Atigusi: 29, .1878] 



NATURE 



483 



they know how to act in combination. Sir John was disposed 

 tj hazard the conjecture tliat they ^^•ilI gradually exterminate the 

 mere hunting species, just as savages disappear before more 

 advanced races. Lastly, the agricultural nations may be com- 

 pared with the harvesting ants, none of which, however, live in 

 our country. When he first began keeping ants. Sir John sur- 

 rounded the.nests by moats of water. This acted well, but the 

 water required continual renewing, especially of course in 

 summer, just when the ants were most active. At length, how- 

 ever, in considering the habits of ants and their relation to 

 flowers, another plan occurred to him. The hairs by which 

 plants are clothed are of vai'ious forms, and fulfil various func- 

 tions. One is to prevent ants and other creeping insects from 

 climbing up the plants sd as to obtain access to the flowers, and 

 thus rob them of their honey. It occurred to him, therefore, 

 that instead of water he might use fur, arranged so that the hairs 

 pointed downwards. This he found to answer perfectly ; and 

 he mentioned it specially because the same arrangement may 

 perhaps be found practically useful in hot climates. It is, of 

 course, very possible, indeed, that the tropical species might 

 1)6 able to climb up the fur, or that for other reasons the plan 

 might fail — the fur itself, for instance, might be devoured — but, 

 at any rate, the experiment would be worth trying. It is gene- 

 rally stated that the queens alone lay eggs. This, however, 

 appears not to be the case. The workers do sometimes, though 

 only as exceptions, lay eggs ; but it is curious that their eggs 

 always appear to produce males, 

 i Sir Walter Elliott made a few observations On (he Annual 



\ Increase of the Common Vole {A)-vico!a agrestis) of late Years. — In 

 I th« spring of 1876 they appeared in such numbers in the hill 

 '. pasture farms of the border districts between England and Scot- 

 . land, and parts of Yorkshire and Wensleydale, as to destroy the 

 ; grazing ground onT which the sheep depended in spring, causing 

 serious loss to the farmers by impoverishment and death of stock. 

 Dr. R. H. Traquair read a paper On the Genus Ctenodns 

 (Agassiz).— The object of the paper was to suggest the great 

 probabiUty of the identity of the genus Campyloplcuron of 

 Huxley with Ctenodus of Agassiz. Should that be the case, 

 Ctenodus will differ more from the old red sandstone genus 

 Dipterus than is usually supposed, as in Camplyopleuron there 

 i>, as in the recent Ceratodus, a continuous dorsocaudal fin. 



Aberrant Sacrum connected with the Oblique Pelvis. — Dr. 

 Allen Thomson, F.R.S., showed a number of sacra exempli- 

 fying the irregularity which he regarded as the cause of oblique 

 pelvis. He referred to similar developmental irregularities 

 occurring in the lower animals, and exhibited one specimen — 

 namely, the skeleton of a wombat — where the irregularity was 

 one-sidad, as is the common cause of the oblique pelvis in the 

 human subject. 



Prof. Macalister, Dr. Lawson Tait, and Dr. Harvey took part 

 in the discussion, and all the speakers agreed that the develop- 

 mental cause must be considered the usual one, and in ignoring 

 the occasional occurrence of this form as resulting from disease. 

 Mr. R. W. Sinclair read a paper On Recent Additions to the 

 Irish Lepidoptera. — In his paper he mentioned fifty-four species 

 new to the Irish list. Mr. Sinclair said that it was very remark- 

 able that of the large number of fen and marsh insects that 

 occur in England, hardly one-third occur in Ireland ; for in- 

 stance, in the genus Leucanidse, out of the thirty-one Enghsh 

 species only thirteen are Irish. 



Mr. C. Spence-Bate, F.R.S., presented a report On the 

 Present State of our Knowledge of the Crustacea. — This paper 

 formed Part 4 of the series, and was on development. Mr. 

 Spence-Bate also read a paper On the Willemxsia Group of 

 Crustacea in the "Challenger" Collection. These had all been 

 stated to be animals without even the rudiments of eyes, and 

 appeared to correspond very closely with the genus described 

 from the Mediterranean as Polycheles. The author pointed out 

 that not only were the animals of the group not blind, but that 

 they had eyes of varying proportions. The species of these 

 genera were taken at thirteen different stations, at depths varying 

 from 120 to 1,900 fathoms, and chiefly on a soft bottom of mud 

 or globigerina ooze, and he thought they might safely infer that 

 the entire group are dependent upon the nature of the bottom 

 for their existence, and that their general form is in accord with 

 the habits of an animal that burrows in the^deep sea ooze, which 

 has been selected as its best adapted food. 



