6l2 



NATURE 



\April 2^, 1889 



in the sod, there being no outer case, and no attachment. 

 The usual hooks of the cremaster are not bent, but 

 straight out and few. Now the Erebia epipsodea, and 

 the three Chionobas which have been bred in this country, 

 C. chryxus, semidea, dLn6.jutta, are like the A. Galatea in 

 larval habits and appearance, and the pupa is unattached, 

 and has actually no hooks at all. I read in Buckler, that 

 Satyrus Semele actually makes a case underground (like 

 some of the Sphingidae), and is inside that like a Hesperid. 

 It is to be supposed that many genera of the Satyridae 

 pupate unattached, or in cocoons. Mr. Scudder says the 

 eggs of Satyridae are very like the Hesperidae, and has to 

 admit the resemblances I have spoken of in the other 

 two stages. But he passes over all this as a mere 

 trifle, and insists that ' in the prime features,' as he calls 

 it, of the imago, the SatyridcC 'outrank all others.' Now 

 what are the ' prime features ' he tells about ? They 

 are two : one is that the pupa hangs by the tail, and that 

 there is a regular progression from the Hesperid style of 

 attachment through the Papilionidae, the Lycaenidae and 

 the Satyridce ; and that the flat ventral side of pupae in 

 what he calls the higher families, the Suspensi, is an 

 evidence that once they or their ancestors were attached 

 by a girdle, like the Papilionidae. The other is the 

 atrophied condition of the fore-legs, which is more ex- 

 treme in the Satyridae than in any other family, and 

 reaches the last degree in Chionobas. ' He, in his ' Butter- 

 flies of New England,' now issuing, puts Chionobas 

 semidea at the head of the North American butter- 

 flies, the top rung of the ladder, beyond which we can 

 go no farther ! This is what I call your attention to. 



" When we used to study ' Euclid,' we sometimes pro- 

 ceeded by an apparently correct mode of demonstration, 

 till we came to * which is absurd,' and I hold that this 

 conclusion of Mr. Scudder is absurd on its face. Here 

 is a butterfly on the top of the White Mountains of New 

 England. Its species is found nowhere else than in 

 Labrador and in Colorado, in the latter on the loftiest 

 summits. There is no difference between the three butter- 

 flies from the three regions, and yet they cannot have had 

 any communication for untold ages. It is considered as 

 a relic of pre-glacial times in the White Mountains. 

 This butterfly lives in a semi-torpid condition through 

 its short season, hes about on the rocks, has but a trifling 

 power of flight, and dodges the high winds in crevices of 

 rocks. To say that an insect which for perhaps 50,000 

 years has lived this sort of life, and has not changed in 

 all that time, is the most advanced in the scale of North 

 American butterflies, and so of all the world, is absurd 

 and ridiculous ! The wonder is that it has not lost the 

 use of its wings. Therefore the argument is wrong 

 somewhere that leads to such a conclusion. If the pre- 

 misses are allowed to be correct, then the reasoning has 

 a flaw. 



" I do not believe there ever was any derivative pro- 

 gression from one family of butterflies to another. And 

 we cannot say that the Papilionidae are derived from the 

 Hesperidae (either because of six legs, or the epiphysis, or 

 any other reason), or the Papilionidae from the Lycaenidee, 

 or the four-legged families from the six-legged. There 

 is not in the rocks a particle of evidence of such a 

 progression, and the whole thing is the merest fancy. 

 Any differences between families are not owing to deriva- 

 tion, but to the development of each independently, like 

 the rays of a fan " W. H. Edwards." 



NOTES. 

 We regret to have to record the death of Mr. Warren De la 

 Rue, F.R.S. He was born in 1815, and died on Good Friday, 

 after a short illness, from pneumonia. Mr. De la Rue was a 

 most devoted observer and munificent patron of astronomy, and 

 in him and Balfour Stewart solar physics has lost its chief 

 founders. 



The death is announced of Dr. Paul du Bois-Reymond, 

 Professor of Mathematics at the Technical High School of Berlin, 

 and formerly at the Universities of Freiburg and Tubingen. He 

 was the author of two well-known mathematical works, and 

 brother of the eminent physiologist of the same name. He was 

 born on December 2, 1831, and died at Freiburg in Baden, 

 on April 7. 



The Rev. J. H. Thomson, Vicar of Cradley, whose death is 

 announced, had made what is described as an extensive and 

 valuable collection of European plants, and it is understood that 

 he has bequeathed them to the Worcestershire Naturalists' 

 Museum. 



The National Union of Elementary Teachers has been hold- 

 ing its twentieth annual conference this week at Birmingham. 

 The conference was opened in the Town Hall on Monday after- 

 noon, when an address was delivered by Mr. R. Wild, the 

 President-elect, on the report of the Education Commission^ 

 and on the latest edition of the Code. The defects of the exist- 

 ing system of national education were discussed at a crowded 

 meeting on Tuesday evening. Mr. Chamberlain, in addressing 

 this meeting, spoke of payment by results, in the sense in which 

 the expression is now used, as a method which everyone con- 

 demns. " We want you," he said, "to show us a better way, 

 and it is through such conferences as those which are now being 

 held that Parliament and the Government may hope to find, 

 tested by your practical experience, a substitute for a system 

 which we desire to alter." 



The picture of Sir William Bowman, by Mr. Ouless, R.A., 

 has, by special permission, been exhibited to subscribers in the 

 Marsden Library of King's College, and has now been sent to 

 the Royal Academy. The list of subscribers numbers 420, and 

 will be closed on June i. 



Sir Robert Ball, the Royal Astronomer of Ireland, has 

 just been elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh. 



Prof. Corfield, M.D., has been elected a Corresponding 

 Member of the Italian Association " Dei Benemeriti," and 

 awarded a gold medal for his contributions to hygiene. 



Dr. Schweinfurth arrived at Aden on March 23, on his 

 return from a three months' stay in Central South Arabia. He 

 has started for Europe, bringing a very interesting botanical 

 collection with him. 



The Japan Weekly Mail says that Mr. W. Gowland, who 

 has occupied a prominent place in the Imperial Mint at Osaka, 

 has retired from the Japanese service. In 1872, Mr. Gowland 

 was selected by Dr. Percy, of the Royal School of Mines, 

 London, as Chemist and Metallurgist to the Japanese Govern- 

 ment. His first task in that country was the organization of 

 the metallurgical department of the Copper Mint and the estab- 

 lishment of chemical and metallurgical laboratories. He sub- 

 sequently filled the posts of Technical Adviser and Assayer, 

 and as such was directly responsible for the accuracy of the 

 coinage. Amongst other reforms at the Imperial Mint he intro 

 duced a novel process by which crude copper could be converted 

 into bronze coinage bars at one operation, and also elaborated 

 processes for the coinage conversion. His investigations into 

 the effect of bismuth on the ductility of silver are well known. 

 He made many interesting discoveries amongst the tumuli and 

 shell-heaps in the interior. The Emperor conferred several dis- 

 tinctions on him before his departure. 



The Berlin Academy of Sciences has lately been presenting 

 various sums of money to promote scientific research. Dr. Franz- 

 Stuhlmann, assistant at the Wiirzburg Zoological Institution, has 

 received ;,^SO (Mk. 1000) to enable him to proceed with his 



