308 



NATURE 



{jfan.io, 1879 



R. Meldola, F.C.S., Edw. Saunders, F.L.S., J. Jenner Weir, 

 F.L.S., J. W, Dunning, M.A., F.L.S., Sir Jno. Lubbock, 

 Bart., V.P.R.S., Saml. Stevens, J. Wood Mason, F.G.S. The 

 following officers were elected : — President : Sir Jno. Lubbock, 

 Bart., V.P.R.S. Treasurer: J. Jenner Weir. Librarian: F. 

 Grut. Secretaries : R. Meldola and W. L. Distant. The 

 retiring president delivered an address which was immediately 

 ordered to be printed. 



Wellington, N. Z. 



Philosophical Society, November 9, 1878. — Mr. Carru- 

 thers, vice-president, in the chair. — Further contributions to the 

 ornithology of New Zealand, by Dr. Buller, C.M.G. This 

 paper consisted partly of technical matters and partly of obser- 

 vations on the habits and life-economy of a number of the more 

 common species of native birds. The author gave the results of 

 his examination of the group of Platycerci in the British Museum, 

 and showed that many of the so-called species had no real exist- 

 ence, the same bird having been described under different 

 names by different naturalists. He gave his reasons for con- 

 sidering Platycercus Rowleyi, described by himself from speci- 

 mens in the Canterbury Museum, a good and valid species. He 

 disputed Mr. Sharp's generic substitution of Harpa for Hteracidsa 

 in the British Museum catalogue of Accipitres, and his reduction 

 oi H. ferox to the rank of a " sub-species," as being unintel- 

 ligible ; either the two forms of sparrow-hawk represent 

 distinct species, as the author and others believe ; or they are 

 one and the same, as contended for by Captain Hutton in the 

 controversy which took place some time ago. Referring to that 

 discussion and to Captain Hutton's emphatic denial that the 

 New Zealand kingfisher ever caught fish, he proceeded to give 

 some further facts in support of his own view to the contrary. 

 In treating of the kaka {Nestor meridionalis) he mentioned the 

 singular circumstance that at a certain season of the year, when 

 these birds are migi-ating across the Strait at its widest part, 

 numbers of them, owing to their fat condition, succumb to 

 fatigue, and are washed up in Golden Bay and on the spit 

 beyond, the set of the current being in that direction. The 

 paper contained many other interesting notes, and a full account 

 of the capture and subsequent history of a specimen of the 

 plundering gull [Stercorarms antarcticus) still living in the 

 author's garden. 



Paris 



Academy of Sciences, January 20. — M. Daubree in the 

 chair. — The following papers were read : — On the development 

 of the perturbative function in the case where, the eccentricities 

 being small, the mutual inclination of the orbits is considerable, 

 by M. Tisserand. — Observations on the second reply of M. 

 Pasteur. — Reply by M. Pasteur, &c. — On the special apparatus 

 of nutrition of phanerogamous parasite 'species, by M. Chatin. 

 He distinguishes in the sucker a cone de renforcement (the central, 

 mostly solid part), and a cone perforant, or parenchymatous cone 

 continuing the other, and capable, notwithstanding its delicacy 

 of tissue, of progressing through the hardest woods. (There 

 ai-e variations from this in some cases.) The suckers of parasites 

 show great analogies to ordinary roots of plants. — On the tem- 

 porary magnetic properties developed by induction in different 

 specimens of nickel and cobalt, compared with those of iron, 

 by M. Becquerel. The ratio of the temporary magnetic 

 effects developed at ordinary temperature, by increasing mag- 

 netic inductions, in any of the nickel bars and in a bar of soft 

 iron of the same length, weight, and section, is a number 

 variable with the magnetic intensity to which the metals are 

 submitted. This ratio, for very small intensities, first decreases, 

 passes a minimum, then increases to a maximum, and lastly 

 decreases to an inferior limit. Carbtu-etted and forged nickels 

 show the vaiiations most. Pure cast or porous bars of nickel 

 give results very like those of soft iron. Cobalt behaves simi- 

 larly to nickel. The variation of the ratio considered is due to 

 unequal saturation of the two metals. — On linear differential 

 equations of the third order, by M. Laguerre. — On the classifi- 

 cation of colours, and on the means of reproducing coloured 

 appearances by three special photographic negatives, by M. 

