June 9, 1898] 



NATURE 



141 



when the living animal is at rest, nor why tlie larvae should not 

 penetrate the horn. I venture to assert as my own opinion, and 

 that of many sportsmen from whom I have made inquiries, 

 that the larvee does not feed on the horns of living animals ; 

 had this been the case, it would not have escaped the observ- 

 ation of some of our "mighty African hunters." Thus Dr. 

 Fitzgibbon's statement stands alone ; the question must, how- 

 ever, remain sub judice. 



The habitat of the moth was generally supposed to be Africa, 

 but Sir George Hampson showed me some specimens which he 

 had collected in various districts in India. 



I am indebted to Lord Walsingham, who kindly gave me some 

 very useful notes, he having himself written a few years ago on 

 ihe subject ; also to Mr. P. H. Miller for a very faithful sketch. 



W. H. McCOROUODALE. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — In connection with the Congress of Physiology 

 md the Congress of Zoology to be held in Cambridge towards 

 the end of August, the University proposes to confer the 

 honorary degree of Doctor of Science on the following dis- 

 tinguished foreign representatives. For Physiology : Prof. Bow- 

 ilitch, Harvard ; Prof. Golgi, Pavia ; Prof. Kronecker, Berne ; 

 Prof. Ktihne, Heiideberg ; and Prof. Marey, Paris. For 

 Zoology : Dr. Anton Dohrn, Naples ; Prof. Milne-Edwards, 

 Paris ; Prof. Haeckel, Jena ; Prof. Hubrecht, Utrecht ; and 

 I'rof. Kowalevsky, St. Petersburg. 



The annual report of the Museums Syndicate testifies to the 

 reat activity of the science departments and the ever-growing im- 



rtance and value of the collections acquired by the University. 

 Vumerous expeditions have left Cambridge to prosecute re- 

 --.irches in far distant lands, and have returned with important 

 and extensive trophies of their work. South America, through 

 Mr. Graham Kerr and Mr. Budgett, has yielded some fine 

 zoological series. The South Pacific fauna has been illustrated 

 by the spoils of Mr. Stanley Gardiner of the Funafuti expedi- 

 tion. Dr. Willey has brought unique contributions from New 

 Pjfitain ; and both he and Prof. Flinders Petrie have greatly 



niched the magnificent collection of crania under the charge 



Prof. Macalister. Other additions are due to Dr. Haddon 



Forres Straits), Sir W. L. Buller (Macquarrie Island), Prof. 



Wiltshire and Mr. H. H. W, Pearson (Ceylon), and many other 



workers and benefactors. 



Mr. Frank Morley, of King's College, the author of numerous 

 works and memoirs in pure mathematics, has been approved for 

 the degree of Sc.D. 



The complete list of matriculations for the year has now been 

 published. It appears that 931 students have joined the 

 University in 1898, as compared with 887 in the preceding 

 \-ear. 



Dr. Alex. Hill has been re-elected Vice-Chancellor for the 

 unsuing academical year. 



Mr. R. Pendlebury, and Mr. A. E, H. Love, F.R.S., Fellows 

 :i<l Lecturers of St. John's College, have been appointed 



niversity Lecturers in Mathematics. 



A University Lectureship in Chemical Physiology is to be 

 -tablished in connection with Prof. Foster's department, but 



c University is unable to assign any stipend to the post at 

 resent. The lecturer will be remunerated from the students' 



Hitherto the same persons have acted as examiners in 

 Anatomy and in Physiology respectively for the Natural Sciences 

 Tripos, Parts i. and ii., and for the Medical examinations. The 

 umber of candidates has increased so largely (it is now 310 in 

 liysiology, and 252 in anatomy) that the work involved is too 

 uch for one pair of examiners. It is accordingly proposed to 

 ivide the duty by appointing separate examiners for the Tripos 

 k1 for the M.B. examinations. 



Prof. E. B. Frost, of Dartmouth College, has been elected 

 irofessor of astrophysics at Yerkes Observatory; and Prof. 

 1 '. F. Nichols has been appointed professor of physics in Dart- 

 mouth College. 

 Mr. William Butler Duncan, of New York City, has 

 resented to Yale University the Hotel Majestic at New Haven, 

 be used as a dormitory, and to be called the Duncan 

 1 ormitory. 



