Dec. 12, 1889] 



NATURE 



"^11 



the Association being to promote good sanitary arrangements in 

 the houses of all classes of the community, both men and 

 women are invited to these lectures. Discussion is invited. 



The *' Fauna of British India," of which we noticed the first 

 volume of fishes last week, is making steady progress. Mr. 

 Eugene Oates will produce the first volume of the birds of 

 India during the present month. The work will be principally 

 founded on the great Hume Collection in the British Museum, 

 and the author of the " Hand-book of the Birds of British 

 Burmah," may be trusted to give a thoroughly good account of 

 the birds of India. Side by side with his three volumes on 

 Indian ornithology, Mr. Oates will also publish a new edition 

 of Mr. A. O. Hume's " Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds," which 

 has long been out of print. For this purpose Mr. Hume has 

 intrusted to Mr. Oates ihe whole of the' material collected by 

 him for a second edition, and there is no doubt that the work 

 will be warmly welcomed by naturalists. Portraits of some of 

 the leading men who have contributed to the history of Indian 

 ornithology will be given in this new edition, and will form an 

 interesting feature of the work. 



Mr. Francis Nicholson, a well-known Manchester ornitho- 

 logist, is about to issue an English translation of Sunderall's 

 "Ttntamen," with a memoir and portrait. This work will be 

 welcome at the present time, when increased attention is being 

 paid to the classification of birds. 



Mr. Seebohm will, we understand, propound his system of 

 arrangement of the class Aves in the January number of the //vV, 

 and the memoir will doubtless be a valuable one, as the author 

 is known to have devoted close study to the subject during the 

 past two years. 



Mr. a. p. Goodwin, who was with Sir William McGregor 

 on his recent exploration of Mount Owen Stanley, is about to 

 start on a lecturing tour in America, He was successful in 

 taking several interesting photographs of the country visited by 

 the Expedition, and he paid especial attention to the habits of 

 the Birds of Paradise and the Bower-birds. He has some 

 remarkable sketches of the playing-grounds of some of the latter, 

 notably of Anddyornis sutalaris, of Sharpe, which rivals in 

 decoiative faculty the Gardener Bower-bird {An.blyornis 

 inornata) of Noith- Western New Guinea. 



Prof. Giard has recently discovered a micro-organism which 

 possesses the power of conferring luminosity or phosphorescence 

 upon different crustaceans. This microbe was found in the 

 tissues of Talitncs, and is easily cultivated in appropriate media. 

 It soon kills Ta/iti-us. 



M. LouBAT, member of the New York Historical Society, 

 has presented the French Academy of Inscriptions with a sum 

 producing icoo francs per annum ; his intention being that a 

 prize of 3000 francs shall be offered every three years for the 

 best printed work concerning the history, geography, archaeology, 

 ethnography, linguistics, and numismatics of North America. 

 The first prize will be granted in 1892, and the Academy has 

 decided that the works submitted for consideration shall not 

 relate to matters referring to an earlier date than 1776. The 

 competition will be open to the author of any work on the 

 subject published after July i, 1S89, in any of the following 

 languages : Latin, French, English, Spanish, and Italian. 

 Two copies must be sent to the Secretary of the French Institute 

 before December 31, 1891. 



In the Pacific Coast region there are now four flouri>hing 

 colonies of introduced pheasants. Dr. C. Hart Meriam, who 

 refers to the subject in his last Report to the American Agri- 

 cultural Department, says that the most northerly of these 

 colonies is at the south end of Vancouver Island, near Victoria ; 



the second in Protection Island, in Puget Sound ; the third at 

 tV e junction of the Willamette River with the Columbia ; and 

 the fourth in the middle portion of the Willamette Valley. The 

 two latter colonies are now separated by so narrow a strip of 

 territory that they will doubtless become united during the next 

 few years. All the pheasants of the three colonies last men- 

 tioned appear to have been iioported from China by Judge O. 

 N. Denny. 



The American Agricultural Department has been making 

 careful inauiry as to the food of crows ; and the result, asset forth 

 in a Report by Mr. Walter B. Barrows, is likely to surprise 

 those who have always contended that these birds do very much 

 more good than harm. It is not disputed that they destroy in- 

 jurious insects, that they are enemies of mice and other rodents, 

 and that they are occasionally valuable as scavengers ; but these 

 services are slight in comparison with the mischief for which 

 they are responsible. The injury done by them to Indian corn, 

 wheat, rye, oats, and other cereals is enormous. According to 

 one observer, the crow eats corn " from ten minutes after planting 

 until the blades are three inches high ; " and more than a score 

 of other observers testify that he not only pulls up the young 

 plants, but digs up the newly sown seed. His depredations ex- 

 tend to potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, pea-nuts, cherries, 

 strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries ; and he widely dis- 

 tributes certain poisonous plants, the seeds of which are- 

 improved rather than impaired by passage through his digestive 

 organs. As if all this were not enough, it is shown that the 

 crow eats beneficial insects, and that he makes himself a most 

 formidable nuisance by destroying the eggs and young both of 

 domesticated fowls and wild birds. 



Two new seismoscopes, made by Brassart Brothers, of Rome, 

 and adopted at the Italian meteorological stations, are described 

 in \}s\& Rivista Scienlijicolndiistrialc of October 15. They are of 

 a very simple nature, the one consisting merely of an iron rod, 

 about 5 inches long, leaning slightly against an adjustable screw 

 support near its middle, and with its lower pointed end in a 

 cup. When a shock or tremor occurs, the rod falls away from 

 its support and is c:iut;ht by a fixed metallic ring, making electric 

 contact and ringing a bell. In the other instrument, the ring is 

 connected with a hinged lever arrangement, which stops th; 

 mechanism of a timepiece, showing when the shock occurred. 



The National Association for the Promotion of Technical 

 and Seconc'a'y Education has issued an excellent Report on the 

 existing facilities for technical and scientific instruction in Eng- 

 land and Wales As Mr. Acland and Mr. Llewellyn Smith 

 explain in a-prefatory note, the Report is not intended so much 

 for experts as for tho e who wish to obtain, without consulting 

 many Blue-books and other official documents, some trustworthy 

 information as to what is being done. The facts have been 

 arranged with the utmost care, and the work ought to be of 

 considerable service in helping to show "what are the gaps in^ 

 our educational system that must be filled, and how great is 

 the need for the re-organization and improvement of existing; 

 agencies." 



The Annual Report of the Manchester Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Society, published in vol. ii., 4th series, of the Pro- 

 ceedings, shows a marked improvement in the financial condition' 

 of the Society, the membership being only one less than at the 

 corresponding period last year. The volume contains many 

 papers and abstracts of papers of varying interest. There is a 

 long paper on ^^ Hynunoptcra OriciUalis" hy Mr. Cameron, giving, 

 descripii ins of the various species, their habits and localities, 

 and references to the literature of the subject. Dr. A. Hodgkin- 

 son communicates an interesting paper on the " Physical Cause- 

 of Colour in Natural and Artificial Bodies," recording experi- 

 ments which tend to show whether the colour is produced by a. 



