98 Chronicles of Science, [Jan., 



Encke, Faye, Brorsen, D' Arrest, and Tnttle, are being proceeded 

 ■with; Lut a list of tliirty-one comets, from 1830 to 1867, remains 

 for further discussion. A wish was expressed that astronomers who 

 are occuping themselves with any particular comets, would ]Dut 

 themselves in communication with the Society. A programme was 

 received for the observation of all stars, down to the ninth magni- 

 tude, between circles of declination 2^ S. and 80° N. The observa- 

 tories wliich had ofiered to take part in the work were Berlin, 

 Bonn, Helsingfors, Leipzig, Mannheim, and Leyden. 



4. BOTANY, VEGETABLE MOEPHOLOGY, AND 

 PHYSIOLOGY. 



The Feriilization of ihe Scarlet-runner and Blue Lobelia. — ]\Ir. 

 T. H. Farrer, a gentleman previously unkno^vn to fame, but evi- 

 dently a careful observer of nature, set himself to work upon the 

 question as to whether other plants besides those described by Mr. 

 Darwin (Orchids, Primula, Liniun, and Lythium), might not 

 have a structure which provided for the fertilization of one's ovary 

 by the pollen of another flower. As Mr. Farrer obseiTes : — *' To 

 an amateur, dismayed by the difficulties of botanical classification, 

 perplexed by his own incapacity for microscopical dissection, and 

 disgusted by the mere cataloguing of species, Mr. Darwin's sugges- 

 tion that the true account of the structure and functions of flowers 

 is frequently to be found in then- capacity for cross-fertilization with 

 the pollen of other flowers, is a ray of light which opens out an 

 endless field of interesting observation." We wish there were more 

 such amatem's. We cannot give Mr. Farrer's observations, which 

 are veiy detailed, and pubHshed in the ' Annals of Natm-al History ' 

 for October. He shows that there is such an arrangement of the 

 parts of the flower of the Scarlet-runner, that a bee, alightiug and 

 searching for honey, necessarily shakes any pollen ofi" his proboscis 

 on to the stigma, whilst, by another de\ice, his proboscis gets 

 covered with th© pollen of this flower as he withdraws it, and is 

 ready to fertilize another. In Lobelia, Mr. Farrer describes a very 

 remarkable disposition of parts, which act so that when a bee visits 

 a Lobeha flower, pollen is ejected, in small quantities at a time, on 

 the exact spot on his back on which it should be placed in order 

 that it may bo carried to the stigma of another flower, the stigma 

 in these flowers also being so arranged that, at the very next flower 

 visited by the bee, the stigma sweeps olf the previously acquired 

 poUen. 



The Double Coeoa-md. — Dr. E. Perceval Wright, Professor of 

 Zoology ui Trinity CoUego, Dublin, visited, in 1867, the Seychelles 



