Feb, 17, 1 8 76 J 



NATURE 



309 



ansverse rows. The liver of Avahis is represented 

 without any gall-bladder (it may be embedded), this 

 viscus being large, and hainng, as in the typical lemurs, 

 its fundus reversed from its ordinary position, and buried 

 in the hepatic issue in the two other genera. The cau- 

 date lobe of the liver is absent, and the spigelian is of fair 

 size. These points, it may be mentioned, have been pre- 

 viously recorded by Prof. Flower in his Hunterian Lec- 

 tures before the College of Surgeons in 1872, on the 

 visceral anatomy of the Mammalia. In Propithecus the left 

 subclavian artery is shown to be given off from the 

 innominate trunk, whence spring the three other main 

 anterior vessels, whilst in Avahis and Ittdn's it springs 

 independently from the aorta. As in the other Lemurs 

 and the Swine, the mesenteric arteries run straight to the 

 walls of the viscera they supply, and do not form loops 

 just before they reach them ; they anastomose fireely at 

 their origins. 



M. Milne-Edwards gives as the dental formulae of the 

 Indrisinae the following : — 



Milk dentition . , 



2 I 3 



21 2 



z. c — m — = 22 



Permanent dentition 



• 2 I "^ '^ 



t — c — pm— m .£. = 30 



20 2 3 



Whether or not this method of expressing the dentition 

 is correct is a matter of uncertainty, it depending on the 

 nature of the outer lower cutting teeth of the typical 

 Lemurs. We cannot, with many zoologists, help retain- 

 ing the opinion that the outer lower incisor-like teeth of 

 Lemur and its nearest allies are canines, and they most 

 certainly represent the outer pair in Indris, in which they 

 are larger than the inner. The presence of a third lower 

 milk molar confirms the opinion expressed by Prof. 

 Huxley^ in his memoir on the Angwdntibo {Arctocebits 

 calabarensis), that in the adult IndrisincC it is a premolar 

 which is missing in each semi-jaw. 



M. Milne-Edwards gives elaborate measurements 

 of the bones of the three genera, which are also repre- 

 sented in the graphic form, on ordinates, by which means 

 excellent comparisons can be made at a glance. 



In the myological section of the work, the contributions 

 by Vrolik on Stenops, Messrs. Mivart and Murie on 

 Nycficebus and the Lemuroidea generally, Van Campen 

 and Van der Hoeven on the Potto, Burmeisteron Tarstus, 

 and Prof. Owen on the Aye-Aye are employed for com- 

 parison, and the whole monograph has filled the only 

 important gap, till now vacant, in our knowledge of the 

 anatomy of the Lemurs. 



SCIENCE AND ART IN IRELAND 



A N important announcement as to the proposed action 

 **- of the Government with regard to the various scien- 

 tific institutions in Dublin is contained in the following 

 article, which we reprint from the Times of Tuesday last : — 

 The subject of the administration of Science and Art 

 in Ireland in connection with increased State aid has now 

 been under discussion at different times for many years. 

 It must not be imagined, however, that Ireland is not 

 already provided with numerous institutions for the pro- 

 motion of Science and Art, or that it lacks grants for that 

 purpose. In Dublin alone there are under the manage- 

 ment of the Royal Dublin Society, which is a chartered 

 body, a Museum of Natural History, Botanic Gardens 

 (with Botanical Museum), and a library. Next comes a 

 purely national institution, the Royal College of Science, 

 with its small industrial collections and the geological 

 collections of the Geological Survey. On the borderland 

 of Science and Art we have the Royal Irish Academy, 

 vvith its library and Antiquarian Museum, containing the 

 ; ichest collection of Celtic antiquities existing out of 

 Copenhagen, including the celebrated Tara Brooch and 

 Tara " torques," and the Cross of Cong. 



' Proc Zoo!. Soc., 1864, p. 327. 



Coming to the region of Art pure, we have the School 

 of Art, under the management of the Royal Dublin 

 Society ; the Royal Hibernian Academy, corresponding 

 to our own Royal Academy (which also has its School of 

 Art) ; and lastly, the Irish National Gallery. So far as 

 we can gather from the estimates, the total grant to 

 Science and Art Institutions in Dublin is upwards of 

 25,000/. a year, though it is difficult to obtain very pre- 

 cise information on this head, as the votes are taken, 

 some by the Science and Art Department, some by the 

 Treasury, and some by the Office of Works. 



The Library, the Natural History Museum, and the 

 Botanic Gardens have since 1865 been entirely supported 

 by the State, though managed by the Dublin Society 

 acting as trustees, while the collections of the Royal Irish 

 Academy, which receive an annual subsidy of about 

 2,000/. besides a house, have been very largely purchased 

 out of pdblic funds. The Royal Dublin Society has of 

 late years devoted its energies and its private funds most 

 usefully in furtherance of agriculture. The F«.oyal Irish 

 Academy not only covers the field of the Royal Society of 

 England, but also itakes under its care literature and 

 antiquities. 



It will thus be seen, to compare the State supported 

 institutions in Dubhn with those in London, that the 

 elements of the British Museum, the Geological Museum, 

 the South Kensington Museum, the National Gallery, 

 and Royal Academy exist in Dublin, to say nothing of 

 the Royal College of Science, which has a more complete 

 course than our own School of Mines. In spite, however, 

 of the number of these institutions, and, in fact, because 

 of their number, the collections, whether of books, natural 

 history specimens, or antiquities, have not had the com- 

 pleteness which one would expect. While on the one 

 hand many have been inconveniently housed, on the 

 other the Government has naturally felt a difficulty in 

 improving their condition so long as they were in the 

 hands of more or less irresponsible private bodies, and 

 hence the many attempts to bring about a consolidation, 

 to which we may briefly refer. 



Thus we find that in 1862 the Treasury appointed a small 

 Commission, with Sir C. Trevelyan as chairman, which 

 made certain recommendations. Before these were acted 

 on, however, the subject was, in 1864, taken up by a Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons, of which Mr. Gregory 

 was chairman. This body dissented widely from the 

 views expressed by the Treasury Commission, and thus 

 the matter rested till 1868, when the Government decided 

 to constitute a separate Department of Science and Art 

 for Ireland, " analogous in its constitution to the existing 

 Science and Art Department in London for the United 

 Kingdom ; " and appointed a Committee, of which the 

 Duke of Leinster, then Marquis of Kildare, was chair- 

 man, to report on the best means of carrying out the 

 project. 



The Committee, having upon it such representative 

 Irish members as the Marquis of Kildare, the \txy Rev. 

 Dr. Russell, the then President of Maynooth, the Rev. S. 

 Haughton, and Mr. G. A. Hamilton, the then Secretary 

 of the Treasury, soon found it impracticable to organise 

 such an independent department as had been contem- 

 plated, and applied for an enlargement of their instruc- 

 tions ; in fact, it became evident ver>' early in the inquiry 

 that all but a small minority in Ireland v/ere in favour of 

 continuing the connection with the English Department. 

 Teachers and students specially petitioned that the con- 

 nection might be maintained, as they saw clearly that the 

 severance would deprive them of the highest rewards and 

 best promises of a career by cutting off the Enghsh field 

 from them. However much some may regret the fact, 

 the fact remains that in aU vocations the highest talent 

 will seek the place where it is most highly prized and 

 rewarded, which in the case of the United Kingdom 

 means London. 



