June 6, 1889] 



JVA TURE 



"^ZZ 



notably for the young cod, ling, and Pleuronectids, and, 

 indeed, Haackehas already pointed this out from a study 

 of the Australian fish Helotes scotus,^ the adult of which 

 is marked by eight longitudinal bands, while young 

 specimens present in addition a row of clear transverse 

 bands which subsequently disappear. 



{To be continued!) 



NOTES. 

 On account of the severe illness of his child, Prof. Men- 

 deleeff was obliged to leave London early on Tuesday morning, 

 very greatly to the regret of those who assembled in the evening 

 to hear him deliver the Faraday Lecture, which was read by the 

 Secretary. It was announced that the dinner, at which the 

 Fellows of the Chemical Society proposed to entertain Prof, 

 Mendeleeff on Wednesday evening, would not take place, but 

 that the President, Dr. Russell, and Miss Russell would receive 

 at the Grosvenor Gallery on Friday evening, as before arranged. 



The Ladies' Conversazione of the Royal Society will be held 

 on Wednesday, June 19. 



The conversazione of the Society of Arts will take place at 

 the South Kensington Museum on Friday, June 28. 



It has been decided that a statue shall be erected in honour of 

 the late John Ericsson in Stockholm. His biography, papers, 

 and letters will be edited by one of his most intimate friends. 

 Colonel Church, of the American Army and Navy Journal. 



Dr. George Owen Rees, F.R.S., died at Mayfield, 

 Watford, Herts, on May 27. Dr. Rees took his degree of M.D. 

 at Glasgow in 1837, and Vjecame a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 in 1843. 



It is requested that all persons having in their possession 

 letters from the late President of Columbia College, Frederick 

 A. P. Barnard, will be kind enough to send them to Prof 

 Nicholas Murray Butler, Columbia College, New York, U.S.A., 

 at their early convenience. The letters will be returned after 

 copies have been made. 



Sir Lyon Playfair, who recently resigned the secretaryship 

 of the Royal Commission of the Exhibition of 185 1, has been 

 succeeded by Major-General Ellis, Equerry to the Prince of 

 Wales. 



AUen^s Indian Mail reports that Dr. Burgess, Director of the 

 Archaeological Survey of India, will come home immediately, 

 and that he is rehiring from his appointment. 



The foundation-stone of the Framjee Dinshaw Petit Labora- 

 tory of Scientific Research, in Bombay, was laid on April 8 by 

 Lord Reay. Mr. Petit, the son of the donor, explained that it had 

 appeared to his father desirable, in the interests of medical educa- 

 tion, that a laboratory for scientific research in biological and 

 physical sciences should be established. He had long cherished 

 the wish to have the properties of Indian drugs investigated, and 

 made known to medical students. The laboratory, which will 

 be connected with the Grant Medical College, was described by 

 Lord Reay as the only missing link in the educational pro- 

 gramme he had sketched out for Bombay. 



The Allan Line steamer Caspian, which arrived from Halifax 

 at Queenstown on Tuesday evening, reported having passed in 

 the North Atlantic no fewer than thirteen large icebergs. The 

 ship steamed quite close to one of them on Thursday last. 



We are glad to be able to report the publication of synoptic 

 weather maps twice a day by the Central Physical Observatory 

 at St. Petersburg, beginning with May 12. The stations for 

 which information is given extend from the west of Ireland to 

 the Ural Mountains and the western shores of the Caspian, and 

 ' One of tl>e Pristipomatidae. 



from the north of Norway to the Trans-Caucasus, showing the 

 weather-conditions at a glance, over nearly the whole of Europe. 

 The atmospheric pressure is represented by isobars, and other 

 elements by figures and symbols ; the charts being printed on 

 the back of the tabular reports, which have been issued since 

 1872. A general summary of the weather is given in Russian 

 and French. 



We print elsewhere a letter by Prof. Herdman on unusually 

 large hailstones which fell at Liverpool on June 2. A corre- 

 spondent writes to us from Rock Ferry about the same hailstones. 

 " Five minutes after they fell," says our correspondent, "when the 

 rain had subsided, I examined some. They were then all quite 

 transparent outside, and had a spherical opaque centre surrounded 

 by concentric rings alternately transparent and opaque. Some 

 were flat : the largest I picked up measured one inch by three- 

 quarters of an inch, and a quarter of an inch thick ; its edge 

 was very irregular. Others were more spherical in general 

 form, but some still had rhombohedral faces very well defined. 

 It was half an hour before all were melted." 



On April 30, about 7 a.m., an earthquake was felt at Soken 

 dal, in Dalerne, on the west coast of Norway. It was ac 

 companied by a rumbling noise like distant thunder, going from 

 east to west. The weather was clear and the wind north-west. 



Serious efforts are being made to establish a great National 

 Home-reading Circle Union, and we are glad to learn that they are 

 likely to be successful. One object of the Union will be to pub- 

 lish courses of reading for three classes of readers — -young persons, 

 artisans, and general readers. The various courses will be 

 approved by experts, and so planned as to interest and liberalize 

 the mind as well as to convey useful information. Local circles 

 will be formed under suitable leaders, and encouraged to meet 

 frequently for the discussion of the subjects they have been 

 studying. In many different ways the Union will try to aid the 

 readers, and there can be little doubt that the scheme will be of 

 real service to a very large number of persons who have often felt 

 the need of guidance in their attempts at intellectual work. In 

 all the courses science will receive the place which properly 

 belongs to it, but adequate attention will also be given to 

 literature and history. 



Does the cuckoo ever hatch its own eggs? Herr Adolf 

 Miiller answers this question in the affirmative, and has given in 

 the Gartenlaiihe a full account of a case which he himself claims 

 to have observed. A translation of this account has appeared in 

 the Ibis, and is reproduced in the new number of the Zoologist. 

 The latter periolical prints also a translation of an article in 

 which Herr Adolf Walter disputes the statements of Dr. Miiller, 

 who, he thinks, must have made a mistake. The same subject 

 is dealt with in the June number of the Selborne Magazine by 

 Mr. C. Roberts, who quotes from " Zoonomia " an interesting 

 passage, in which Dr. Erasmus Darwin expresses his belief that 

 the cuckoo sometimes makes a nest and hatches its own young. 

 In this passage Dr. Darwin gives an extract from a letter of the 

 Rev. Mr. Wilmot, of Morley, near Derby, describing an instance 

 brought to Mr. Wilmot's notice in July 1792 by one of his 

 labourers, and afterwards closely watched by Mr. Wilmot him- 

 self. Mr. Wilmot was confident that the bird was a cuckoo, but 

 this is a point about which most ornithologists would no doubt 

 like to have a little more evidence. 



Everyone who takes the slightest interest in natural history 

 will be sorry to learn that the kangaroo is in danger of being 

 extinguished. Its skin is so valualile that large numbers of young 

 kangaroos are killed, and high authorities are of opinion that, 

 unless the process is stopped, Australians will soon have seen the 

 last specimen of this interesting animal. Mr. R. G. Salomon, one of 

 the largest tanners in the United States, whither kangaroo-skin is 

 chiefly sent, urges that a fine should be imposed for the killing 



