^ov. 15, 1888] 



NA TURE 



^^ man. It is found, moreover, that while the mean height of 

 Frenchmen belonging to families in easy circumstances does mt 

 notably alter, it is being very sensibly diminished among the 

 —On the skull of£.n adult gorilla, by M. Herve. — On pre- 

 ic discoveries in Portugal, by M. de Mortillet, who reports 

 ; ecent inauguration at Lisbon of a course of lectures on 

 eology by M. da Silva, to whom we are indebted for the 

 very of a deposit near Leiria, in which flat hatchets and 

 : instruments have been found, all of which are of pure 

 ir. — The Neolithic Age at Champigny, on the Seine, by M. 

 Civiere. The finds at this station have been rich in flint and 

 1 stone instruments, with fragments of coarse pottery, but 

 ihey contain few lx)ne remains, these belonging moreover, with 

 the exception of the elk, to ordinary domestic animals. No 

 human bones have been obtained. — On certain anthropological 

 researches in the Caucasus, by M. E. Chantre. This communi- 

 cation supplies an interesting summary of the author's important 

 work on the anthropology of the Caucasian district, which is based 

 on the result of personal observation s and a careful study of the 

 human and other remains derived from numerous ancient tribal 

 burial-places, and is copiously provided with tables of compara- 

 tive cephalic and other anthropometric determination*. — On a 

 prehistoric station at Aragua, Venezuela, by M. Marcano. — 

 A prehistoric necropolis at Saint Ellier (Maine-et-Loire) by M. 

 Bonnemere. — On the mammillated menhirs of Sardinia, by M. 

 de Mortillet. — On aphasia, by M. Ploix. This paper, which is 

 mainly based on the deductions of Broca, gave rise to repeated 

 discussions, in which Dr. Fauvelle and others took an active part 

 in defending their special views as to the localization of speech. — 

 Communication, by M. Herve, on his memoir entitled " Broca's 

 Convolution in the Primates." The writer demonstrates the 

 claims of Leuret to be regarded as the first who recognized in 

 the brain of the Simiada: the prototype of the convolutions of 

 the human brain, his discovery of a cerebral type common to all 

 the representatives of the group of Primates having preceded by 

 thirty years the researches of Darwin, Huxley, Vogt, and Broca. 

 — On the efficacy of the poisons used in olden times in Europe, 

 and still employed by Negritos and others, for tipping arrows 

 and other weapons, by M. Laborde. — On a case of congenital 

 blindness and deafness, with mutism, reported in New York, and 

 - —inunicated by M. de Nadaillac. — On cannibalism in Mada- 

 1, as recorded in the work of M. de Flacourt in 1650, by 

 iieauregard. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



^innean Society, November i. — Mr.W. Carruthers, F.R.S., 



lent, in the chair, — Prof. Bower exhibited and made remarks 



some adventitious buds on a leaf of Gnetiuin gnemoti. — 



I ohn Young exhibited (i ) a rare bird ( Pluvianellus sociabilis), 



-erved for fifty years, and lately rediscovered by him in 



1 aL.i^onJa ; (2) a cluster of nests formed of lichen {Usnea) by a 



swift, as supposed of the genus CoUocalia, from a cave in Eimeo, 



one of the Society Islands ; (3) remarkably elongated tail 



feathers of domestic cock (11 feet in length), artificially produced 



by the Japanese ; (4) nest and eggs of the snow bunting {P. 



nivalis), taken during the past summer in Scotland. — Mr. 



"" mas Christy exhibited a new method of transmitting light to 



croscope by means of a curved rod of glass. — The Rev. R. 



: n read a paper on the flora of Madagascar, in which he gave 



an interesting account of his explorations and collections in that 



country. — In another paper, entitled " Further Contributions to 



the Flora of Madagascar," Mr. J. G. Baker, F.R.S., described 



the principal novelties brought home by Mr. Baron, and paid a 



well -deserved tribute to his energy and ability as a botanical 



explorer. 



Mathematical Society, November 8.— Sir James Cockle, 

 F.R.S., President, in the chair. — At the commencement of the 

 meeting the Chairman feelingly dwelt upon the loss the Council 

 and the Society had sustained by the recent decease of Arthur 

 Buchheim (see Nature, vol. xxxviii. p. 515).— The gentlemen 

 whose name^ were given in a recent issue having been elected on 

 the new Council, the new President (J. J. Walker, F.R.S.) took 

 the chair, and called upon the retiring President to read his address 

 on the confluences and bifurcations of certain theories. — Other 

 communications that were made were : — Cyclotomic functions, 



§ I, groups of totitives of « ; § 2, periods of «th roo'.s of unity, by 

 Prof Lloyd Tanner. — On a theory of rational symmetric functions, 

 by Captain P. A. MacMahon, R.A. — The factors and summation 

 of i'*-l-2''+ . . . -f «*■, by Rev. J. J. Milne. — Raabe's Bernoul- 

 lians, by J. D. H. Dickson. — Certain algebraical results deduced 

 from the geometry of the quadrangle and tetrahedron, by Dr. 

