May 13, 1897] 



NA TURE 



35 



allowances hitherto given. This arrangement is to have a 

 letrospective efifect from the date on which he began work in 

 Bombay. 



The Committee of the Puffin Island Biological Station have 

 decided to offer facilities to students and others for the pursuit 

 tif scientific research at the station during the summer months. 

 The island is well situated for the study both of marine zoology 

 and ornithology, and the station is provided with sleeping 

 iccommodation in addition to the usual laboratories. Those 

 w ishing to avail themselves of the present opportunity should 

 communicate with the Director, Prof. P. J. White, University 

 College of North Wales, Bangor. 



At the annual meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 

 recently held, the Chairman was able to announce some im- 

 portant changes which have recently been made in the manage- 

 ment of this Society, which are calculated to bring its proceedings 

 more up to date. Hitherto, new members and associates have 

 been admitted on a kind of guarantee, signed by a certain number 

 of existing members, that the applicant is, by training and 

 experience, duly qualified to act as a Civil Engineer ; and al- 

 though in recent years the Council have taken steps to ascertain 

 that the candidate has been properly educated, no direct 

 examination has been required. In future, in addition to the 

 re(|uirements now in force, a test examination of the general and 

 cientific knowledge of candidates for election into the class of 

 associate members will be required. A further departure from 

 old customs, which has also recently taken place, is that members 

 can now vote for the annual election of the President and Council 

 by balloting papers, without personal attendance at the meetings, 

 as used formerly to be necessary. The roll of members of this 

 Institution now numbers 6204, and is constantly on the increase. 

 The last year's annual income amounted to 22,285/. ^ large 

 amount out of the capital funds belonging to the Society has 

 recently been expended on the new building in Great George 

 Street. 



We regret to announce the death, on the 7th inst., of Mr. 

 Abraham Dee Bartlett, the well-known resident Superintendent 

 of the Zoological Society's Gardens in the Regent's Park. 

 -Mr. Bartlett was born in London in 1812, and was formerly 

 in business as a dealer in natural history specimens. After a 

 >hort period of office as head of the Natural History Depart- 

 ment at the Crystal Palace when it was instituted, Mr. Bartlett 

 was appointed Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens in 1859, 

 shortly after Mr. Sclater became Secretary, and continued in 

 the efficient performance of his duties until about six weeks 

 before his decease. In his practical knowledge of living animals 

 Mr. Bartlett was unrivalled, especially as regards mammals and 

 birds. No one knew better than he whether an animal offered 

 for sale was sound or sick, or was a better judge of its value. 

 He was also an excellent observer of the habits and structure 

 if the animals under his charge, and communicated many 

 valuable papers to the Zoological Society's scientific meetings 

 on these subjects. One of the most remarkable of these was 

 that on the shedding of the horns by the Prongbuck {Antilocapra 

 amcricaua), published in 1865. Mr. Bartlett's discovery of this 

 curious phenomenon was at first discredited by the American 

 naturalists, but the fact is now universally admitted. 



The death is announced of Mr. Matthew Carey Lea, of 

 i'hiladelphia, at the age of seventy-four. Erom an obituary 

 notice in the American Journal of Science we derive the 

 following particulars of his work :— " Mr. Carey Lea was elected 

 a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1892, and 

 the list of his more important papers then published contained 

 fifty-four titles. These investigations for the most part related 

 to the chemistry of photography, and especially to the action of 

 NO. 1437, VOL. 56] 



light and other forms of energy upon silver salts. He described, 

 photo-bromide and photo-iodide of silver, and in 1887 published 

 I a paper on the * Identity of the photo-salts of silver with the 

 material of the latent photographic image.' His most remark- 

 able discovery, however, made in 1889, was that silver is cap- 

 able of existing in three allotropic states. The first is allotropic 

 silver proper, ' which is protean in its nature, may be soluble 

 or insoluble in water, may be yellow, red, blue or green, or may 

 have almost any colour, but in all its insoluble varieties always 

 exhibits plasticity ; that is, if brushed in a pasty state upon a 

 smooth surface, its particles dry in optical contact and with 

 brilliant metallic lustre. It is chemically active.' The second 

 is intermediate in character, may be yellow or green, always 

 shows metallic lustre, is never plastic, and is chemically 

 indifferent. The third is ordinary silver." 



With much regret we have to announce the death, on May 5, 

 of Mr. J. Theodore Bent, who had just returned from a journey, 

 with Mrs. Bent, in Sokotra, and in southern Arabia, in the 

 course of which they had made some remarkable discoveries. 

 Both had suffered from malarial fever, and Mr. Bent succumbed 

 to a subsequent attack of pneumonia. For twenty years Mr. 

 and Mrs. Bent spent a large part of each winter in travelling, 

 and their later journeys have been described in several books. 

 The more important were those in Greece and Asia Minor, in 

 the course of which Mr. Bent acquired remarkable facility in 

 modern Greek, and established his reputation as an archreologist ; 

 in the Bahrein Islands of the Persian Gulf ; in Mashonaland, 

 where he was the first to systematically study the wonderful 

 ruins of Zimbabwe ; in Abyssinia ; on the Red Sea coast of 

 Egypt ; and to Hadramut, in southern Arabia. A leading 

 object in the later journeys was to investigate the extension of 

 the Sabeans at the period of their prosperity as a trading nation. 

 Mr. Bent read many important papers to the Royal Geographical 

 Society, the British Association, and other Societies. His 

 unique collectionsof antiquities have been exhibited at the Royal 

 Society's conversaziones, and his gatherings from numerous 

 wanderings made his house a veritable museum. While his 

 death is a serious loss to archaeology and geography, the personal 

 sorrow which it occasions is greater than in the case of most 

 explorers. Mr. Bent had a very large circle of devoted friends, 

 which, with a frank kindliness peculiarly his own, he was ever 

 widening. The unaffected heartiness of his manner to all, and 

 his readiness to assist every one engaged in kindred studies, will 

 not soon be forgotten. Although he died at the age of forty- 

 five, Mr. Bent leaves behind him the memory of more kind 

 actions and helpful words than can be placed to the credit of 

 most men whose lives have ripened into old age. 



The new Ostrich-and-crane-house in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens has lately been completed, and is already fully tenanted. 

 The compartments on the south side accommodate all the 

 struthious birds, which have now for the first time been 

 brought together from different parts of the Gardens. The 

 most recent addition is a fine adult male of the Somali 

 ostrich (Strnthio molybdophanes), remarkable for the bluish 

 tinge of the naked parts, which in the Northern ostrich are 

 red. The sixteen compartments on the north side are occupied 

 by a fine series of cranes and storks. 



The anniversary meeting of the British Ornithologists' 

 Union was held in the Zoological Society's Offices, 3 Hanover 

 Square, on the 5th inst.; Mr. P. L. Sclater, E.R.S., in the 

 chair. The report of the Committee gave a very favourable 

 account of the Union's affairs, and of the progress of its journal, 

 the Ibis, which has now been carried on successfully for thirty- 

 eight years. Twenty-four new members were elected, raising 

 the strength of the Union to more than 300. For the ensuing 



