588 



NATURE 



{Oct, 3, 1878 



less resistance. New lines might indeed be opened out by frag- 

 ments of metal, sucb as nails, &c,, scattered by the explosions. 



In the case mentioned above, it was difiicult, without some 

 such theory, to account for the breaks in the courses followed 

 by the electricity. E. H. Pringle 



Balh, October i 



Gyno-Dicecious Plants 



During the past summer I have found the following species 

 in a gyno-dioecious condition, namely, Rantinculus acris, R, 

 repens, R. bulbostis, and Stachys germanica, all of which have 

 the corolla considerably reduced in size, and the stamens in R. 

 acris and S. germanica either absent or reduced to scale-like 

 bodies devoid of pollen. In R. repens and R, bulhosus the 

 stamens are not so much reduced, but so far as I can judge they 

 produced little or no pollen. The female form in R. acris is 

 very common in Lancashire, but I failed to find any on the 

 Lincolnshire coast although I searched carefully for it. In 

 R. repens the female form is very rare, having seen only about 

 thirty plants in all, I have also found the Ceum rivale to be 

 andro-monoecious. So far as I can ascertain these plants have 

 not been noticed in the state described abovevv 



Ashton-under-Lyne Thomas Whitelegge 



Wasps Under Chloroform 



A FEW days ago a friend told me that she had often placed a 

 bee under chloroform, and that the victims when they found 

 they must die invariably brought their stings to their mouths and 

 sucked the little drop of poison into their mouths. She offered 

 to show me the experiment and endeavoured to catch a bee, but 

 "failing to do so she caught a wasp, an insect upon which she 

 had not previously experimented in this way, and we both 

 eagerly watched to see if the wasp would behave as the bees had 

 done under the influence of the narcotic. 



The wasp being put under an inverted tumbler in company 

 •with a piece of paper saturated with chloroform, in a very few 

 seconds the insect fell on its back and almost immediately after- 

 wards curled up the tail with the sting protruded and a drop of 

 clear fluid on the end of the sting. The sting was brought to the 

 mouth and the drop of fluid disappeared. The wasp then became 

 motionless. After a few seconds the tumbler was removed and 

 the air allowed to play freely on the insect, but no sign of life 

 appeared, except once a slight twitch of the wing. To test 

 •whether the insect was really dead my friend placed it in a 

 butterfly cage and left it out of doors all night. Next morning 

 the wasp had disappeared ; having perhaps crawled out by a 

 little chink in the' cage door. 



Can you tell me whether so curious an action of these insects 

 v/hen subjected to chloroform is well known? Does it fulfil any 

 good purpose ? Is the poison a narcotic itself and taken by the 

 insect to dull its pains when death seems inevitable ? The revival 

 of the wasp appears to show that neither the chloroform nor the 

 poison of its own sting is deadly to the insect. W. M. 



Clevedon, September 21 



"Mercator" the Geographer 



In Prof. Huxley's " Physiogi-aphy " it is stated that the real 

 name of "Mercator," of "projection" fame, was Gerard 

 Kauffinann. In a recent number, however, of the popular 

 German journal, the Cartenlaube, there is a woodcut of Mercator, 

 taken from an old sketch, under which is the legend — Gerard 

 Krenier genannt Mercator. Now, as the word Kremer, or 

 Ki-iimer, means a small retail shopkeeper, the Latin pseudonym 

 is equally applicable, although there is an appreciable difference, 

 meaning excluded, between the two German surnames. 



J. C. G. 



: Our Natural History Collections 



_ In your recent articles on "Our Natural History Collec- 

 tions," in which you criticised the Act of Parliament just 

 passed authorising the removal of the natural history collec- 

 tions in the British Museum, I was surprised not to find any 

 mention of the third clause, which inaugurates a new and en- 

 lightened pohcy in the disposal of duplicates. The clause was 

 mserted at the instigation of Mr. A. J. Mundella, M.P., and 



Mr, J, Chamberlain, M,P,, and is as follows : — " The trustees of 

 the British Museum may also give away any duplicate works, 

 objects, or specimens not required for the purposes of the 

 museum, provided always that the powers hereby conferred 

 shall not extend to any duplicate works in the royal library of 

 King George IV,, or in the Crackerode, Grenville, or Banksean 

 libraries, or to any objects presented to the museum for use or 

 preservation therein." 



This important departure from the previous holdfast policy of 

 the British Museum will be hailed with delight by all provincial 

 students of natural history, as will also the paragraph in Prof, 

 Sir C, Wyville Thomson's report to the British Association, 

 referring to the disposal of the Challenger collections {^jide 

 Nature, vol. xviii. p. 534). 



Public museums are springing up all over the country, and 

 any one acquainted with them knows well the difficulty of 

 forming a natural history collection properly suited to educa- 

 tional requirements. If the power now conferred on the trustees 

 of the British Museum is wisely and liberally used, I think as 

 much material will be found stored away as will furnish pro- 

 vincial museums with the specimens required to make them 

 educationally valuable. E. H. 



Sheffield, September 26 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 



Biela's Comet. — The great swarm of meteors through 

 ■which the earth passed on the evening of November 27, 

 1872, and which were found to be moving in the orbit of 

 Biela's comet, must have been descending to a perihelion 

 passage one month later, or about December 27*6 G.M.T. 

 The comet not having been observed as such since the 

 autumn of 1852, when both parts into which it was sepa- 

 rated in 1846 were recovered, we may take this date as a 

 new point of departure, assuming for the present that in 

 following the great assemblage of meteoric bodies seen 

 in November, 1872, we are following what now remains of 

 the comet. 



Hubbard's elements of the S. F, nucleus of 1852, with 

 Michez's perturbations by Jupiter and Satuni, give the 

 following elements for 1866, the latest year to which per- 

 turbations have been calculated : — 



Perihelion Passage, 1866, January 27"6968 G,M.T. 



Longitude of perihelion ... 

 ,, ascending node 



Inclination. 



Angle of eccentricity 

 Log. semi-axis major .. 



109 39 48 



245 43 42 



12 22 3 



48 46 19*4 



0-5505333 



We know that the comet did not arrive at perihelion 

 at or near the above date in 1866, and hence that dis- 

 turbance of its motion from an undiscovered cause must 

 have taken place some time in the interval 1852-66. 

 The period of revolution belonging to this orbit is 2445"67 

 days. There is no reason to suppose that the swarm of 

 meteors is revolving in a shorter period, and we may 

 consequently assume that it will not be again in peri- 

 helion before the date, which this period will give, if 

 reckoned from December 27*6, 1872, or September 8, 

 1 879 ; how much later the perihelion passage may fall it 

 is impossible to foresee. We i-efer to this point on the 

 present occasion with the view to suggest that a close 

 watch for meteors of the Biela-comet stream should be 

 instituted when the earth again passes the descending node 

 of the comet's, orbit on November 27 next. With peri- 

 helion passage on September 8, 1879, the main cometary 

 body would be in a true anomaly of - 135" 15'. On 

 December 6, 1798, when Brandes witnessed a great 

 meteoric display, as the earth traversed the comet's orbit, 

 it was in a true anomaly of about -103°, but in 1838, 

 when under similar conditions meteors were observed in 

 large numbers in Europe, Asia, and America, December 

 5-8, the comet's true anomaly was about — 128°. 



As regards the recovery of the comet in 1879, though 

 perhapsnot hopeless, a very strict examination of the 



