November i8, 1915] 



NATURE 



319 



NOTES. 



W'k notice with profound regret the announcement 

 of the death on November i6, at sixty-six years of 

 age, of Prof. Raphael Meldola, professor of chemistry 

 in the City and Guilds of London Technical College, 

 I'insbury. 



The following is a list of those who have been 

 recommended by the president and council of the 

 Royal Society for election into the council for the year 

 iqi6 at the anniversary meeting on November 30 : — 

 President, Sir J. J. Thomson ; Treasurer, Sir A. B. 



^ Kempe ; Secretaries, Prof. A. Schuster and Mr. W. B. 

 Hardy; Foreign Secretary, Dr. D. H. Scott; Other 



I Members of the Council, Prof. J. G. Adami, Sir T. 



.' Clifford AUbutt, Dr. F. F. Blackman, Dr. Dugald 

 Clerk, Sir William Crookes, Prof. A. Dendy, Prof. J. 

 Stanley Gardiner, Dr. H. Head, Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, 

 Prof. A. E. H. Love, Major P. A. MacMahon, Prof. 

 R. Meldola (since deceased). Prof. A. Smithells, Prof. 

 E. H. Starling, Mr. R. Threlfall, and Sir Philip Watts. 



The Nobel prizes for 1914 and 1915 have now been 

 awarded. According to the Morning Post the prize 

 for chemistry for the former year is awarded to Prof. 

 Theodore W'illiam Richards, of Harvard L'niversity, 

 and that for physics to Prof. M. v. Laue, of Frank- 

 furt-on-Main. The physics prize for 1915 is awarded 

 jointly to Prof. W. H. Bragg (now of University Col- 

 lege, London, but until recently professor of physics 

 in the University of Leeds), and his son, Mr. W. L. 

 Bragg. . The chemistry prize goes to Prof. R. Will- 

 flatter, of Berlin. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death, at 

 fift3'-six years of age, of Mr. Booker T. Washington, 

 principal of the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, whose 

 labours for the practical education of negro students 

 have been of untold benefit to the coloured people of 

 the United States and West Indies. 



The death is announced, in his forty-seventh year, 

 of Mr. Wirt Tassin, who was a special agent of the 

 U.S. Geological Survey at the Chicago Exposition, 

 and from 1893 to 1909 was assistant-curator of the 

 division of mineralogy at the U.S. National Museum, 

 lie had since been occupied as a consulting metallurgist 

 and chemical engineer. 



At the anniversary meeting of the Mineralogical 

 Society, held on November 9, the following officers 

 and members of council were elected : — President, 

 W. Barlow ; Vice-Presidents, Prof, H. L. Bowman, 

 A. Hutchinson; Treasurer, Sir William P. Beale, 

 Bart. ; General Secretary, Dr. G. T. Prior ; Foreign 

 Secretary, Prof. W. W. Watts; Editor 0/ the Journal, 

 L. J. Spencer; Ordinary Members of Council, Dr. 

 j. J. Harris Teall, F. N. Ashcroft, Prof. H. Hilton, 

 A. Russell, W. Campbell Smith, Dr. J. W. Evans, 

 I)r F. H. Hatch, J. A. Howe, T. V. Barker, G. 

 Barrow, Dr. C. G. Cullis, F. P. Mennell. 



Mr. F. W. Smalley makes a valuable contribution 

 towards our knowledge of the significance of the 

 plumage phases of the ducks in the November num- 

 ber of British Birds. He surveys not only the adult, 

 NO. 2403, VOL. 96] 



but also the nestling-down plumages. Out of the 

 wealth of material obviously at his disposal it is to 

 be hoped that in the immediate future he will complete 

 the records which he has made of the several species 

 of British ducks, and esjjecially of the " diving-ducks." 



Parasitologists will find some valuable notes on 

 the eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides, by Mr. L. D. Whar- 

 ton, in the Philippine Journal of Science (vol. x., 

 sec. D, No. 2); The author obtained his material from 

 autopsies at the city morgue, and has devoted special 

 attention to "atypical" eggs, such as have been mis- 

 taken for the eggs of other species. Eggs lacking the 

 mammillated outer layer have been laid together with 

 typical eggs by the same female, isolated in 

 Kronecker's salt solution, in the laboratory. He also 

 gives the characters by which unfertilised can be dis- 

 tinguished from fertilised eggs, and abnormal features 

 apparently induced by artificial conditions. 



The Scottish Naturalist for November contains an 

 admirable " Interim Report on the Aberdeen Univer- 

 sity Bird-migration Inquiry," by Mr. A. Landsborough 

 Thomson, now serving his country "somewhere in 

 France." This inquiry, it may be remembered, has 

 been started for the purpose of tracing the wanderings 

 of birds, mostly nestlings, marked at the nest with 

 a metal ring bearing a number, enabling their captors, 

 at a later date, to record the date and place of capture, 

 and thus to establish the wanderings of that particular 

 bird. Hitherto the co-operators in this scheme have 

 been allowed to mark birds almost indiscriminately; 

 to attain a higher efficiency, and to economise labour, 

 selected species only are henceforth to be marked. 

 Such are birds which are procurable for ringing in 

 large numbers, which afford a fair percentage of re- 

 appearance records, and the migratory movements of 

 which are of sufficient interest to repay close investi- 

 gation. The lapwing, woodcock, mallard, blackbird, 

 and song-thrush are specially mentioned as fulfilling 

 these conditions, a fact which may well be noted by 

 those who desire to assist in this most promising in- 

 vestigation. 



Although the recent Crinoids have been the subject 

 of much study, and the group may now be regarded 

 as fairly well known from the point of view of 

 morphology and classification, our information as to 

 the habits and mode of life of the living animals is 

 almost confined to the common European species of 

 Antedon. Two important contributions on this sub- 

 ject are published in the eighth volume of "Papers 

 from the Department of Marino Biology of the Car- 

 negie Institution of Washington," among the results 

 of the recent expedition sent by the institution to 

 Torres Straits. Mr. H. L. Clark has investigated 

 the habits and reactions of many species of Comatulids 

 occurring at Torres Straits, and finds that the different 

 genera and families show important differences in the 

 methods of locomotion and feeding, and in their 

 responses to various stimuli. He especially combats 

 the view that the crinoids are predominantly sessile 

 organisms, and he finds that while members of certain 

 families, such as the Comasteridae, " do not swim, but 

 only creep about by the use of the arms," others are 



