December io, 1914] 



NATURE 



399 



steadily increased; the total in 1908 was 570. 

 By that time the Circolo had completely lost 

 its local character, 319 of the members being- non- 

 Italian in nationality. These included 68 from Ger- 

 many, 41 from France, 14 British, 25 Austro-Hun- 

 garians, and 92 from the United States. In 1894 Dr. 

 Guccia was elected professor of geometry at the 

 University of Palermo, and he was also a member of 

 the International Council on the bibliography of mathe- 

 matics, besides being president of the Italian section. 

 When the International Congress of Mathematicians 

 met in Rome in 1908 a " Guccia medal " was offered 

 for the best essay on the theory of algebraic gauche 

 curves, or, failing that, for some contribution to our 

 knowledge of algebraic surfaces or other varieties. 

 The commissioners, consisting- of M. Noether 

 (Erlangen), H. Poincare (Paris), and C. Segre, re- 

 corder (Turin), awarded this medal to Prof. Francesco 

 Severi. While the Palermo Society differs from any 

 similar English institution in the fact of having 

 received frequent grants from the Minister of Public 

 Instruction and from the municipality of Palermo — 

 these grants amounting in many cases to nearly 30Z. 

 and 20Z. per annum respecti\-ely, still larger subsidies 

 have been given by the founder himself. That the 

 local society initiated thirty years ago should have 

 now risen to the status of an international mathe- 

 matical society of the first rank is a fitting tribute to 

 the energy and enterprise of Dr. Guccia. 



The editor and publisher of the Animals' Friend 

 are to be heartily congratulated on the success of 

 their efforts to provide pads for the withers of cavalry 

 horses at the front. Testimony to the value of these 

 pads is afforded in letters of thanks from four yeo- 

 manry officers at the front published in the December 

 number. Equal credit is due to " Our Dumb Friends' 

 League," as reported in the same issue, for their 

 successful effort to raise a fund for the purpose of 

 affording assistance to wounded horses on the field of 

 battle. 



AccoKDiNG to a report in the December number of 

 British Birds, bird-marking, under the superintend- 

 ence of the editor, has been attended with conspicuous 

 success during the past season, one operator having 

 distinguished himself by ringing no fewer than 2521 

 nestlings. It is true, indeed, that the total number of 

 ringed birds was much more than a thousand short 

 of that in 1913, but this is more than accounted for 

 by the decision to discontinue marking black-headed 

 gulls. The most noticeable case of the recapture of 

 a marked bird is perhaps that of a Sandwich tern 

 ringed in the Fame Islands in July, 1913, and taken 

 on the Ivory Coast in February of the following year. 



According to an article by Miss D. I. Griffin, the 

 director, in the December number of the Museums 

 Journal, the Children's Museum at Boston, U.S.A., 

 has proved a complete success, the daily average of 

 visitors being about two hundred, while on Sundays 

 the attendance has sometimes reached a thousand. 

 Temporary exhibits supplement week by week the 

 permanent collections, and lectures (sometimes taking 

 the shape of a stroll >in the grounds) and lantern- 

 NO. 2354, VOL. 94] 



I slides form part of the programme. Labels are con- 

 j sidered an essential feature of the museum, those 

 I devoted in the nesting season to temporary exhibits 

 indicating the materials of which nests are composed, 

 the adaptations of these structures to their surround- 

 ' ings, etc. The advisability of labels in children's 

 ; museums is, however, by no means universally ad- 

 mitted, for in a discussion on a children's room at the 

 Salford Museum, reported in the same issue, two 

 museum officials declared them to be unnecessarv-, and 

 liable to weary juvenile visitors. It was also ques- 

 tioned whether the chamber at Salford has any right 

 to its title, a strong point being made by one speaker 

 I to the effect that the height of exhibition-cases could. 

 j not possibly be made to suit both adults and children. 



I The latest issue of the Bulletin of Entomological 

 \ Research (vol. v., part 2, 1914) contains, in addition 

 I to several valuable systematic papers, a discussion by 

 Mr. R. W. Jack, the Government entomologist in South 

 Rhodesia, on the relation between tsetse-flies and 

 "big game" in that part of Africa. Reviewing the 

 I evidence, Mr. Jack is inclined to support the opinion 

 I that the tsetse either increases or decreases in num- 

 I bers, as the large ungulates are allowed either to 

 j increase under protective administration, or are freely 

 i shot or driven away. The restricted distribution of 

 the species of Glossina suggests that these insects are 

 "very delicately poised in the balance of nature," so 

 ; that a considerable reduction in the available food. 

 ' supply — such as would be brought about by the dis- 

 appearance of "big game" — might retard the rate of 

 multiplication ; for there is a " great expenditure of 

 : substance of the female in the comparatively slow 

 i process of reproduction." Were this reduction carried 

 : far enough, the tsetse might be unable to maintain 

 j its racial survival. 



j In the last number of the Journal of Genetics 

 (vol. iv.. No. 2, 1914) Dr. C. Dobell publishes an 

 interesting " Commentary on the Genetics of the 

 Ciliate Protozoa." Students who are not specialists in 

 the Infusoria can gather from this summary how far 

 the results obtained by W^oodruff and other recent 

 investigators have modified the conclusions drawn 

 from the famous researches of Maupas. Dr. Dobell's 

 general conclusions at the end of his commentary will 

 stimulate thought and provoke controversy. He 

 objects strongly to the application of the term "cell" 

 to an infusorian, which he insists should be compared 

 with a whole metazoan, as it is " non-cellular " rather 

 than "unicellular." Study of the Ciliates has con- 

 vinced him of "the formidable complexity of all bio- 

 logical problems as presented by the Protozoa. . . . 

 ; No new light has been thrown on the great problems 

 i of organic evolution. . . . The facts so far deter- 

 I mined could indeed be used with far greater force to 

 support the doctrine of the fixity of species." Bio- 

 ' logical thought just at present seems deeply shadowed 

 by an oppressive scepticism. 



In- a paper on the geology of Bermuda (Amer. 



I Journ. Sci.,voL xxxviii., 1914, p. 189) Prof. L. V. Pirsson 



concludes that the island is an ancient lava-cone that 



has been converted into a platform by marine erosion, 



