Nov.Z, 1877] 



NATURE 



29 



tion prominently alluded to by himself is the last publication. 

 As respects myself, I have printed no further particulars in 

 addition to tho^e wh'ch the Professor (lismis^es, briefly for the 

 present, with the announcement of having discovered, "total 

 contradic'ions" to certam "conspicuous features." 



3. It i* necessary to point out, that the designation for my 

 observations adopted by the Professor of "the Royil Society's 

 and Mr, Hennessey's high-sun seres" suggests existence of the 

 a'iZ'/(/rt/ responsibility wh'ch is plainly disav()we<l in the " Adver- 

 tifement" to the Philosophical Tfaitsdctions, 1875, Part I., and 

 elsewhere ; for the professor can hardly intend that two separate 

 and independent hitjh-sun series taken on the Himalaya Moun- 

 tains, one by the Royal Society, and the other by myself, have 

 appeared in the Transactions. 



4. I shall look forward with interest to the perusal of Prof. Piazzi 

 Smyth's promised cotttplte account of his sun-high observations 

 at Lisbon ; meanwhile I may be pardoned for my inability to 

 follow his prompt and brief announcement of " total contradic- 

 tions," written while yet on his return voyage, 



J. B. N. Hennessey 

 N.W. Provmces, India, Dehra Doon, October 3 



Singing Mice 



Pfrhaps the following account of a singing mouse may be of 

 interest to your readers : — 



List w Utcr we occupied the rooms we now do at Menton. 

 Early in Febmary we heard as we thought the song of a canary, 

 and fancied it was outside our balcony ; however we soon dis- 

 covered that the singi'^g was in our salon, and that the songster 

 was a mouse ; at that time the weather was rather cold, and we 

 had a little fire, and the mouse spent most of the day under the 

 fender, where we kept it supplied with bits of biscuit ; in a few 

 days it became quite tame, and would come on the hearth in an 

 evening and sing for several hours, sometimes it would climb up 

 the chiff.mier and a'-cend a vase ot flowers to drink at the water, 

 and then >it and sing on the edge of the table and allow Us to go 

 quite near to it without ceasing its warble ; one of its favourite 

 haunts was the wood basket, and it would often sit aad sing on 

 the edge o( it. On Fetiruary 12, the last night of the carnival, 

 we had a number of fi lends in our salon, and the little mouse 

 sang most vigorously much to their delight and astonishment and 

 was not in the least disturbed by the talking. In the evening 

 the mouse would often run about the room and under the door 

 into the corridor and adjoining rooms and then return to its own 

 hearth ; after amusing us f^r nearly a month it disappeared, and we 

 suspect it was caught in a trap set in one of the rooms beyond. 

 The mouse was small and had very large ears, which it moved 

 about much whilst singing ; the song was not unlike that of 

 the canary in many of its trills, and it sang quite as beautifully 

 as any canary, but it had more variety, and some of its notes 

 were much lower, more like those of the bullfinch. One great 

 peculiarity was a sort of double song, which we had now and 

 then — an air with an accompaniment ; the air was loud and full, 

 the notes being low and the accompaniment quite subdued. Some 

 of our party were sure that there was more than one mouse 

 until we had the performance from the edge of the wood basket, 

 and were within a yard or two of it. My son has suggested 

 that many or all mice may have the same power, but that the 

 notes are usually so much higher in the scale that, like the cry 

 of the dormouse and the bat, they are at the verge of the pitch 

 to which the human ear is sensitive; this may be so, but the 

 notes of our moue were so low and even the highest so far 

 within the limits of the human ear, that I am inclined to think 

 the gift of singing in mice is but of very rare occurrence, 



Joseph Sidebotham 



Hotel de Menton, Menton, S. France, October 31 



Several years ago I received some of these animals from a 

 fritni, and kept them in confinement for one or two months. 

