70 American Qua?-terly Microscopical Jouj-nal. 



firmly in place, while the jelly soon hardens, becoming white and 

 opaque. Sections are then cut and treated with glycerin. This is 

 highly recommended for use, in preparing sections of calcareous struct- 

 ures, which are liable to collapse upon removal of the lime. The au- 

 thor has made successful use of it in preparing sections of coral. One 

 great advantage is that there is no imbedding material requiring to be 

 dissolved away by a special solvent. 



— By means of his new immersion paraboloid. Dr. James Edmunds 

 has demonstrated a fine beading in the membranous part of this scale. 

 It is best seen by so arranging the light that the featherlets become 

 invisible. The scale of the speckled podura shows it with least diffi- 

 culty. 



— Mr. H. T. Johnston-Lavis has been examining some old pieces of 

 glass which contained " certain irregular worm-eaten-looking holes of 

 some depth," and communicates his results to Science-Gossip. By mi- 

 croscopical examination he concludes that the cavities are produced by 

 the growth of a lichen. 



— Prof. Aug. Weismann, Zeitsch. f. wiss. Zool., finds that in a few of 

 the Daphnoidae, and also in some of the Phyllopoda, bright patches of 

 color are to be found, blue and scarlet. These colors, he concludes, 

 are the result of sexual selection, at first being developed in the male 

 only, and by transmission are now found in the females. Different 

 colonies of the same species have not the same colors and the differ- 

 ence is constant. In Latona the colors of both male and female are 

 most brilliant. These observations seem to confirm Mr. Darwin's the- 

 ory of the coloring of butterflies' wings. 



— It is said that the common Dill, owing to its peculiar smell, will pro- 

 tect cabbages from the ravages of the caterpillar, when grown in the 

 beds. Broad beans, planted by gooseberry bushes, are said to protect 

 those bushes from the gooseberry worm, and Pyrenthrwn protects vines 

 from Phylloxera. 



— We have received a "Catalogue of Mounting Apparatus and Mate- 

 rial, and of Microscopic Objects," made and for sale by Jesse S. Chey- 

 ney, 308 Walnut St., Philadelphia, 1878. Mr. Cheney is well known 

 among dealers in such materials. His catalogue is quite complete and 

 embraces many things which are needed by the microscopist, and, what 

 is more to the point, the prices charged are not unreasonable. 



— In Section A., of the British Association, Prof. W. Stanley Jevons 

 read a note on the " Pedetic action of Soap," which is of interest to mi- 

 croscopists. He finds that soap added to water increases greatly the 

 Brownian motion, and this fact he considers to oppose the idea that 

 these motions are due to surface tension. He attributes this motion 

 to " chemical and electromotive actions." China clay diffused in wa- 



