May 25, 191 1] 



NATURE 



415 



Botanical Research at Peradtniya. 



In I/ie Times of Ceylon, April 12, is published a com- 

 munication, dated June 20, 1910, from the Governor of 

 Ceylon to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the 

 question of a Department of Agriculture for that colony. 

 With the proposals put forward in that memorandum we 

 are not concerned, but there is one feature in connection 

 with it against which we cannot but strongly protest. 

 Appended to the memorandum are certain notes by Mr. 

 Dunstan, of the Imperial Institute, of which one runs 

 as follows : — 



" Owing to the agricultural duties which are now per- 

 formed by the botanical officers at Peradeniya, and for 

 which they are not specially qualified, no botanical re- 

 search is being carried on, and the scientific reputation of 

 the establishment, which was at a high level in the days 

 of Thwaites and Trimen, is suffering." 



We are confident that this statement cannot be justified. 

 A reference to the Annuls of the Royal Botanic Gardens, 

 Peradeniya, founded by Dr. Willis in 1901, gives evidence 

 of the amount of valuable work that has been carried out 

 in recent j-ears. We may mention, without attempting to 

 be exhaustive, the researches of Messrs. Green, Holter- 

 mann, Keeble, Lang, Lock, Parkin, Pearson, Petch, 

 Smith, Svedelius, Willis and Wright, which have all been 

 carried out at Peradeniya during Dr. Willis's directorship. 

 At the present time Dr. Willis and Dr. Lock, and Messrs. 

 Petch and Green, are actively engaged in research. 



In our opinion there would be a general agreement 

 among biologists that the high reputation of the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens has been fully maintained — to say the 

 least of it — under the direction of Dr. Willis. To the 

 sympathy of the staff with scientific progress, and to their 

 ability in smoothing the way for those who visit the 

 gardens for purposes of research, two of us, who lately 

 stayed there for scientific work, can personally testify. 



We are relieved to read that the Secretary of State, in 

 his answer to the memorandum, has not associated him- 

 self with the paragraph above quoted. But we feel bound 

 to make some protest against what seems to us to give an 

 entirely misleading impression of the high position, as a 

 centre of research, which Peradeniya has attainedt under 

 Dr. W'illis's initiative and guidance. 



R. H. BiFFEN, Professor of Agricultural Botany. 



F. F. Blackman, Reader in Botany. 



Francis Darwin. 



J. Stanley Gardiner, Professor of Zoology. 



R. C. PuNNETT, Professor of Biology. 



A. C. Seward, Professor of Botany. 



A. E. Shipley, Master of Christ's College and Reader in 

 Zoology. 



T. B. Wood. Drapers Professor of Agriculture. 



Cambridge University, May. 



more bunchy below, and from the animal's manner of 

 whisking it about the bunchiness was exaggerated. Sup- 

 posing, also, that he was not clear as to the points or pro- 

 tuberances on the top of the animal's head — whether they 



The Heraldic Yale. 



SurrosiNG a travr-ller on his return from .Africa were 

 to tfll a frii-nd in the Heralds' Office that he had seen a 

 beast, in gtm ral appearance like an antelope, with divided 

 hoofs and a long tail bunched out at the end like an 

 elephant's : liaving horns, roughly corrugated and pro- 

 tuberant on his forehead like a ram's, though he could 

 not be quite sure as to their form, because he saw him 

 only in profile, and they seemed movable, one sometimes 

 pointing forward and the other backward : further, that he 

 had two enormous tusks and a lower jaw like a goat's, 

 that is, with a long beard. 



His friend might take out his pencil and embody what 

 he was told in a rough sketch something like this, Fig. i, 

 saying, " That's very interesting, for your description of 

 the beast combines all the characters of the heraldic Yale, 

 which some say had an .African origin." 



Supposing the traveller then strolled round to the British 

 Museum and reproduced, as well as he could, the sketch 

 drawn by his heraldic friend, but, on being cross-examined, 

 was forced to admit that what appeared to him to be 

 tusks might have been the tips of the beast's curved 

 horns, which from another point of view did seem to point 

 different ways ; that the upper part of his tail was not 

 covered with short hair only, as in tho elephant, but was 



NO. 2](>n. V()L. 86] 



Fig. I. 



were the tips of his ears or bases of horns, or both — and 

 that he was led to modify his picture, as in Fig. 2.^ 



His British Museum friend also might say, " That's 

 very interesting, for it is not unlike an African beast 

 known as the gnu, from its native name nju." 



Talking the matter over afterwards with a third friend, 

 who was learned in folk-lore, he was told that it was 



Fig. a. 



very interesting as an example of how heralds and artists 

 had modified in time the strange form of the gnu into 

 accord with the characters of the only animal of the kind 

 which they did know, namely* the antelope. 



T. McKenny Hughes. 



Dynamical Enunciations. 



Upon Newton's classic definitions and laws of motion 

 various criticisms have been passed by A. E. H. Love, 

 E. Mach, K. Pearson, H. Poincar^, and others. 



Some writers emphasise one aspect of the subject, some 

 another, and most are destructive rather than constructive. 

 But, if the full value of this critical work is to reach the 

 ordinary student, it seems desirable ,that teachers should 

 have at hand some brief statement* embodying those 

 central positions on which there is fair agreement in 

 modern thought. 



As an attempt in this direction, the following enuncia 

 tions are, with great diffidence, submitted : — 



