94 



NA TURE 



[November 25, 1897 



egg of the Brazilian Cariama {Cariama cristata), laid in the 

 Society's Gardens, and read some notes made by Mr. A. Thom- 

 son, Head-Keeper, on the breeding of this bird. — Mr. Sclater 

 gave an account of some of the more interesting animals ob- 

 served by him during a recent visit to the Zoological Gardens of 

 Cologne, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Berlin. — A note was read 

 from Messrs. Oldfield Thomas and R. Lydekker, stating that 

 during the preparation of their paper on the dentition of the 

 Manatee, published in the last part of the Pi-oceedings, an im- 

 portant memoir by Dr. C. Hartlaub on the subject, in which 

 some of their conclusions had been anticipated, had been over- 

 looked. — Mr. R. Lydekker, F. R.S., exhibited a skin of the Blue 

 Bear of Tibet {Ursus pruinosiis), described and figured in the 

 Society's Proeeedtngs {P. Z. S., 1897, p. 412', pi. xxvii. ), and a 

 sketch of the Altai Deer {Cervus enstephaniis) taken from a 

 specimen in the menagerie of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn 

 Abbey. — A communication by Mr. George P. Mudge, " On the 

 Myology of the Tongue of Parrots," was read by the author. 

 Specimens of six different species of the Psittacidce had been 

 examined, and a detailed description of the muscles of each of 

 them was given in this paper. — A communication from Mr. E. 

 T. Browne, " On British Medusae," was read. It was a continu- 

 ation of a previous paper, entitled "On British Hydroids and 

 Medusae," published in the Proceedings for 1896. Eight species 

 were treated of at length. — Dr. A. G. Butler enumerated the 

 species (138 in number) contained in three consignments of 

 butterflies collected in Natal in 1896 and 1897 by Mr. Guy A. 

 K. Marshall, and gave the dates of the capture of the 

 specimens, the localities where they were found, and other inter- 

 esting notes concerning them. One new genus (Chrysoritis) 

 and one new species {Cacyreus marshalli) were described. A 

 communication from Mr. Edgar R. Waite, of the Australian 

 Museum, Sydney, " On the Sydney Bush-Rat {Mtts arboricola, 

 W. S. Macleay)," was read. It treated of the habits of the 

 animal in a wild state and of its anatomical characters. — A third 

 portion of a paper on the spiders of the Island of St. Vincent, 

 by M. E. Simon, was communicated by Dr. D. Sharpe, 

 F. R. S., on behalf of the committee for investigating the fauna 

 and flora of the West Indian Islands. Of the species enumerated 

 forty- six were described as new, which included three new 

 genera, viz, Mysmenopsis, Homalometa, and Mesobria. — Prof. 

 Alfred Newton, F.R.S., exhibited some specimens of new or 

 rare birds' eggs, and read some notes upon them. Amongst 

 these were the first properly authenticated examples of the eggs 

 of the Curlew- Sandpiper {Tringa subarquata) obtained by Mr. 

 Popham on an island in the mouth of the Jenisei River in July 

 last. Other eggs exhibited were those of Turdus varius, 

 Chasiempis sandvicensis, Himatione vi7-eiis, Emberiza rustica, 

 and Podoces panderi. 



Linnean Society, November 4.— Dr. A. Gunther, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. F. G. Jackson, leader of the 

 Jackson- Harms worth Polar expedition, exhibited a series of 

 lantern-slides, illustrating some zoological observations of the 

 expedition, the most noteworthy being views of the hibernaculum 

 of the polar bear and of the breeding haunts in Franz Josef Land 

 of the ivory gull (Pagophila ebtirnea), the eggs of which were 

 also shown. — Mr. H. Fisher, botanist of the expedition, brought 

 for exhibition a collection of plants made by him in Franz Josef 

 Land, the consideration of which was deferred for want of 

 time. — Mr. Reginald Lodge exhibited some lantern-slides of 

 marsh birds, their nests, eggs, and young, from photographs 

 recently taken in Spain and Holland. — Sir John Lubbock, Bart., 

 M.P. , read a paper on the attraction of flowers for insects, 

 which dealt chiefly with the points raised in three recently 

 published memoirs by Prof. Plateau, who had attempted to 

 show that the scents and not the colours of flowers serve to 

 attract insects. Sir John Lubbock explained that his view, like 

 that of Sprengel and Darwin, was that to insects flowers were 

 indebted for both their scent and colour. Not only had the 

 present shapes and outlines, colours, the scent, and the honey 

 of flowers been gradually developed through the- unconscious 

 selection exercised by insects, but this applied even to minor 

 points, such as the arrangement of lines, and the different 

 shades of colour. Prof. Plateau had recorded a series of ex- 

 periments on the dahlia, in which he showed that bees come 

 to these flowers even when the ray-florets have been removed. 

