March 31, 189: 



NATURE 



517 



—which red seems indefinitely permanent if the wing be 

 removed and dried. It will be seen that, in the table of 

 yellows, several species are marked as showing the 

 " cyanide effect " ; whilst others are marked " no cyanide 

 effect." The former are those in which I have succeeded in 

 obtaining the reddening ; ^ the latter will not redden. Now, 

 since the former are all known to be pigmental yellows, 

 whilst one of the latter, viz. T. pronttba, is the doubtful 

 case, it seemed probable that this cyanide reaction might 

 take place always and only with pigments, and thus afford 

 the desired criterion. But in extending my experiments 

 this hope proved fallacious, for I found — as is noted in the 

 table — that various pigment yellows gave no reaction : the 

 typical case on which I relied was C. hera lutescens : had 

 this yellow, which is assuredly pigmental, although quite 

 insoluble, been reddened, I should have felt justified in 

 accepting the criterion. But not the slightest reaction 

 took place with this species. I must not linger longer on 

 this certainly fascinating subject : it is clearly one that 

 requires thoroughly working out, and my investigations 

 thereupon, are being carried on in several directions ; but 

 I may point out the great interest attaching to a reaction 

 by which we can produce a coloric change practically 

 identical (at least in its effects) with that which progres- 

 sive evolution has produced in many species formerly 

 yellow but now red. 



Before, however, quitting yellow, there are one or two 

 points yet that need explanation. In group 2 in the 

 table, I have included two species showing a rich orange 

 colour : this, though clearly marking a considerable pro- 

 gress in coloric evolution from the presumably primaeval 

 pale yellow, is yet exceedingly soluble: these instances, 

 which, therefore, are very comparable with the red of 

 Delias, are another proof that advance in depth and 

 richness of colour is not necessarily always accompanied 

 by decreasing solubility. I may add that I do not regard 

 the orange of these two species as being in the direct 

 line of evolution from yellow to red, but rather as a col- 

 lateral or branch line also springing from yellow.- It 

 is specially interesting that in this circumstance, as also 

 in so many others, there is an exact parallel among the 

 chestnuts. 



And lastly, among the phenomena of yellow, we have 

 to deal with the reaction of Argia galaihca, already 

 referred to ; a reaction in which, contrary to all other 

 experience, a white wing is changed to yellow by various 

 reagents. It is very evident that, since I deny the exist- 

 ence of any pigment in white wings, and assert the 

 yellow to have been developed in a previously unpig- 

 mented wing, and not by evolution from a white pigment, 

 it is all-important for me to clear up this matter. My 

 explanation, which has been given in some detail in the 

 Entomologist (xxiii., pp. 341-43), is — to be as brief as pos- 

 sible — the following. It is, of course, well known that the 

 pigments of both animals and plants are decomposition 

 products of the protoplasm, whether produced directly 

 by decomposition of the protoplasmic molecule, or in- 

 directly by union of two or more decomposition products. 

 Now, I take it that in this species — A. galathea — the 

 metabolic processes have not yet produced any pig- 

 ment, but very nearly so ; that there exists in the wing a 

 very unstable mother-substance (itself a decomposition 

 product, whether produced immediately from the proto- 

 plasmic molecule, or indirectly from a molecule of inter- 

 mediate complexity) ; and that the action of any powerful 

 reagent is to decompose this, forming the yellow pig- 

 ment ; which pigment, as soon as formed, commences to 1 

 dissolve in the reagent, as so many normal yellows do.' 



' I have also obtained it with Loxiira atyintius. It is very significant that 

 I have in n > case obtained it among the Heterocera (moths), but only among 

 the Rhopalocer.'i. Cp. infra, en chestnut. 



^ It is very interestinK that the orange of G. cleopatra first of all is 

 changed to the ground yellow, and then dissolved. 



3 1 may pint out that in the female of A. galathea there is already a 

 cream tint in the wings. 



NO. I I 70, VOL. 45] 



This view, although at present necessarily somewhat 

 hypothetical, appears to me to offer a satisfactory 

 explanation of the apparently anomalous behaviour of 

 galathea. ■ F. H. Perry Coste. 



( To be continued) 



NOTES. 

 Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace and Mr. Edward 

 Whymper are to receive the Royal Medals cf the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society at its annual meeting on May 23 next. The 

 annual dinner of the Society will be held on the evening of that 

 day after the annual meeting. The annual conversazione will 

 take place about the middle of June in the South Kensington 

 Museum. 



Mr. Charles Hose, Resident on the Baram River, in the 

 Rajahship of Sarawak, has recently explored that river to its 

 sources, and ascended Mount Dulit, one of the summits of the 

 main range which traverses this part of Borneo, to a height of 

 5000 feet. His zoological c jllections, which have been for- 

 warded to the British Museum, contain many fine novelties. 

 Among the mammals, which were described by Mr. Oldfield 

 Thomas at the last meeting of the Zoological Society, are re- 

 presentatives of a new Carnivore of the genus Hcmigale, two 

 new Insectivores of the genus Tupaia, and a new Squirrel. The 

 birds, which are being worked out by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe for 

 The Ibis, likewise contain several remarkable new forms, amongst 

 which is a new species of the restricted Eurylsemine genus 

 Calyptcmena, intermediate in size between C. viridis and the 

 la^^ge C. wkiteheadi of Mount Kina-balu. Mr. Hose is a 

 nephew of Dr. G. F. Hose, the Bishop of Singapore and 

 Labuan. 



Among the names attached to the recent protest of members 

 of the corporation and teaching staff of University College, 

 London, against the Gresham Charter, we notice the following 

 representatives of science and Fellows of the Royal Society : — 

 Sir F. Abel, Prof L B. Balfour, Sir Henry Bessemer, H. S. 

 Caxter, Sir J. N. Douglass, W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Prof. W. H. 

 Flower, Prof. E. Frankland, Dr. George Harley, R. B. Hay ward, 

 H. Hudleston, Prof. T. H. Huxley, Prof. E. Ray Lankester, 

 Prof. Norman Lockyer, Prof O. J. Lodge, Sir John Lubbock, 

 Prof. D. Oliver, Prof. J. Prestwich, Prof G. J. Romanes, Sir 

 Henry Roscoe, Prof. Burdon Sanderson, J. Wilson Swan, Prof. 

 Sylvester, E. B. Tylor, and Prof. VV. F. R. Weldon. The 

 protest contained equally influential names in the fields of 

 literature, art, and politics ; thus forming a document having 

 no small weight in the final decision of the Government regard- 

 ing this futile attempt to solve the problem of a Metropolitan 

 University. 



We regret to have to record the death of Sir William Bow- 

 man, F.R. S., the eminent ophthalmic surgeon. He died of 

 pneumonia at Joldwynds, his house near Dorking, on Tuesday 

 last. He was born on July 20, 1816. In 1840 he was elected 

 assistant surgeon at King's College Hospital, where he after- 

 wards became full surgeon. He was also for a time assistant 

 surgeon, and then full surgeon, at the Royal London Ophthal- 

 mic Hospital. He acted as the first president of the Ophthal- 

 mological Society of Great Britain, which he helped to found ; 

 and in 1884 he was created a baronet in recognition of his pro- 

 fessional eminence. Sir William was a master of the various 

 methods of ophthalmic surgery, and did much to improve them 

 and to place them on a sound scientific basis. He held a lead- 

 ing place among those who made accessible to English students 

 the knowledge obtained by the invention of the ophthalmoscope ; 

 and to him belongs the honour of having overcome the hostility 



