45'> 



NATURE 



[January i, 1920 



bacterioloijists in a technical rather than a micro- 

 scopical sense. 



A discussion took place on the report of the Fuel 

 Economy Committee. .'\t nearly every recent meeting 

 of the association a somewhat similar discussion has 

 taken place, and though fuel economy is far more 

 imperative now than it has ever been, and is most 

 unpleasantly brought home to all of us by our local 

 Coal Controllers, it cannot be said that the discussions 

 have been very constructive. They range over a wide 

 field, they are disjointed, and while each speaker's 

 communication is of value in itself, the discussion as 

 a whole somehow seems unreal and almost futile. One 

 wishes that the committee round the report of which 

 the discussion centres were able to present definite 

 propositions which, if approved after due discussion, 

 could be sent through the council of the association 

 to the Government Department, or whomever else 

 they concerned. They would be received with more 

 of the importance due to them if they came from the 

 British .\ssociation as a whole. Fuel economv, how- 

 ever, is so vast a subject that probably the com- 

 mittee has scarcely had time vet to distil the essence 

 from the great quantity of valuable materia! it is' 

 collecting. 



Prof. E. C. C. Baly, Prof. .\. Lapworth, and 

 Prof. R. Robinson wound up the meeting with 

 three papers on "oure chemistrv of great interest, 

 since they all dealt with the mechanism of chemical 

 reaction. In these papers the writers discussed the 

 molecular and other aspects of chemical reactivitv. 

 It is refreshing to find that the great demands of 

 war on the genius of chemists has not smothered the 

 efforts of those who seek to probe deep into the verv 

 fundamentals of the science. 



Mention must be made of a verv enjovable and 

 interesting excursion to the Naval Cordite Factorv at 

 Holton Heath. By kind invitation of the super- 

 intendent. Capt. Desborough, eighty members of the 

 Section were shown all over the factorv, which in its 

 completeness is second to none. 



In conclusion, it should be stated that the meetings 

 of the Section were very well attended, and more 

 enthusiasm was shown than for manv vears past. 



ZOOl.OGY AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 

 CECTION D attracted a representative gathering 

 •^ of zoologists, and the papers were the subject of 

 much interesting discussion. The following is a sum- 

 mary of the proceedings of the Section : — 



Mr. E. S. (Joodrich, in a paper on phagocvtosis and 

 protozoa, stated that phagocytosis of living protozoa 

 had rarely been observed in vertebrates. Invertebrates 

 deal more successfully with protozoal parasites ; the 

 leucocytes cling together, surround and finally smother 

 a parasite. This power of aggregation appears to be 

 due to the fact that the floating leucocytes are 

 provided, not with outstanding pseudopodia, but with 

 delicate films of protoplasm readv to spread over any 

 foreign substance. It is the optical sections of these 

 folded films which are usually iiguri'd as pseudopodia. 



Mr. E. Heron-.'Mlen, for Mr. Earland and himself, 

 directed attention at a joint meeting of .Sections D 

 and K (Botany) to some hitherto unemphasised modi- 

 fications of growth in the life-history of Foraminifera. 

 He exhibited slides showing the modifications brought 

 about by the cultivation of Foraminifera in hvpertonic 

 sea-water, the affinity of certain genera for gems as 

 building material, and the power of selection of 

 material exercised by certain species. 



Dr. A. C. Coles e.xhibited photomicrographs of 



NO. 2618, VOL. 104] 



Leptospira icterohaeniorrhagiae — the organism of in- 

 fective jaundice in man — from the kidney of local rats. 

 Mr. A. T. Watson gave further details on the tube- 

 building operations of the Polychaete worm, Per.tinaria 

 koreni. 



Prof. E. VV. MacBride described some further ex- 

 periments on the artificial production of Echinus larvse 

 with a double hydrocoele. He stated that the optimum 

 result was obtained when larvae three days old were 

 transferred from normal to hypertonic sea-water for 

 a week or ten days and then' put back into normal 

 .sea-water, and he offered a tentative explanation. 



Prof. G. H. F. Nuttall gave a lecture on " Lice 

 and their Relation to Disease." Commencing with 

 the biology of Pediculus liitmanus, of which there are 

 two races — capitis, the head-louse, and corporis, the 

 body-louse—Prof. Nuttall described the mode of ovi. 

 position, the development, hatching, moulting, feed- 

 ing, etc. The female lays 150 to 300 eggs, and under 

 favourable conditions the life-cycle from egg to egg 

 is completed in sixteen to seventeen davs. Under 

 e.xperimental conditions dark or pale lice can be reared 

 at will according as they are raised on dark or light 

 backgrounds respectively. Hermaphrodites in large 

 number have been obtained by crossing the two races 

 capitis and corporis. .After pointing out that lice 

 transmit relapsing, typhus, and trench fevers. Prof. 

 Nuttall described some of the methods of control on a 

 large scale, e.g. hot-air disinfestors (Orr's huts) and 

 railway vans into which steam from a locomotive was 

 introduced under pressure. 



Dr. E. Hindle traced the historv of isolated pairs 

 of body-lice and of their offspring raised through five 

 generations. Out of sixty families, twentv-four were 

 mixed (composed of males and females), nineteen 

 were female, thirteen male, and four crosses were 

 sterile. The lice were all fed on the same individual 

 and under similar conditions, and no explanation of 

 the occurrence of the three sorts of families could be 

 discovered. The proportion of females to males in the 

 total number of adults raised to maturitv agreed 

 almost exactly with that occurring in Nature— 60 per 

 cent, females and 40 per cent, males. 



Dr. M. C. Grabham gave an account of the .Argen- 

 tine ant (Iridot)iermyx humilis) in Madeira. The ant 

 was introduced twentv-seven years ago. but was onlv 

 identified three years later, when it had become firmlv 

 established. Coffee cultivation has been ruined and 

 every sort of fruit-tree — cifrus especiallv — which would 

 support coccus or aphis has been almost entirelv 

 destroyed. Sugar-cane and bananas still exist, though 

 badly attacked, but sweet potatoes have disappeared 

 in many districts. .\ttention was directed to the 

 methods of the ant in searching for food, and to the 

 harmony in working, there being a singular absence 

 of fighting when separate communities meet. The 

 ant has few enemies, e.g. spiders and Pholcus. A 

 covering of powdered chalk on the basal part of the 

 trunk of a tree is a deterrent to the ant, and banding 

 the trees with rags soaked in corrosive sublimate has 

 also been found effective. Dr. Grabham su.«.<<ested 

 that our Colonies should be warned as to the 'mport- 

 ance of this pest. 



Prof. Dendy delivered a lecture on "Grain-pests 

 and the Storage of Wheat," for the main points of 

 which the reader is referred to Natirk for March 20 

 last, p. 55. 



Before a joint meeting of Sections C (Geologv) and 

 D, Mr. C. Tate Regan spoke on the distribution of fresh- 

 water fishes, with special reference to the past historv 

 of continents. He dealt particularlv with the Ostario- 

 physi — the dominant group of fresh-water fishes — and 

 took the view that they originated in Gondwana Land 

 in Cretaceous times, and that .Vustralia and Mada- 



