ISIov. 15, 1877] 



NATURE 



45 



some beautiful results, including the formation of fixed straight 

 and curved coloured bands, arranged in symmetrical figures, and 

 of pairs of colour-vortices rotating in opposite directions. 



Unless these results prove to have been already described, I 

 shall shortly publish an account of my experiments. 



Sedley Taylor 



Trinity College, Cambridge, November 12 



Expected High Tides 



In your "Notes" last week you say that you cannot understand 

 why the burden of such predictions should fall solely upon Capt. 

 Saxby. This is what many of the public also do not understand. 

 Why does not, say, the Meteorological Ofifice take the matter in 

 hand, and not leave it to some private individual ? There can be 

 no doubt the forewarnings are often of the greatest service and have 

 saved the public tens of thousands of pounds and prevented a great 

 deal of niisery. What I think Capt. Saxby is to be blamed for 

 is the desire — it may be only apparent — to make a mystery ot his 

 predictions with the general public ; and what gives weight to 

 this is the fact that the Astronomer- Royal and the heads of the 

 Meteorological Office and Society do not offer the public any aid 

 in what is a purely scientific and eminently practical subject, in 

 which Londoners are more interested than in the transit of Venus, 

 and quite as much as in the storm-warnings for the Channel. 



When in March, 1874, Capt. Saxby came forward and in an 

 oracular way predicted a great tide on the 20th, he gave no 

 reasons. This many felt was unsatisfactory. Knowing that it 

 must result from the action of natural laws curiosity led me to 

 investigate the matter, and I found that the subject of extraordi- 

 nary tides was a matter of much simplicity ; that the chief factors 

 reside in the moon with its varyinsj distances and declinations ; 

 the next in the sun and the seasons ; the next in the winds and 

 atmosphere ; and the next, perhaps, in the action of the planets, 

 as Venus and Jupiter, the former of which we know affects the 

 orbit of the earth, and both have probably some power in pro- 

 ducing the atmospheric disturbances in the sun. 



With these factors I predicted a year in advance the extra- 

 ordinary tide of November, 1875, which had escaped Capt. 

 Saxby 's notice. I was also able to say that there are two un- 

 usually high tides revolving through the year, exactly six-and-a- 

 half synodic months apart, each forty-eight days after the same 

 tide of the previous year ; that these with the preceding and 

 succeeding tides are chiefly those which may with bad weather 

 develop into extraordinary ones ; and that the next great one — 

 a very giant among tides — will be on March 20, 1878. 



If Capt. Saxby has some knowledge on the subject which 

 others have not, how is it he did not predict the unusually 

 high tide of October 26 last, which happened when the moon 

 was neither full nor new, nor in perigee ? Why it happened is 

 somewhat of a mystery ; the only explanation I can suggest is, 

 that the moon had her highest northern declination on that day, 

 and that a barometric depression passed over the North Sea the 

 previous day, both which would tend to heighten the tide. 



November 12 B. G. Jenkins 



The Towering of Wounded Birds 



Last season I fired at a song thrush at a distance of fifty 

 yards, but the bird continued its course, as if uninjured, for 

 upwards of 200 yards, when it suddenly "towered" in the air, 

 and as suddenly fell to the ground. Upon examination the bird 

 was found to have been shot through the lungs alone, and had 

 bled internally, the throat being full of clotted blood. The 

 head was totally free from any injury. I have known similar 

 instances occur in the pigeon, swallow, and starling. In all 

 these cases the head remained uninjured, and death occurred 

 throjgh internal haemorrhage. In the case of the starling one 

 pellet entered the spine ; the bird continued its course for a few 

 yards, towered, and suddenly fell to the ground dead. 



Should you consider these instances bearing on the matter of 

 sufficient importance for an insertion in Nature they may prove 

 acceptable to those who are interested in the subject. 



