470 NATURAL SCIENCE. Dec. 



and of the machinery by which the aquaria are supplied with air and water. In 

 addition to the official reports of the curators, the volume contains papers by A. 

 Appellof (on "Cephalopoda of the North Sea"), O. Nordgaard (on " Polyzoa, 

 Echinodermata and Hydroids of Beitstad Fjord "), J. A. Grieg (on " Ophiurids from 

 Greenland"), and J. Brunchorst ("Some Illnesses of Norwegian Timber"), as well 

 as two archaeological papers. 



Better days are dawning for the South African Museum at Cape Town, which 

 is at present "cribbed, cabined and confined " in one wing of the handsome Public 

 Library building. A new Museum is to be erected in the Government Gardens, at 

 a cost of /2o,ooo, and the present rooms handed over to the Library. Let us hope 

 that the working expenses of the Museum will be provided for in a like liberal 

 manner. 



In Hong Kong there is a Museum rather of the Curiosity Shop order ; but an 

 energetic literary and scientific local society, known as The Odd Volumes, are 

 taking the matter up. They have had a deputation to the Governor, Sir William 

 Robinson, and a lecture from an official of the British Museum. The Governor is 

 willing, but the Press are not. The old objection is in the way — want of money. 

 We can but wish The Odd Volumes the success they deserve. 



We learn from the American Naturalist that some public-spirited citizens of 

 Chicago have formed a corporation for the purpose of creating and sustaining a 

 Museum, which shall furnish to the public of the city an educational exhibition. It 

 is proposed that the Museum shall be located near to Jackson Park and the 

 University, and for the present the California Building of the World's Fair is to 

 be utilised. Professor F. W. Putnam, the distinguished archaeologist, has been 

 appointed managing director. The idea is that Professor Putnam will organise the 

 Museum into departments, placing over each a competent head, who will make the 

 institution a medium for original research, as well as for exhibition, as is the case 

 with all the best museums of the world. It will thus become useful, not only to the 

 general public, but to the University and to the Academy of Sciences. This body 

 of scientific experts, connected with the Museum and University, should stir up the 

 Chicago Academy of Sciences, which has laid dormant so many years. 



A Royal Medal was awarded to Professor Harry Marshall Ward at the Annual 

 Meeting of the Royal Society of London on November 30, in recognition of his 

 researches on the life-history of fungi and schizomycetes. The Copley Medal is 

 this year awarded to the distinguished physicist, Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Bart. 

 The only change in the list of officers of the Society consists in the succession of 

 Sir Joseph Lister to the Foreign Secretaryship, vacated by Sir Archibald Geikie. 

 The new members of Council representing Natural Science are Professor A. H. 

 Green, Sir John Kirk, Sir John Lubbock, and Professor Burdon Sanderson. 



The Zoological Society of London have printed, in their last issue of Proceedings, 

 a valuable and important statement of the exact date of issue of their octavo 

 publications. The dates of their quarto publications have long been listed and 

 printed on the covers of the Transactions. The information, which shows the number 

 of the issue, the pages contained in each issue, and the date of delivery from the 

 printers, has been supplied to the Society by Messrs. Taylor and Francis, the 

 Society's printers, and will be of assistance in settling vexed questions of priority- 

 We have often wondered why Societies are so shy of printing the date of issue of 

 their publications side by side with the signatures. The example has been set in 

 certain separate publications for many years, e.g., Bronn's " Nomenclator Palason- 

 tologicus," and Godman and Salvin s " Biologia Centrali Americana," where the 



