December 



Jy 



1914J 



NATURE 



;69 



funded, but expended as capital at the rate of 

 about 500L a year ; 2000Z. from Mr. John Devv- 

 rance, as a gift to the donation fund to secure 

 the payment of interest amounting to 100/. a year, 

 to be expended in accordance with the terms of 

 the trust of that fund ; 4000/. from the Misses 

 Lawrence, the income to be devoted to research 

 into the causes and cure of disease in man and 

 animals, the gift being associated with the names 

 of their father. Sir WilHam Lawrence, F.R.S., 

 and their brother. Sir Trevor Lawrence ; looZ. 

 from the late Sir Joseph Swan, in aid of the 

 expenses of publication ; 1650Z. from the late Mr. 

 W. Erasmus Darwin, without conditions. 



On account of the war, the usual anniversary 

 banquet was not held this year. 



NOTES. 

 The .Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 at a special meeting held on November 24, presented 

 the gold medal of the Hayden Memorial Geological 

 Award to Prof. H. F. Osborn, in recognition of his 

 brilliant palaeontological studies. The presentation 

 address was delivered by the president, the Hon. 

 '~^. G. Dixon. 



At a meeting of the organising committee of the 

 sixth International Congress of Photography, held at 

 the rooms of the Royal Photographic Society, on 

 Friday, November 27, it was unanimously decided to 

 suspend the work ot the committee until such time 

 as the officers should consider it could be resumed 

 successfully. 



On Tuesday, November 24, the Royal Geological 

 Society of Cornwall, at its annual meeting at Pen- 

 zance, presented Mr. Henry Dewey with the Bolitho 

 gold medal for his work and papers on the survey 

 of Devon and Cornwall. Mr. Dewey afterwards gave 

 an account of his experiments which led him to attri- 

 bute the formation of Spilosites and Adinoles to the 

 presence of ferric or ferrous oxides in the slates into 

 which the igneous rocks had intruded. 



The death is reported of Dr. C. S. Minot, the dis- 

 tinguished American anatomist, in his sixty-second 

 year. He graduated at the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology in 1872, and then spent several years in 

 study in Europe. At Harvard University he held 

 minor appointments from 1880 to 1888, when he be- 

 came assistant professor of histology. In 1892 he 

 became full professor, and in 1905 migrated to the 

 James Stillman chair of comparative anatomy. Prof. 

 Minot was a member of numerous .American and 

 foreign learned societies, and an honorarj- doctor of 

 Yale, Toronto, St. Andrews, and Oxford. He was 

 the author of " Human Embryology," " Bibliography 

 of Vertebrate Embryology," ".A Laboratory Text-book 

 of Embryology'," and '"Age, Growth, and Death." 



Mr. John Burroughs, of West Park, N.Y., the 

 veteran writer and observer whose works on natural 

 history and other subjects have made him famous 

 among lovers of nature and good literature in the old 

 world as well as the new,- has sent to the New York 

 NO. 2353, VOL. 94] 



Tribune a convincing letter in which he explains why 

 he and other -Americans have had their regard for 

 Germany turned to aversion by the events of the 

 present war. The spirit of Prussian militarism is 

 unworthy of twentieth-century civilisation ; and though 

 the military machine which crushes the innocent and 

 unoffending, and destroys things beautiful and pre- 

 cious, in the hope of accomplishing its purpose, may 

 be efficient, it is neither admirable nor human. 

 "War," concludes Mr. Burroughs, "as now waged 

 by the Kaiser against Belgium and France, is but a 

 high-sounding name for the collective murder and 

 pillage and arson of a vast organised band of out- 

 laws, and for my part I believe it is the last spectacle 

 of the kind, and on such a scale, that the world will 

 ever see." 



In the October number of the Victorian Naturalist 

 Mr. F. Chapman describes the impression of the fruit 

 of a Casuarina in the basalt of Victoria. Wood of an 

 apparently existing species of the genus has been pre- 

 viously recorded from beneath 90 ft. of the basalt. 



In concluding his notes on a collecting trip in 

 Borneo, in the November number of the Zoologist, 

 Mr. J. C- Moulton records the discovery of a pre- 

 viously unknown mountain — Mount Merinjak — in the 

 heart of the country on the border between Sarawak 

 and Dutch Borneo. It is a flat-topped mountain of 

 2220 ft. elevation. 



At the Cage-Bird Show held at the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society last week, Mr. David Ezra, of no Mount 

 Street, W., exhibited specimens of living humming- 

 birds. The birds are stated to have been in London 

 for the last six months or so. At this time of year 

 the)' are kept in steam-heated cages, each furnished 

 with a miniature furnace. The interiors are decorated 

 with moss and orchids, the flowers of the latter 

 furnishing the tiny inmates with nectar. When 

 natural nectar fails, the birds are supplied with an 

 artificial compound of honey, sponge-cake crumbs, 

 and babies' patent food. 



The first part of an article on Japanese Lepidoptera 

 and their lar\'ae, by Mr. A. E. Wileman, published in 

 the June issue of the Philippine Journal of Science, 

 is illustrated by three coloured plates of the cater- 

 pillars and pupae of butterflies. A grass-green swallow- 

 tail caterpillar marked with transverse golden bands 

 harmonises in a striking manner with the trifoliate 

 leaves of its food-plant, which have a yellow venation. 

 Other articles in the same issue include one on 

 Philippine medusas and a second on Philippine 

 alcyonarians, both by Mr. S. F. Light. Two new 

 generic types are named and described in the former 

 and one in the latter; one of the new medusas, Acro- 

 tnitus maculosus, appears to be a verj' beautiful 

 species, with a bell of fully 90 mm. in diameter. 

 f.,emnaIoides, indicative of affinity with Lemnalia, is 

 the name of the new alcyonarian. 



The fourth number of vol. ii. of the Science Bulle- 

 tin of the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute is devoted 

 to a report of the scientific results of a collecting 

 expedition to South Georgia in a whaling brig, under- 