 The description which your correspondent gives of their per- 

 formance leaves very little to be added by me, as in all respects 

 this de-cription agrees perfectly with my own observations. I 

 write, however, to remark one curious fact about the singing of 

 these mice, namely, that it seemed to be evoked by two very 

 o^ipo-itc sets of conditions. When undisturbed, the lit le animals 

 Used for the most part to remain quiec during the day, and begin 

 to s ng at night ; but if at any time they were alarmed, by 

 handl ng them or otherwise, whether during the day or night, 

 they were bure to sing vigorously. Thus the action seemed to 



be occasioned either by contentment or by fear. The character 

 of the song, however, was slightly diff rent in the two cases. 



Tnat t*iese mice did not learn this arc from singing birds there 

 can be no doubt, for they were captured in a house where no 

 snch birds were kept It may be worth whi'e to add that thus 

 house (a London one) scf-med to ha>'e been suddenly invaded, 

 sotospetk. by a number of these animal-, for although my 

 friend has lived in this house since the year 1862, it was only 

 during a few months that singing mice were heard in it, and during 

 these Jew months th-y were heard in considerable numbers. 



Regent's Park, November i George J, Romanes 



Meteor 



The following accottnt of a meteor seen here may perhaps 

 interest some of your readers : — 



On October 29, at 8h, im, 30s. Greenwich mean time, a 

 brilliant meteor exoloded in right ascension 268'', declination 

 -1- 60° (equator of 1855) ; it left a bright crooked train scarcely 

 half a degree long, wh ch remained visible for about ten seconds, 

 and pointed towards | Draconis. The course of the meteor 

 must have been directed downwards, a'most exactly towards 

 this observatory. The flash of the explosion was seen by the 

 assistant-astronomer, Mr. Lohse, although he was sitting in such 

 a position as to be unable to see the meteor directly. 



Lord Lindsay's Ob^ervatory, Ralph Copeland 



Dnnecht, Aberdeen, November 3 



INTERNATIONAL POLAR EXPEDITIONS 



IN February, 1875, when the Arctic Expedition was 

 being prepared, I asked the First Lord of the 

 Admiralty, in Parliament, whether, in view of the small 

 value for scientific purposes of isolated observations in 

 the Arctic regions, in comparison with simultaneous 

 observations at different pUces, and in view, also, of the 

 interest now taken in Arctic science by foreign Govern- 

 ments, he would postpone fjr one season the departure 

 of the proposed Arctic Expedition, and in the interval 

 communicate with foreign Governments with a view to 

 the organisation of other expeditions to make observa- 

 tions simultaneously with our own at fixed times.'' The 

 First Lord said that he considered the preparations for 

 an expedition too far adv^anced to admit of this, and 

 added : " I should regard the project of combination with 

 other powers to attain the objects in view as one beset 

 with difficulties "—in which, I think, he was in error. In 

 the following month, when the Supplementary Estimate 

 for the Arctic Vote was under discussion, I again drew 

 the attention of the Governmerit and Parliament to 

 the advantages of simultaneous Arctic expeditions (see 

 Hansard, voL ccxxii. p, 1354), and in Naval Science for 

 April of the same year, in an article on " Foreign Polar 

 Expeditions," I drew still further attention to the matter, 

 concluding with an extract from a paper by Capt. 

 Weyprecht (who so greatly distinguished himself in the 

 Austro- Hungarian polar expeditions of 187 1 and 1872-74), 

 in which he pointed out in the clearest manner the desira- 

 bility of extending future Arctic researches far bayond 

 mere geographical exploration, and pressing forward with 

 our studies of magnetis-n, electricity, the best of meteoro- 

 logy, &c. " The solution of these questions cannot," he 

 said, " be expected until all nations which claim to come 

 up to the present high standard of civilisatiori unite to go 

 hand in hand, setting aside all national rivalries. To 

 bring about decisive scientific results it will be necessary 

 to make a number of simultaneous observations, so con- 

 ducted that they will furnish a yearly resumi of observa- 

 tions made in different parts of the Arctic regions with 

 exactly similar instruments, and from exactly similar 

 instructions," 



Upwards of a year ago NATURE gave details ot Wcy- 

 precht's project for the scientific exploration of the Polar 

 regions. It was referred to on several occasions, and 

 pointed out that Weyprechi's plan was the only satisfactory 

 method of obtaining results of real and peimanent value, 



C2 