 Wolstenholme. — On a certain atomic hypothesis, by Prof. K. 

 Pearson. — On deep-water waves resulting from a limited original 

 disturbance, by Prof. W. Burnside. 



Entomological Society, November 7. — Dr. D. Sharp, 

 President, in tKe chair. — M. A, Wailly exhibited a large and 

 interesting collection of Butterflies recently received from the 

 Gold Coast and other parts of West Africa. The collection 

 included about forty-seven species belonging to the genera 

 Papilio, Diafcma, Sa/amis, RomaUeosoma, Cliaraxes, Harma, 

 EurypheDie, Junonia, Aterica, Hypanis, Eurytela, J\fyca/esis, 

 Cyreslis, Ncpheroma, Alylothris, Belenois, &c. M. Wailly 

 stated that several of the species were undescribed, and were not 

 represented in the British Museum collections. — Mr. Jenner* 

 Weir exhibited four bred specimens of Ant-lions, two ot which 

 were from Saxon Switzerland, and the other two from P"ontaine- 

 bleau. He stated that he believed the specimens belonged to 

 two distinct species. Mr. McLachlan said that the specimens all 

 belonged to one species, viz. Myrmeleon fonnicarius, Auct. = 

 europtBtis, McLach. — Mr. W. C. Boyd exhibited an example of 

 rterophorus zetttvstedtii, taken at Sydenham. He remarked 

 that this species had hitherto only been recorded from Lynmouth 

 and Folkestone. — Mr. Enock exhibited specimens of Cecidoinyia 

 deslrtictor (Yi^'s,%\2L.n Fly), illustrating the life-history of the species, 

 and made remarks on them. — Mr. Wallis Kew exhibited a 

 specimen of Dytiscus marginalis having a small bivalve shell 

 attached to one of its legs. The bivalve had apparently attacked 

 the Dytiscus and refused to relax its grasp. A discussion ensued, 

 in which Dr. Sharp, Mr. Stainton, and Mr. Kew took part. — 

 Mr. W. E. Nicholson exhibited several specimes of Acidalia 

 immorata, Linn., caught by him near Lewes. Mr. Jenner- Weir 

 observed that the species had only recently been added to the 

 British list, and that it was remarkable how so comparatively 

 large a species could have been hitherto overlooked. It was 

 also remarked that a specimen of this species from the collection 

 of the late Mr. Desvignes had been exhibited by Mr. Stevens at 

 the meeting of the Society in November 1887. — Dr. Sharp 

 exhibited a large number of species of Rhynchophora, collected 

 by Mr. George Lewis in Japan. — Mr. F. P. Pascoe read a paper 

 entitled "Descriptions of New Longicorn Coleoptera." — Dr. 

 Sharp read a paper entitled "The Rhynchophorous Coleoptera 

 of Japan." 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, November 3.— ^M. Janssen in the 

 chair. — Essay on the theory of the Belleville carriage-spring, 

 by M. H. Resal. This spring, devised about twenty-five years 

 ago, has yielded excellent results in its application to railway 

 rolling stock. Here the principle of its action is worked out 

 theoretically. — On the advantages of the use of electric light in 

 the ob:,ervations of marine zoology, by M. de Lacaze-Duthiers. 

 An account is given of the system of electric light now in use at 

 the Arago Laboratory of the Banyuls station, by means of which 

 the author has been enabled to carry out some of his most im- 

 portant recent observations on marine life. The transparent 

 animals especially can be studied with great advantage in a 

 luminous atmosphere, revealing even the embryonic organisms, 

 which cannot be detected in ordinary light. — Positions of Barnard's 

 comet (September 2, 1888) measured at the Observatory of 

 Besan^on, by M. Gruey. The observations were taken jointly 

 with M. Herique for the period from October 11-17.— Observa- 

 tions of Barnard's new comet (October 30), and of Palisa's new 

 planet, 281, made at the Paris Observatory (equatorial of the 

 west tower), by M. G. Bigourdan. The positions of the com- 

 parison stars and the apparent positions of the comet and of the 

 planet for November 3 are given. — On a triple determination 

 of the latitude of the Gambey circle, by M. Perigaud. These 

 determinations, effected by nueans of the new mercury bath 

 described in the Comptes rendus for March 16, 1888, show that 

 the latitude of the circle is as nearly as possible 48° 50' io"*9. 

 It also appears that the latitude does not vary with the seasons, 

 the result obtained in October 1888 being identical with that 

 previously determined by the same instrument in June 1887. — 

 I On a means of studying the slight deformations of liquid sur- 