Heeley, near Sheffield Charles Dixon 



Cruelty to Animals' Act and Physiological Teaching 



I AM desirous of knowing through your many readers if, 

 amongst; physiologists, the belief is anything like general, that 

 showing ixnder the microscope the circulation of the blood in a 



web of a frog's foot is a contravention of " The Cruelty to Animals' 

 Act, 1876.'^ 



Dr. M. Foster, in his " Primer of Physiology " (Macmillan and 

 Co., 1877), advises the reader to " go and look at it at once ; you 

 will never know any physiology till you do ; " and some naturalists 

 here say if no incision is made, the animal being merely tiei 

 down, the exhibition of the phenomenon is quite legitimJite, while, 

 on the other hand. Pi of. Huxley, in his paper before the Domestic 

 Economy Congress (reported in Nature, vol. xvi. p. 234) states 

 it as his opinion that a teacher is "open to the penalty of fine 

 and imprisonment if he «j-« " a frog "for the purpose of exhi- 

 biting one of the most beautiful and instructive of physiological 

 spectacles. " 



It was this, the expressed opinion of so distinguished an 

 authority as Prof. Huxley, which caused me first to doubt the 

 teacher's right to exhibit the experiment, and it is because of the 

 differences of opinion I have mentioned that I seek to know 

 through your columns, if a teacher is or is not at liberty to 

 illustrate the blood circulation by this harmless experiment. 



Frank W. Young 



High School, Dundee, November 12 



Smell andtHearing in Moths 



Numbers of moths, of many different species, are attracted 

 into my room on summer evenings by the light ; and they are 

 fond of resting on the lamp shade. One night I was using some 

 very strong ammonia solution — and by way of driving them off I 

 held a 3-ounce bottle of it with the open mouth almost close to 

 them. To my surprise they seemed quite unconscious of it as a 

 smell ; they would bear it unmoved for a minute, or sometimes 

 for two or three minutes, and they then merely walked an inch 

 or two further away from it. I have since tried the experiment 

 repeatedly, and with several different species ; but none of them 

 seem to detect the presence of ammonia except as a man might 

 detect the presence of carbonic acid or of nitrogen in excess, that 

 is, by their effects on his system generally. 



The common black and white " magpie moth," it is well 

 known, often feigns death when captured. I caught two, one 

 after the other ; both pretended to be dead, and I laid them 

 gently on the table a few inches apart. They had remained 

 motionless for ten minutes, when I took up a wine glass by the 

 stem, and gave it one sharp stroke with a pencil, about six inches 

 away from them. Both moths flew off at the instant the sound 

 was heard. I repeated this many times with the same result — 

 both with these and with other individuals of the sime species; 

 and I also found that merely holding the glass near them and 

 waving the pencil about noiselessly, did not arouse them. 



Loughton J. C. 



Bees Killed by Tritoma 



In a friend's garden here where there are quantities of Tri- 

 tomas or "red-hot-pokers," hundreds of bees have been this 

 year destroyed by them. The honey produced by the flower is 

 very abundant, and the bees enter the tube of the corolla to get 

 at it ; but the tube, which is only just large enough at the 

 mouth, tapers gradually, and so the bee gets wedged in and 

 cannot extricate itself. I saw numbers so caught, some in the 

 fresh flower, while others remained in the completely withered 

 and decaying blossoms. Perhaps it may be due to the fine warm 

 days we have had this autumn, inducing the bees to work too 

 late after our native honey-producing flo wers have been destroyed 

 by the wet and frosts ; or is it a regular thing which happens 

 every year ? If so bee-keepers should discourage the Tritoma, 

 or set to work to select varieties with flowers large enough not 

 to kill their bees. Alfred R. Wallace 



Dorking, November 3 



Lecture Experiment 



The experiment described below illustrates in a very striking 

 manner the particular instance of the "conservation of energy " 

 exhibited by the equilibrium of liquids of unequal densities, in 

 communicating vessels. 



The apparatus consists of a two-necked bottle, having in one 

 neck a very strong glass tube half a metre, or more, in length, 

 and terminating above in a funnel of 200 c.c. capacity, while its 

 lower end nearly reaches the bottom of the bottle ; in the other 

 neck is a piece of glass tube, drawn to a jet, and passing only a 

 short distance into the bottle. As the pressure inside the appa- 