 Discussing this point. Sir J. Lubbock said it was somewhat 

 singular that he should have selected as proving that insects are 

 entirely attracted by scent a flower which had, so far as he 

 knew, no scent at all. He gave several reasons for disputing 



NO. T465, VOL. 57] 



the conclusions drawn by Prof. Plateau- from his experiments, 

 and recorded others made by himself which refuted them. He 

 had selected species of flowers in which the scent is in one part 

 and the coloured leaves in another, as, for instance, the 

 Eryngiuin amethystiiniin. This flower is surrounded by bril- 

 liant blue bracts ; and he found that if the two parts were separ- 

 ated, the bees came more often to the bracts than they did to 

 the flowers themselves. He maintained, therefore, that the 

 observations of Prof. Plateau did not in any way weaken the 

 conclusions which had been drawn by Sprengel, Darwin, and 

 others, and that it was still clear that the colours of flowers 

 serve to guide insects to the honey, and in this way secure 

 cross-fertilisation. — Mr. W. C. Worsdell communicated a paper 

 on transfusion-tissue, its origin and functions in the leaves of 

 Gymnospermous plants. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, November 15. — M. A. Chatin in 

 the chair. — Reaction of hydrogen upon sulphuric acid, by M. 

 Berthelot. Sulphuric acid absorbs hydrogen completely at 

 250°, and even in the cold, during two months, 75 per cent, of 

 the hydrogen present was absorbed, with production of a cor- 

 responding amount of sulphur dioxide. This reaction does not 

 take place with the diluted acid. A thermo-chemical study 

 shows that the dilution of the acid changes the thermal sign of 

 the reaction. — Influence of oxygen upon the decomposition of 

 the hydracids by metals, and especially by mercury, by M. 

 Berthelot. Although pure hydrogen chloride may be kept over 

 mercury for several years without change, in the presence of 

 oxygen there is a slow absorption, as a result of which the 

 acid is wholly absorbed according to the equation 



4HCI -t- Oj, -1- 4Hg = 2Hg2Cl2 -f 2H0O. 



A similar reaction takes place between mercury, hydrogen 

 sulphide, and oxygen. In both these cases there is an evolu- 

 tion of heat during the reaction. — Direct action of sulphuric 

 acid upon mercury at the ordinary temperature, by M. Berthelot. 

 Mercurous sulphate and sulphur dioxide are produced after long 

 standing at ordinary temperatures. — Observations on the swarm 

 of shooting stars, made at the Observatory of Paris, during the 

 nights of November 13-14, 14-15, 1897, by M. Loewy. — 

 Influence of surfusion upon the freezing point of solutions of 

 potassium chloride and sugar, by M. F, M. Raoult. The 

 experiments quoted now definitely show that the molecular 

 lowering of the freezing points for potassium chloride and sugar 

 have limiting values agreeing with the predictions of Arrhenius. 

 — On the integration of the equations of heat, by M. Le Roy. — 

 Observations of the shooting stars at the Observatory of Meudon, 

 by M. Hansky. — Observations on this communication, by M. J. 

 Janssen. — The mechanical principles involved in the practical 

 application of the mercury bath as a means of obtaining a true 

 vertical, at the Paris Observatory, by M. Maurice Hamy. — On 

 a generalised displacement in which all points describe spherical 

 trajectories, by M. Ernest Duporcq. — On the theory of com- 

 plete functions, by M. Erik Schou. — On the transmission of 

 energy at a distance. Application to rotatory polarisation, by 

 M. Andre Broca. — On the coefficients of expansion of gases, by 

 M. A. Leduc. From the experimental results on the densities 

 of gases previously given, a formula is derived for the true 

 coefficient of expansion at 0° C. under a pressure of ir cm. 

 of mercury. This formula is applied to some twenty-three 

 gases, and the figures obtained compared with the experimental 

 results of M. P. Chappuis. — Action of water upon phosphorus 

 trichloride, by M. A. Besson. Evidence is adduced of the 

 existence of a phosphorus oxychloride, POCl, analogous to 

 NOCl. It is formed by the action of a small quantity of water 

 upon an excess of phosphorus trichloride, according to the 

 equation 



PCI3 -f H2O = 2HCI -t- POCl, 



and is separated from the excess of the trichloride, by distillation 

 in a vacuum. POCl forms a waxy solid, of the consistence of 

 paraffin, which is insoluble except in PCI3. The yield is very 

 small, never exceeding d'2 to 05 gr. per kilogram of PCI3 used. 

 — On cerium, by M. O. Boudouard. By fractional crystallisa- 

 tion and precipitation of the acetate and sulphate of cerium it is 1 

 found that cerium oxide is contaminated with small quantities of 

 another earth possessing a lower atomic weight. — On the pre- 

 paration of strontium sulphide by means of hydrogen sulphide 

 and strontia or strontium carbonate. Influence of temperature. 



