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NATURE 



{Sept. 19, 1878 



ozone transferring function when the fruit, &c., containing it 

 is cooked. It is not chlorophyll, as is shown by its situation, 

 and it seems to be intimately associated with the vascular tissue. 

 From analogy with the animal substances haemoglobin, fibrin, 

 myosin, &c., M'hich have a similar action, it may be presumed to 

 be proteinaceous, though I am unable to indicate its chemical 

 and other characters more exactly. The interesting analogy 

 between the respiratory functions of animals and plants indicated 

 by these observations will, I hope, be considered a sufficient 

 excuse if I ask you to insert this short summary of my paper 

 which you will receive at the same time. James Jamieson 

 Melbourne, July 6 



The Electro-Magnet a Receiving Telephone 



The experiment of Mr. F. G. Lloyd, described in Nature, 

 vol. xviii. p. 488, is simply a repetition of Page's original experi- 

 ment, the basis of all telephony. The electro-magnets of ordi- 

 nary relays and Morse apparatus make capital telephone receivers 

 when their armatures are screwed up, and it is a common thing 

 for operators at intermediate stations in America to enjoy the 

 music that is being transmitted between the terminal stations 

 during some telephonic display. I remember the station-master 

 at Menlo Park telling me that the music sent from New York 

 and received at Philadelphia was heard, much to his surprise 

 and delight, all over his little wayside station. The effect is 

 dependent upon the strength of the currents flowing. With a 

 Riess' transmitter sending musical notes and voltaic currents it 

 ■can be made very loud. With an Edison or a Hughes trans- 

 mitter the effect is much less, and with a Bell transmitter it is 

 almost, if not quite, inaudible. 



Electro-magnets also can be used as transmitters, because their 

 iron cores invariably contain some residual magnetism. 



September 16 W. H. Preece 



Rayons de Crepuscule 



In your issue of July 25, Mr. Abbay, in writing of Ceylon, 

 says that, as far as he is aware, the rayons de crepusade are 

 never seen in the low country. 



Allow me to add the weight of my testimony to that of Mr. 

 Pringle, given in Nature of August i. 



During a residence of about five weeks here, the rays have 

 been noticed from twelve to fifteen times, and I have been told 

 by an old resident that their appearance is very common. 



This country is the perfectly flat alluvial land / and marsh 

 bordering the Gulf of Slexico, whose shores are distant about 

 eight miles from oxir camp. 



On fully half of the occasions have the bands been traced from 

 the sun, without break, to the point in the east, 180° from it. 

 The rays are seen best when the sun is very near or below the 

 horizon. On the evening of August 16, the display was excep- 

 tionally beautiful. The sun had set behind a bank of dense 

 cumulus clouds, while the remainder of the heavens was covered 

 with very faint cirro-cumulus clouds. A band of dark blue 

 spread from the sun, and after widening to about 85° near the 

 zenith, converged to a point either in, or slightly below the 

 horizon. This was the cloud's shadow. In the south a line 

 about 15° wide, and in the north, one about 80° wide, were 

 lighted up, and shone ^^•ith brilliant tints, varying from rose to 

 orange. The lines between the deep blue of the shadow, and 

 the lighter blue, mottled with the shining, closely packed cloud 

 flecks, were sharply marked, as sharply, indeed, as the arch in 

 the Aurora, which it called to mind. I have noticed the phe- 

 nomenon several times in Maryland, in a gently rolling country, 

 but nowhere have I seen it as often and as distinctly as here. 



Julius Kruttschnitt 



Morgan's La. and Texas R. R, Camp, St. Mary Parish, 

 Louisiana, August 24 



" Les rayons de crepuscule " seem not to be of uncommon 

 occurrence. They presented a most superb spectacle at this 

 place last Sunday evening. The weather had been extremely 

 v/arm all day and the mountains were seen through a thick 

 haze. At sunset masses of dark clouds, fringed with gold, lay 

 along the horizon to the west, while beyond them the sky was 

 of a beautiful pink. As the sun sank lower many bands of 

 pink appeared, stretching from the west entirely across to the 

 east, appearing broader and paler, of course, near the zenith. 