 Cros. Under the word colours he distinguishes lights and 

 pigments. To get immediately the elementary tints of lights 

 and pigments, look t through a prism at a white bar on 

 a dark ground, and a black bar on a white ground; in 

 the first case you see a spectrum orange, green, violet ; in 

 the latter a spectrum red, yellow, blue. In the one case 

 the orange, green, and violet are elementary lights ; in the 



other, the blue, red, and yellow, are lights combined two and 

 two. This he demonstrates with an apparatus he calls a 

 chrornonieter (which distinguishes the colours by numerical data) ; 

 and he makes this act on the positions from three negatives 

 obtained through green, violet, and orange screens, ultimately 

 reproducing coloured appearances. — Researches on the effects of 

 induction through telephonic circuits, by means of the micro- 

 phone and the telephone, by Prof. Hughes. A battery of three 

 Daniells, a microphone, an inducing spiral, and a clock, were 

 put in one circuit ; another helix (to receive induction) and a 

 telephone in another circuit. The sounds were still heard in the 

 induced circuit when the spirals (containing 100 m. wire) were 

 30 ctm. apart. Conducting plates interposed weakened the 

 effect, and spirals with closed circuit better. Flat helices gave 

 more intense reproduction than long ones. Putting a tele- 

 phone bobbin, in circuit with a microphone, to one ear, 

 and the bobbinless telephone to the other, one can hear 

 thus ; and the arrangement is a sort of electric analyser re- 

 vealing what passes in organs traversed by currents. (Other 

 experiments are given.) — New voltaic element with con- 

 stant current, by M. Heraud. The exciting liquid is chlorhydrate 

 of ammonia, the depolarising body protochlonde of mercury, or 

 calomel. The former, in presence of zinc, gives chloride of 

 zinc with ammonia and hydrogen. The hydrogen reduces the 

 protochloride, giving metallic mercury, chlorhydric acid, and 

 consequently, chlorhydrate of ammonia. To prevent deposition 

 of ammoniacal oxychloride of zinc on the zinc, the solution of 

 sal ammoniac used is diluted one-tenth with liquid ammonia. 

 The zinc is suspended by a coated copper-plate about the middle 

 of the liquid. The positive electrode is carbon in a canvas bag. 

 One element, after 248 days' use, retained o"66 of its original 

 intensity. — On tetric acid and its homologues, by M. Demar9ay. 

 — Researches on the development of eggs and of the ovary in 

 mammalia, after birth, by M. Rouget. — Description of the strata 

 forming the gi-ound in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, by 

 M. Braconnier. 



CONTENTS Page 



The Art of Scientific Discovery. By G. F. Rodweli, .... 285 



Leisure-Time Studies 286 



OtfR Book Shelf : — 



Macfarlane's " American Geological Railway Guide, giving the 



Geological Formation at every Railway Station " . . • - • . • • -£7 



Fonvielle's " Comment le font les Miracles en dehors de I'Eglise " 2E7 

 Campion's " On Foot in Spain ; a Walk from the Bay of Biscay 



to the Mediterranean " 288 



Letters to the Editor :— 



Leibnitz's Mathematics.— Prof. P. G. Tait . . 2^^ 



The Magnetic Storm of May 14, 1878, observed in North America. 



— C.P.Patterson; Charles A, Schott . zi 



Migration of Birds— A Suggestion.— Lieut. -Col. J. F. D. Don- 

 nelly, R.E. , 289 



The Formation of Mountains.— Alfred R. Wallace ; E. Hill . 289 



Bees' Stings.— R. A 289 



Molecular Vibrations — R. H 290 



Missing Nebulse.- J. L. E. Dreyer 290 



Time and Longitude. — E. L. G 290 



Shakespeare's Colour-Names. — Robert Brewin 290 



Ir-tellect in Brutes. — Walter Severn . - 291 



Feeding a Python. — Arthur Nicols 291 



The Graha.m Lecture, on Molecular Mobility 291 



Preliminary Note on the Substances which produce thb 



Chromospheric Lines. By J. Nor.man Lockyer, F.R.S. . . . 292 

 On a Theory of the Viscosity of the Earth's Mass. By G. H. 



Darwin 292 



Indian Meteorology 293 



Our Big Guns 294 



The Electricity of the Torpedo. By Dr. Francois Franck 



{With Jllustraiions) ^95 



Geographical Notes 297 



Our Astronomical Column :— 



The Variable- Star Algol 298 



The Reappearance of Brorsen's Comet 299 



Sun-Spots and the Nile 299 



Notes 3°° 



Early Experiments on the Conduction- of Electricity by 

 Submarine Wires for Illuminating Distant Places, and 

 Proposals for the Division of the Light into Separate 



Lights. By Thomas Stevenson 302 



Underground Temperature 303 



The Rainfall of the World . . .• 3oS 



University AND Educational Intelligence 30S 



Scientific Ssrials 3°" 



Societibs and Academies, •...•• 3<» 



