September i6, 1915 



NATURE 



59 



The above are a few selected facts of interest, 

 but the book will be found interesting^ even in a 

 country where the orange is not commercially 

 grown, and invaluable where citrus fruits are a 

 staple industry. Cecil H. Hooper. 



Lessons in Elementary Physiology. By Dr. T. H. 

 Huxley. Enlarged and revised edition. Pp. 

 xxiv + 604. (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 

 1915.) Price 45. 6d. 



Prof. Huxley's "Physiology" was a master- 

 piece; it first appeared in 1866, and since 

 that date has been easily first among a crowd 

 of elementary manuals. The edition which 

 appeared before the present one was issued in 

 1900, and was then edited by Sir Michael Foster 

 and Dr. Shore. It has been frequently reprinted 

 since that date, but after a lapse of fifteen years 

 the publishers have very rightly judged that it 

 required revision in order to incorporate the new 

 facts and generalisations which have been dis- 

 covered in the meantime. This work has been 

 entrusted to Mr. Joseph Barcroft, of Cambridge, 

 and he has fulfilled his task with ability, tact, 

 and, one may add, reverence. Although the repair 

 has been substantial, one cannot but be struck 

 with the fact how much of the fabric is left intact. 

 There could be no better testimony to the 

 thoroughness and permanence of the labours of 

 the original builders. The main principles of 

 physiological science remain for the most part un- 

 changed. With some notable exceptions, recent 

 physiological progress has been concerned with 

 details, which are interesting enough to the re- 

 searchers, but are really not essential from the 

 elementary student's point of view. We wish the 

 present edition every success and a continuance of 

 usefulness. W. D. H. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



Remarkable Nest of " Vespa norwegica," and Fertility 

 of Workers of this Species. 



The following- observations on a colony of Vespa 

 norwegica are perhaps deserving of record. About 

 the middle of July a relative living at East Liss, 

 Hants, endeavoured to take for me a nest of this 

 tree wasp, but was forced to beat a retreat after merely 

 bending the branch of the rhododendron to which the 

 nest was attached. The effect of this bend was to 

 throw the nest permanently out of its original position, 

 and to incline the combs within it at a considerable 

 angle to the horizontal plane in which they had, as 

 always, been built. On July 28 the nest was success- 

 fully captured, and forwarded to me, together with 

 such of its inmates as happened to be at home at the 

 moment of capture. The combs were five in number; 

 the three upper were each of about four inches in 

 diameter; the fourth smaller and of irregular shape, 

 there being a patch of small, misshapen cells placed 

 obliquely on one margin. The position of the fifth 

 NO. 2394, VOL. 96] 



i comb was very remarkable ; it was attached, not to 

 j the fourth, but to the third comb; and, moreover, 

 instead of hanging parallel to the other combs, it was 

 set at a decided angle to them, the angle being such 

 that it lay In the true horizontal plane, from which 

 the others had been displaced. It Is thus evident that 

 the worker wasps are able to discriminate between 

 oblique and horizontal positions with some nicety. 

 This fifth comb had obviously been built since the 

 disturbance of the nest; it consisted of but twenty-five 

 small, though regularly hexagonal cells, and It Is 

 I probable that fhe patch of Irregular cells added to the 

 edge of the fourth comb was of similar date, and 

 represents an attempt to regain the horizontal plane 

 for that comb. The queen had also been affected by 

 the disturbance of the nest, for she had laid two, and 

 frequently three, eggs in many of the cells of the 

 second and third combs. Instead of the normal one 

 egg only. There were no eggs in any of the cells 

 of the oddly-placed fifth comb, nor in the patch of 

 Irregular cells on the edge of the fourth. The absence 

 of eggs from these cells points to all workers being 

 sterile up to the time when the nest was taken. Within 

 the nest as I received It were several dozen drones, 

 two workers, and the queen ; the majority of the 

 workers must have been afield when the nest was 

 removed. 



On August 24 I visited the bush whence the nest 

 was obtained, and found that the workers had con- 

 tinued operations, although bereft of their queen. On 

 the ground Immediately beneath the place of the 

 original nest they had built an irregular mass of wasp- 

 paper round some dead twigs of heather, and in the 

 midst of this mass, smothered in the wasp-paper wrap- 

 pings, was a very small comb consisting of six badly- 

 shaped cells, of which two contained eggs that had 

 failed to develop and had shrivelled. But fastened to 

 a branch about a foot above this mass was a small 

 nest of normal shape, and of about two and a half 

 inches diameter, such as might be expected in early 

 summer. Worker wasps were visiting both these 

 structures, and occasionally one would emerge from 

 the nest and proceed direct to the mass upon the 

 ground, or vice versd; both were clearly the work of 

 the one colony. I caught all the wasps — only thirty- 

 seven in number — and found them to be workers with- 

 out exception. Inside the suspended nest was one 

 small, but perfectly regular comb composed of forty- 

 four cells, thirty-three of which contained larvae of 

 various sizes. None of these larvae looked healthy or 

 well nourished, and three of the largest were dead 

 and had turned pink. There was no queen in the 

 nest ; hence it Is certain that at least one of the 

 workers must have become parthenogenetically fertile. 

 It Is probably not unusual for workers to become 

 fertile in strong colonies towards the end of a favour- 

 able season ; but I am not aware that such clear proof 

 of worker fertility has hitherto been obtained, and it is 

 certainly singular that reproductive powers should arise 

 In the circumstances above narrated. 



Oswald H. Latter. 

 Charterhouse, Godalming, September 7. 



An Original Representation of the Giraffe. 



Among the interesting reproductions of early figures 

 that Prof. Eastman has lately presented to the readers 

 of Nature are two of the giraffe — one (Nature, 

 February 18) from Ehrenberg's memoir published in 

 1834, and the other (July 2q) from a manuscript In the 

 British Museum. Both these figures are attributed to 

 Thebes ; the former, from a " monument," is shown 

 with a monkey-like animal on the back of its neck, 

 and the latter, from a " tomb," has the monkey in 