They changed gradually in width, position, and number for 

 perhaps half-an-hour, and then disappeared. Their changeable- 

 ness indicated that they were due to clouds near the horizon. 

 Sing Sing-on-the-Hudson, September 3 H. S. Cariiart 



The Microphone 



The form of microphone described by Mr. Gerald B. Francis 

 (Nature, vol. xviii. p. 383) is easily made and very efficient. 

 It not only did for me all its inventor promised, but with a 

 common tumbler inverted over it upon the sounding-board so as 

 to prevent direct impact of sound waves upon the ball, it 

 became a powerful transmitter of the human voice. I conversed 

 easily and satisfactorily with a friend a half-mile from my end of 

 the wire. The exact contact of the lower wire with the ball 

 was effected by a screw with a very fine thread passing through 

 without touching the lower block or cup. The voice must be 

 kept low to prevent bounding of the ball so as to break con- 

 tact. Bell telephones were used as receiving instruments, the 

 batteries being Hill and Calland gravity batteries used exten- 

 sively in this country upon telegraph lines. These batteries 

 agree exactly in every respect with the one used by Prof. Hughes 

 in his interesting experiments excepting the clay, which is not 

 necessary, and must be a great inconvenience in a permanent 

 arrangement. S. T. Barrett 



Port Jervis, New York, August 30 



A White Swallow. — Albinism in Birds 



By the side of a steep sand-cliff overhanging a stream — the 

 Cambeck, in Cumberland — I lately saw, on a glorious summer 

 afternoon, a white swallow flying about with many other birds 

 of the same species. A most beautiful bird it was ; perfectly 

 snow white, with perhaps a slight tinge of blueish grey near the 

 roots of the tail-feathers. In size it seemed to be rather smaller 

 than the swallows around it ; but in its flight and pursuit of 

 insects there was no noticeable difference. From my position 

 at the top of the cliff I could often see the bird within a very 

 few yards of me. 



Like the grouse of which Sir Joseph Fayrer writes in Nature 

 (vol. xviii. p. 518), this white swallow is, I believe, of consider- 

 able rarity. I have been able to hear of only one, seen many 

 years ago near Repton, in Derbyshire ; and in numerous works 

 on British and other birds which I have consulted, I cannot find 

 any very precise mention of a white variety. Magillivray remarks 

 of the Hirundo riparia, the species to which the bird I saw 

 belonged, that "individuals of a whitish colour are said to'occur, 

 but I have never met with any remarkable deviations from the 

 ordinary appearance." Yarrel speaks of a white variety of the 

 common swallow as not uncommon ; while of the same swallow, 

 or Hirujido domestica, several varieties are recorded by Buffon, 

 and among them the white, there being "no country in Europe 

 where these have not been seen, from the Archipelago to 

 Prussia." 



Able to catch flies on a cloudless summer day, this white swallow 

 can, I hardly think, have been an albino, although I had no 

 opportunity of such close inspection as Sir Joseph Fayrer had 

 of the grouse he shot near Dunrobin. Albinism in birds must, 

 I should imagine, be altogether unknown or unobserved, for I 

 can nowhere meet with any account of it. Undoubted albinos 

 are sometimes spoken of as "white varieties" — an albino 

 monkey is, or lately was, so labelled at the Zoological Gardens ; 

 and it is possible that this very general term may include some 

 cases of albinism, even among birde. 



Herbert W. Page 



New Cavendish Street, W., September 16 



The Hearing of Insects 



I AM not aware if it is generally known that there is a wasp 

 in South America which seems to present undoubted evidence of 

 a faculty to hear, or it may be to feel, and distinguish certain 

 vibrations of sound. 



The wasp is a common one on the Guayaquil River ; a large 

 slender black species, much feared on account of the virulence 

 of his sting, which not unfrequemtly produces fever. I, myself, 

 though little susceptible to the bites of mosquitoes or flies, and 

 the stings of scorpions, &c., when once stung on the finger by 



