4i6 



NATURE 



[January 26, 191 1 



j)lace remunerative sheep farms and sporting estates by 

 prospective forests of unknown value. The author touches 

 on the need for information with respect to cost of planta- 

 tions, facilities for training woodmen, and the possibilities 

 •of turning nature-study classes in the country schools to 

 practical advantage. Cognate to the subject of the article 

 Is the announcement, last week, of the formation of an 

 English Forestry Association, with Lord Clinton as the 

 first chairman, for the purpose of organising the market 

 for English timber, encouraging its use, and assisting in 

 the establishment of local wood industries in suitable 

 •districts. 



The annual meeting of the Entomological Society of 

 London was held on Wednesday, January i8, when the 

 officers and cpuncil for the forthcoming session, 191 1-2, 

 were elected. Owing, however, to the death of Mr. J. W. 

 Tutt, the president-nominate, no successor to the outgoing 

 president. Dr. F. A. Dixey, F.R.S., was chosen, and a 

 special general meeting will be held later in the year for 

 that purpose. Meanwhile, the following fellows were 

 elected to act as officers and members of the council : — 

 Treasurer, Mr. A. H. Jones; secretaries. Commander J. J. 

 Walker and (in place of Mr. H. Rowland-Brown, who 

 resigns after eleven years' service) the Rev. G. Wheeler ; 

 librarian, Mr. G. C. Champion ; other members of the 

 council, Mr. R. Adkin, Mr. G. T. Bethune Baker, Prof. 

 T. Hudson Beare, Dr. M. Bdrr, Dr. F. A. Dixey, F.R.S., 

 Mr. H. St. J. Donisthorpe, .Mr. J. H. Durrant, Prof. 

 Selwyn Image, Dr. K. Jordan, Mr. A. Sich, Mr. J. R. 

 te B. Tomlin, and Mr. H. J. Turner. The president, in 

 the course of his address, dealt with certain problems of 

 general biology on which special light had been thrown 

 by entomological study, notably the demonstration that 

 permanent races, differing from the parent stock, could 

 l)e produced by artificial interference with the germ-plasm. 

 This Jbad been surmised from early experiments of Weis- 

 mann, followed by Standfuss and Fischer, and had now 

 been placed beyond doubt by the careful work of Tower 

 in America, who had also shown that the new form might 

 stand in Mendelian relation with the stock from which it 

 sprang. Other topics touched upon in the address were 

 the psychophysical character of the material presented to 

 the operation of natural selection, a point particularly 

 •emphasised by Prof. Mark Baldwin, and, in connection 

 w;ith this, the special interest attaching to the communities 

 of the social Hymenoptera, where the group rather than 

 the individual appeared as the unit of selection. 



A FORM of treatment of wasting diseases of young 

 •children has been recently introduced by M. Quinton. It 

 •consists in the injection every second day of 10-30 c.c. 

 of pure fresh sea water, sufficiently diluted with distilled 

 water so that the mixture is isotonic with human blood. 

 Considerable success is claimed for this treatment, and, 

 according to the Morning Post of January 16, M. Quinton 

 lately visited London in order to arrange for the establish- 

 ment of a dispensary for the trial of his method. 



With the December (1910) number, the Journal of 

 Hygiene completes its tenth volume, and contains indexes 

 of authors and of subjects to the ten volumes issued, in 

 addition to several important papers. Messrs. Glenny and 

 Walpole find that vulcanised rubber has the power of 

 absorbing mercury biniodide and mercuric chloride from 

 weak solutions, in some cases almost completely. Dr. 

 Peters in an elaborate paper discusses the natural history 

 of epidemic diarrhoea, one of the most important con- 

 clusions being that the milk supply plays little or no part 

 in its propagation, and that boiling the milk gives no 

 protection. 



NO. 2152, VOL. 85] 



According to a note in the Times last week, plague- 

 infected rats are still being met with in Suffolk and over 

 an extended area, and for the purpose of aiding the Local 

 Government Board in this connection, the Lister Institui 

 has detailed two bacteriologists for work in the distrii ; 

 It would be well if the authorities followed the exampl 

 of the United States Government in its campaign again- 

 the ground squirrels in California as described by Surgeon 

 McCoy in the December (19 10) number of the Journal of 

 Hygiene (x.. No. 4, p. 589). The squirrels are infectfd 

 with plague, and during 1909-10 150,000 of the rodent- 

 were e.xamined. The necessity for investigations on 

 large scale is apparent when it is stated that in one count \ 

 more than 8000 squirrels were examined before anv 

 infection was discovered. 



In vol. xxiii.. No. 4, of Notes from the Leyden Museum 

 Dr. E. D. Van Oort describes, under the name of Atiurv- 

 phasis monorthonyx, a new genus and species of gamt- 

 bird, obtained with other new birds, during the expedition 

 of Mr. H. A. Lorentz to south-western New Guinea. Th 

 genus name relates to the apparent absence of ta 

 feathers. It is not stated to what group the new bird : 

 related. Dr. Horst's description in this issue of a ne' 

 peripatus obtained during , the same expedition has be^i. 

 noticed already in Nature. 



From a study of the local myriopods of the group 

 Diplopoda (Chilognatha), Dr. K. W. Verhoeff, in a paper 

 contributed to the Abhandlungen der naturwiss. Ges. Isis 

 for the first half of 1910, considers himself justified in 

 dividing Germany into three zoological provinces, from 

 north to south, which he calls north, central, and souii 

 Germany. Central Germany is further split into two sub- 

 provinces, from west to east, which are termed west 

 central and east central. Details of the distributional 

 grounds on which these divisions are based will be found 

 in the paper, but it may be noted that the distribution 

 of many groups of Diplopoda corresponds very closely with 

 that of particular geological formations. 



According to an article contributed by Messrs. De 

 Drorein de Bouville and Mercier to the Revue generale 

 des Sciences for December 30, 1910, there has been a great 

 recrudescence and expansion on the Continent during the 

 past year of the salmon-disease known in France as 

 furonculosis. The disease, which attacks both salmon and 

 trout, together .with a few other fishes, such as pike and 

 carp, has been known on the Continent for about • 

 quarter of a century, and was carefully studied at Munici 

 in 1888 and the two following years. In June of la> 

 year the disease became more than usually prevaleiv 

 especially in Bavaria, where it made its appearance fu 

 the first time in 1909, and this recrudescence has givi' 

 rise to much anxietj- on the part of all connected wi' 

 fresh-water fisheries. The disease, of which the symptom- 

 are fully described in the article, is caused by the bacillus j 

 known as Bacillus salmonicida, but whether it was origin- , 

 ally imported from America, or whether it be due to 

 pathogenetic development of a native organism, tli 

 authors leave an open question. It is noteworthy th.. 

 rainbow-trout are particularly susceptible to furonculosis 

 which is fatal to a large percentage. This being so, tlv 

 authors recommend that the practice of stocking Europea- 

 rivers with exotic salmonoids, which are generally in 

 low state of vitality, and therefore prone to take diseas 

 should be discouraged. On the other hand, efforts shou 

 be made to restock salmon and trout streams with nati\ 

 stock, which is the most fitted to adapt itself to local ccn- 

 ditions, and, further, that such fish should not be rein*-;- 

 duced into rivers from which they have completely dis- 



