May 12, 1921] 



NATURE 



343 



The London summer meeting of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers, which will be held on June 30 

 and July i, will be devoted to Subjects connected with 

 the better utilisation of fuels. A novel feature of the 

 meeting will be an exhibition of appliances connected 

 with boiler-room economy and with the efficient use 

 of steam- and internal-combustion engines. The ex- 

 hibits will include feed-water heaters, combustion re- 

 corders, super-heaters, liquid fuel and powdered fuel 

 burners, steam- and gas-engine mdicators, etc. The 

 institution desires that all who have exhibits to offer 

 will communicate with the secretary at Storey's Gate, 

 St. James's Park, S.W. i, as soon as possible. 

 Apparatus and models are preferred, but drawings will 

 be accepted and suitably displayed. 



Arrangements have been made by the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers to continue this year the series of 

 conferences which were interrupted by the rebuilding 

 of the institution premises and the war. A con- 

 ference will be held on Wednesday, Thursday, 

 and Friday, June 29 and 30 and July i, the 

 mornings being given to discussions upon selected 

 topics, and the afternoons to visits to engineering 

 works. For the purpose of the meetings the con- 

 ference will be divided into seven sections : (i) Rail- 

 ways, Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels; (ii) Harbours, 

 Docks, Rivers, and Canals; (iii) Machinery; (iv) 

 Mining and Metallurgical Processes; (v) Shipbuilding; 

 (vi) Waterworks, Sewerage, and Gasworks ; (vii) Elec- 

 tricity Works and Power Transmission. The twenty- 

 seventh James Forrest lecture will be delivered by 

 Sir George T. Beilby on the afternoon or evening of 

 Tuesday, June 28. 



"The Physiology of Pain " is the subject of a paper 

 in Medical Science : Abstracts and Reviews for April 

 (vol. iv., No. i). The reviewer concludes : " It is, at 

 any rate, tempting to regard sensibility to pain as the 

 survival in us of the primordial mode of sensation. 

 Its urgency and tendency to evoke immediate motor 

 response is the reproduction of the normal experience I 

 of the lower invertebrates. From it the discrimina- 

 tive forms of sensibility have been differentiated by I 

 the progressive increase of insulation. If we view 

 pain as an exaggerated response by a physiologically 1 

 irritated nerve, it is possible to get some conception 

 why pain is the commonest of symptoms and why it 

 is so apt to become inveterate. Pain is, as it were, 

 physiologically only just not present in us all, and 

 what appears to be a very slight disturbance patho- 

 logically may prove an effective and incurable excitant 

 of it." 



Dr. L. O. Howard's annual report of the Entomo- 

 logist to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the 

 year ending June 30, 1920, is a record of a vast series 

 of researches carried out for the benefit of the State. 

 The European corn-borer is causing anxiety on 

 account ,of the increasing area of country that is 

 suffering from its ravages. With an appropriation of 

 400,000 dollars an energetic campaign is being con- 

 ducted, and particular attention is being devoted to 

 the natural enemies of the pest. A trained observer 

 has been established in the south of France to study 

 NO. 2689, VOL. 107] 



its native parasites, and Dr. Howard personally visited 

 with the same object regions of Belgium, France, and 

 Italy in which the corn-borer occurs. In connection 

 with insecticides for orchard spraying, much experi- 

 mental work has been accomplished with contact 

 insecticides in an effort to find something to replace 

 nicotine or tobacco extract. Special attention has 

 been devoted to organic contact sprays, and a com- 

 pound has been discovered of the pyridine series which ^ 

 offers hopes of success. As in previous years, work 

 on the Gipsy and Brown Tail moths occupies a pro- 

 minent place. During the spring of 19 19 favourable 

 climatic conditions for hatching out the eggs resulted 

 in an unusual spread of the former insect in the 

 caterpillar stage, and an increase in area of 4569 

 square miles is now stated to be infested. On the 

 other hand, the area affected by the Brown Tail 

 moth has been materially reduced, and 10,677 square 

 miles have been released from the quarantine. 



Mr. H. G. May has published (Proc. U.S. Nat. 

 Mus., vol. Iviii., pp. 577-88, 5 plates, 1920) useful 

 notes on the nematode genus Nematodirus, which 

 occurs in the small intestine of sheep, goats, cattle, 

 deer, camels, and certain rodents. In addition to 

 abundant material collected in the United States, the 

 author has received material from France and Switzer- 

 land, and has been able to study some eight hundred 

 male specimens for their spicules. He finds in this 

 collection four species which have not previously been 

 described. He gives a key to, and short descriptions 

 of, the nine species of the genus, and figures the more 

 important systematic characters, especially the bursae 

 and spicules of the males. 



At a meeting of the Biological Society of Washing- 

 ton (Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 

 vol. X., No. 20, p. 580, December, 1920) Mr. T. E. 

 Snyder directed attention to the extensive and serious 

 injury caused to the lead sheathing of aerial telephone 

 cables in California by the beetle Scobicia decUvis, 

 which normally breeds in recently felled wood piled 

 for later use as fuel. In summer the beetle attacks 

 the cable where it lies in contact with the metal sus- 

 pension ring, which affords it leverage for boring. 

 The hole allows moisture to penetrate the insulation, 

 and numerous widely separated short-circuits are pro- 

 duced when rain falls in the autumn. A high per- 

 centage of " wire trouble " is caused by this beetle. 

 No remedy has yet been found; chemical repellents, 

 various types of suspension rings, and hard tin and 

 antimony alloys have proved ineffective. 



In the Report for 1919 of the Botanical Society 

 and Exchange Club of the British Isles the secretary, 

 Dr. G. C. Druce, provides a supplement entitled " The 

 Extinct and Dubious Plants of Britain." Notwith- 

 standing the great changes which have occurred in 

 Britain during the period since 1597, only about half 

 a dozen native species of flowering plants have ceased 

 to exist, mainly as the result of drainage operations. 

 The most notable are a Vetch (Vicia laevigata), which 

 formerly occurred near the shore at Weymouth and 

 Portland, but does not seem to have been found for 

 nearly a hundred years, and two species of Senecio, 