NO. 1493, VOL. 58] 



In replying to questions referring to the Government measures 

 which it is intended to bring forward shortly, Mr. Balfour in- 

 formed the House of Commons on Monday that the Lord Presi- 

 dent of the Council would introduce, "in another place," a Bill 

 dealing with the organisation of secondary education, and he 

 hoped the London University Bill would be passed. 



About a year ago the Lords of the Committee of Council on 

 Education decided to make inquiries as to the number of pupils 

 in public and private secondary and other schools (not being 

 public elementary or technical schools) in England, and the 

 teaching staff in such schools. These schools are very various 

 in character, in constitution, and in size ; but, broadly speaking, 

 they furnish to the country what is known as secondary or inter- 

 mediate education in its different grades, and fill the gap between 

 the public elementary schools and the universities or university 

 colleges. They include schools in which educational efficiency 

 is at a minimum, and schools (unfortunately but a small propor- 

 tion) where rational methods of instruction are followed. The 

 results of the inquiries made through the Education Department 

 have just been published in a Blue book. The Return repre- 

 sents the first attempt which has been made in this country to 

 give a statistical survey of the schools in the great province of 

 national education which is intermediate between the public 

 elementary schools and institutions of academic rank or for 

 technical training. It shows the various forms of control and 

 ownership under which these schools are carried on, but, as they 

 do not come under any comprehensive system of inspection, no 

 pronouncement can be made as to their educational efficiency or 

 inefficiency. The number of pupils in the 6209 schools comprised 

 in the Return are 291,544; of these 158,502 are boys, and 133,042 

 are girls. Only 9 per cent, of the boys are more than sixteen years 

 of age, and 1 1 per cent, of the girls. As to the staff, 32 per cent, 

 of the boys' schools are without graduates on the attached staff,. 

 73 '8 per cent, of the girls' schools, and 81*3 per cent, of the 

 mixed schools. From this it will be seen that 61 "6 per cent, of 

 all the schools on the Return have only non-graduates on the 

 exclusively attached staff. Of course, this division into schools, 

 with graduates and without graduates on the staff only affords a 

 rough criterion as to the character of the instruction, for 

 graduates are not necessarily good teachers, nor are good teachers 

 necessarily graduates. It is, however, time that steps were taken 

 to insist upon all private schools giving public guarantees of their 

 educational efficiency. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Linnean Society, May 5.— Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., Pre- 

 sident, in the chair. — Dr. Bernard Renault and Prof. Max Carl 

 Wilhelm von Weber were elected Foreign Members of the 

 Society. — A paper was read by Sir John Lubbock, Bart, M.P., 

 F.R.S., on some Spitsbergen CoUembola. Owing to the well- 

 known tolerance of cold by insects belonging to this order, it 

 was, he thought, not surprising that several species should occur 

 in Spitsbergen. Eleven species of CoUembola had been found 

 in Greenland, as recorded by Meinert (Vidensk. Meddel., 1896, 

 pp. 167-173), and five species were already known from Spits- 

 bergen. He was now able to add two more, one of which was 

 new. This he proposed to call Isotoma spitsbergenensis. The 

 second species, Isotoma quadrtociilafa, had been previously met 

 with in Greenland. Both of these were obtained by Mr. 

 Trevor Battye during Sir Martin Conway's expedition to Spits- 

 bergen in 1896. — Miss Ethel Barton, by permission of the 

 President and Council, read a paper on the structure and de- 

 velopment of Soranthera, a genus of brown Algae (P/ueo/>/tyceie) 

 containing a single species, 5'. alvoidea. — Mr. J. T. Cunningham 

 read a paper dealing with the evolution of animal structure, and 

 entitled "The Species, the Sex, and the Individual." The 

 general conclusion arrived at by the author was that adaptation 

 was not produced indirectly by selection from indefinite yaria. 

 tions, but directly by the influence of stimulation in modifying 

 the growth of the parts or organs of the body. 



Geological Society, May 18.— W. Whitaker, F.R.S., Pre- 

 sident, in the chair. — The garnet-actinolite schists on the 

 southern side of the St. Gothard Pass, by Prof. T. G. Bonney, 

 F.R.S. The author described the field relations and the micro- 

 scopic structures of a group of schists or gneisses characterised 

 by the frequent presence of conspicuous garnets and actinolites^ 