Mr. H. H. Howorth, F.S.A., read a paper On the Extinction 



\ of the Mammoth in Siberia, the principal object of which was to 



deal with the difficulties that surrounded the explanation as to 



the mode in which the animal became extinct. After looking at 

 the problem from every side, he had come to the conclusion that 

 there had been a sudden and violent change of climate in Siberia 

 which had frozen the previously soft ground, and had also pre- 

 served the mammoths as in a huge meat safe. Although the 

 mammoth had even originally lived in the place where he was 

 now found, it was impossible that he could live there now, owing 

 to the absence in that part of the food which would be necessary 

 to sustain him. Such trees as he used to live on were only now 

 to be found about 500 miles from the spot where his remains 

 were discovered. The natural corollary that followed from this 

 theory was that something similar must be postulated with regard 

 to other regions. The conditions in which the elephant was 

 found in Siberia were precisely similar to those in which it was 

 found in the north-western part of Russian-America, and pre- 

 cisely the same as those in the Great Lakes, where the mammoth 

 itself was found, and it could not, therefore, be doubted that the 

 mammoth lived in Europe and America with the same food and 

 surroundings as it did in Siberia. 



SECTION E.— Geography. 



Captain Burton read a paper On the Land of Midian, giving 

 an account of his recent explorations in that region, which have 

 already been referred to in these pages. 



Dr. Phene read a paper On the acquisition of Cyprtis, and 

 Observations on some Islands in the Levattt with Refa-ence to 

 Recent Discoveries. The author, who had recently made a pro- 

 longed and careful voyage of research in the Levant, described 

 the physical features of the islands of Chios, Mitylene, Lemnos, 

 Imbros, Thasos, and Samothrace. He selected Samothrace for 

 ascent, and was, so far as he could learn on the island, the only 

 European, not being a native, who had made the ascent, which 

 was very difiicult. The height was slightly over 5,000 feet. 

 The climates, culture, and salubrity of the different islands were 

 dwelt on. Cyprus had a variety of climate, so that the debility 

 produced by the heats in the south could be relieved by a retreat 

 to the northern coast, which was cooled by the breezes coming 

 from the Karamanian Mountains, while in some inland parts 

 were rich woods abounding with game and objects for the 

 chase. 



Major Wilson, Director of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, also 

 read a paper On Cyprus. 



Lieut. Kitchener, R.E., in a paper On a Survey of Galilee, 

 gave an account of the progress of the work of the Palestine 

 Exploration Fund in that region. The great work on which the 

 Society has been employed for the last sfx years, is a map of 

 Palestine on the model of the Ordnance Survey of England and 

 Ireland. The map of Palestine on the one-inch scale has now 

 been completed. Lieut. Kitchener then detailed the progi'ess 

 of himself and his predecessors in the work of surveying and 

 in exploring ancient remains and sites. At the end of this year, 

 if funds are available, an expedition will start to explore the 

 sites of the most sacred scenes of the New Testament history — 

 the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee, where undoubtedly 

 Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida still exist. In addition 

 to this the expedition will make a thorough survey of the 

 unknown country forming the eastern shores of that sea, on the 

 same scale and with the same accuracy as the present survey. 

 They hope also to rescue from the hands of that ruthless de- 

 stroyer, the uneducated Arab, one of the most interesting ruins 

 in Palestine, the Synagogue of Capernaum, which is rapidly 

 disappearing, owing to the stones being burnt for lime. 



Mr. W. H. Dall, of the U.S. Survey, gave an interesting 

 account of its recent exploration in Alaska, some of the i-esults of 

 which we have referred to in Nature. 



SECTION F.— Economical Science and Statistics. 



A paper by Prof. Jevons was read On the Periodicity of Crises 

 and its Physical Explanatio7i. — Various reasons, such as wars, 

 trades unions, luxurious living, &c., had been given as explanations 

 of the now constantly recurring depression of trade. Such ex- 

 planations he (Prof. Jevons) did not consider satisfactory. 

 Depression of trade had occurred during the present century 

 with remarkable regularity at intervals of ten years. Sir John 

 Herschel had attempted to find a connection between certain 

 meteorological phenomena and the price of corn in Europe. If 

 we traced backward from 1 866, when a v«ry great depression of 



