192 



NATURE 



[May 3, 191 7 



the striking powers of regeneration and multiplication 

 by. transverse fission. It is suggested that Aciino- 

 trocha pallida, found at Heligoland and Wimereux, 

 is the larval form of Phoronis ovalis. 



The trustees of the British Museum have just issued 

 the fourth report on Cetacea stranded on the British 

 coasts. This is the work of Dr. S. F. Harmer, the 

 keeper of the department of zoology in the British 

 Museum (Natural History), and contains the records 

 for 1916. In his preface Dr. Harmer tells us that the 

 number of stranded Cetacea reported has continued to 

 be adversely affected by the war, but it has reached 

 twenty-nine, which is one more than in 1915. With the 

 exception of a Sowerby's whale, from Lincolnshire, all 

 the most interesting specimens have been obtained 

 from the western, or south-western, coasts of England, 

 Scotland, a!hd Ireland. The value of these reports is 

 beyond dispute, and it increases annually, since by 

 the accupiulation of such records an immense amount 

 of material will become available, both as to the 

 character of the Cetacean fauna of our seas and 

 in regard to the migrations of these animals. 

 Already it has become apparent that Cuvier's whale 

 (Xiphius cavirostris) is not, after all, a very rare 

 visitor to our seas, and what seems to be the first 

 record of a specimen of this species recorded from 

 the English coast is registered in this report. It was 

 stranded in June last, at Watergate, Cornwall. A 

 Sowerby's whale {Mesoplodon bidens) from Lincolrt- 

 shire, a white-sided dolphin {Lagenorhynchus acutus) 

 from Co. Mayo, and a young sperm whale (Physeter 

 catodon), with uncut teeth — apparently a "sucker" — 

 from Co. Galway, are other subjects of importance in 

 this report. Finally, mention must be made of the 

 stranding of a huge grampus, Orca orca, in the Sol- 

 way Firth . in May last. The flippers of this animal 

 were of enormous size, and have been secured for the 

 museum, where they have been dissected and casts, for 

 exhibition purposes, have been made from them. They 

 show many surprising structural peculiarities, which 

 are to be described in detail in the near. future. 



Mr. W. Bickerton, in the Transactions of the Hert- 

 fordshire Natural History Society (vol. xvi., part iii.), 

 records some interesting facts about the feeding habits 

 of the greater and lesser spotted woodpeckers, which, 

 during the months of December, January, and Feb- 

 ruary, haunt osier-beds for the sake of feeding on 

 the larvae of some pmall fly which lives in burrows 

 in the stems of willow twigs. To obtain these the 

 bark is stripped from the twigs, enabling the larva 

 to be extracted by the invader's tongue. So far the 

 species to which this larva belongs is not known, but 

 the authorities of the British Museum (Natural 

 History) are said to be investigating the matter,, from 

 materials supplied by Mr. Bickerton. He believes 

 that in this habit of bark-stripping we have an indica- 

 tion of the significance of the extreme density of the 

 horny sheath of the woodpecker's beak. That is to 

 say, this is not due in the first place to the needs of 

 hewing tunnels through sound wood to secure a 

 nesting-hole in hollow trees. Two other papers in 

 this number will repay careful perusal. One of these 

 is on the "Hertfordshire Bourne in 1916," by Mr. 

 John Hopkinson, the other on the " Satyrid Butter- 

 flies of Hertfordshire," by Mr. A. E. Gibbs. 



The Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club, with the 

 assistance of the Rev. H. I. Riddelsdell, is making 

 good progress in the collection of material for the 

 compilation of the flora o,f Gloucestershire. As an 

 instance of the new material collected up to the present, 

 it may be noted that the chairman of the committee, 

 the Rev. Walter Butt, announces, in vol. xix., part ii. 



NO. 2479, VOL. 99] 



of the Proceedings, that a collection of violets from the 

 county was sent to Mrs. Gregory, of Cambridge, the 

 leading authority on this flower, with the result that 

 twelve new varieties were established for Gloucester- 

 shire, including, it is believed, Viola rupestris, Schmidt, 

 the rarest violet in Great Britain, hitherto found only 

 in Teesdale. . Mr. Charles Bailey, who has recently 

 presented his splendid herbarium to the Manchester 

 University, has examined the list and describes it as 

 "amazing." 



The Danish Meteorological Institute has published 

 its annual survey of the state of the ice in Arctic seas 

 for 1916. The publication, as usual, is in both Danish 

 and English, and is supplied with charts for every 

 month from April until August. No observations for 

 the year were received from the Bering Sea, Beaufort 

 Sea, north of Siberia, or Hudson Bay. Information 

 is also wanting for 'he Kara Sea, despite the fact that 

 a British steamer crossed it last summer. The ab- 

 normal conditions of the Spitsbergen ice, already noted 

 in Nature, were closely related with the conditions in 

 the Barents Sea. After an abnormal westward exten- 

 sion of the ice, the pack receded in April almost to 

 the coast of Novaya Zemlya, but advanced again in 

 May and June. Even in June there was ice in the 

 White Sea, and it was not until August that the 

 Barents Sea was clear of ice to Nova Zembla and 

 Hope Island. On the other hand, Iceland was un- 

 usually free of ice throughout the year, except during 

 June and July. The Danish Meteorological Institute 

 has also issued, as a separate publication, a useful 

 summary of the ice conditions for the last twenty-one 

 years in the Kara, Barents, Greenland, and Bering 

 Seas, Davis Strait, and Baffin Bay. Charts are in- 

 cluded for the months from April to August, showing 

 the average limits, together with the maximum and 

 minimum limits of the ice, and tables are given of 

 the rre-covered area in the Barents and Greenland Seas 

 for each of those months throughout the series of 

 years. 



According to a paper published in the Bulletin des 

 usines de guerre, the change in volume produced by 

 hardening (quenching) steel is small if the hardening 

 temperature is kept below a certain limit. Hardening 

 in oil gives less variation in volume than harden- 

 ing in water. Special metals, such as nickel- 

 steel, show less diminution in volume than the 

 carbon-steels. Eutectic steels "crack" more frequently 

 than carbon-steels, which latter undergo considerable 

 changes of volume. Finally, from experiments 

 carried out, in flat "ieces the tension is distributed 

 uniformly in every direction, while in C3lindrically 

 shaped pieces the ends contract and become hollow, 

 the piece bellying out. 



Dr. John Aitkex's well-known papers on "Dust, 

 Fogs, and Clouds " and on " Dew," originally pub- 

 lished in the Transactions of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh (1880, 1887), have been re-issued as one 

 pamphlet by the council of the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh. The steady demand by the scientific world for 

 copies of these papers having almost exhausted the 

 parts of the Transactions in which they were pub- 

 lished, the council felt it a duty to reprint them to- 

 gether as one pamphlet with the original paging. 

 The importance of these papers has long been recog- 

 nised by all workers in meteorology. They form 

 together a pamphlet of ninety quarto pages, and copies 

 inay be obtained through the society's publishers, 

 Messrs. Robert Grant and Son, 107 Princes Street, 

 Edinburgh, and Messrs. Williams and Norgate, 14 

 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C.2, at 

 a cost of 75. 6d. 



