty years, who has been forced to 

 retire in consequence of the pressure of official duties and other 

 engagements. A worthy successor has been found for him in Mr. 

 W. L. Distant. 



The Westminster Review for January contains a curious article by Dr. 

 Olindo Malagodi on the Psychology of Anarchist Conspiracies, which 

 is of a reassuring nature, inasmuch as he contends that Anarchists are 

 dreamers rather than fanatics. " It is the hyperaesthesia of their 

 personality which forces them into their conflict with society. . . . 

 Anarchists will continue to live in a small way on small deeds." We 

 do not quite know why this Review criticises the Smithsonian Institution 



