April io, 19 19] 



NATURE 



119 



enigma that, in spite of their very scanty equipment 

 nf obvious cerebral cortex, birds should display, in 

 their powers of tactile, visual, and acoustic discrimina- 

 tion, their associative memory, and their ability to 

 learn by individual experience', such outstanding' evi- 

 dence of functions which are intimately associated 

 in mammals with the activities of the cortex. The 

 .xplanation of this apparent discrepancy between the 

 morphology of the brain and the bird's aptitude to 

 I>rofit by experience is provided by the fact that a 

 j^reat part of the structure usually called " corpus 

 striatum " is cortical in origin and' in its fibre-con- 

 nections.— M. Christy : The ancient legend as to the 

 hedgehog carrying/ fruit upon its spines. This legend, 

 at least two thousand years old, had been repeated by- 

 most of the classical and medieval writers on natural 

 history, many of them adding to or improving upon 

 the original story. The author reviewed the forms in 

 which it had been presented, showing that the fruit 

 said to have been carried varied geographically. He 

 cited two instances which had come under his notice ; 

 both, though second-hand evidence, he believes to have 

 some foundation in fact. He concludes that the 

 liedgehog does eat fruit, and may occasionally inten- 

 tionally carry it on its spines. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, March 17.— M. Leon Guignard 

 in the chair. — J. Hadamard : Remark on the residual 

 integral.— C. Richet and G. Noizet : An unsinkable 

 garment, protecting against cold. The garment is 

 made of vulcanised cloth, similar to that used for 

 balloons, lined internally with a thickness of about 

 15 mm. of kapok. In an apparatus for saving life 

 at sea protection against cold is as important as pro- 

 tection against sinking. The garment made of the 

 above material has been successfully subjected to 

 actual tests ; as a safety apparatus it has one draw- 

 back : it takes ten minutes toput on unassisted, or three 

 minutes with assistance.— The Permanent Secretary 

 announced the death of Edmund Weiss, correspondant 

 of the Academy for the section of astronomy. — B. 

 Gambler: Surfaces applicable one on the other. — H. 

 Cramer : The zeros of the function \ (5).— M. 

 Petrovitch : Integral functions connected with the first 

 numbers. — V. Brun : The theorem of Goldbach. — E. 

 Cotton : The formula of Bernoulli.— C. Raveau : 

 Carnot's calculation of the mechanical equivalent of 

 heat. .An unpublished document. — C. Cheneveau and 

 R. Audubert : Absorption by turbid media. Influence 

 of the diameter and the number of the particles. 

 Lord Rayleigh's theorem is limited to the case in 

 which the suspended particles are small with respect 

 to the wave-length of the incident light. From ex- 

 perimental data a modified formula is proposed dealing 

 with the case of larger particles. — L. Abonnenc : The 

 laws of flow of liquids by drops in cylindrical tubes. 

 If D and d are the external and internal diameters 

 of the tube from which the drops are falling, T is the 

 surface tension of the liquid, t] its viscosity, p its 

 density, N the frequency of fall, m and n successive 

 powers of 2, then the weight of a drop p is given by 

 the formula 



/ = ATD + ;//B77N-«^pN2, 

 a 



where .A, B, and C are constants independent of the 

 liquid.— P. Nkolardot : The tempering of lead, tin, and 

 thallium. These three metals can be tempered. They 

 anneal themselves spontaneously at the ordinary tem- 

 perature, with a rapidity increasing with the tempera- 

 ture. — O. Bailly :• The action of alkyl iodides on neutral 

 sodium phosphate in aqueous solution. The reaction 

 takes place according to the equation 



PO(ONa), + RI = PO(ONa)= - OR+Nal, 

 NO. 2580, VOL. 103] 



the proportion of the phosphoric ether formed falling 

 from 73-5 per cent, for methyl iodide to 106 per cent, 

 for isobutyl iodide. — R. Dubnisson : The magnetic 

 anomalies of the Paris basin. — J. Ldvlne : The 

 periodicity of atmospheric waves. A curve of the 

 annual barometric minima for the period 1700 to 1919 

 shows a recurring period of about ninety-six years. — 

 H. Hubert : The prediction of squalls in western 

 Africa.— A. Trillat arid M. Fouassier : An apparatus 

 designed for the study of the formation and persist- 

 ence of fogs. — M. Dechevrens : The diurnal variation 

 of the vertical electric current of the earth in the air 

 (observations made at Jersey). — F. Vlis : Some optical 

 properties of bacterial emulsions. — G. Sanarelll : The 

 pathogeny of cholera. 



March 24. — M, Ldon Guignard in the chair. — \. 

 Rateau : Quantity of total motion and mean velocity 

 of a jet of gas emerging from a reservoir by a iuyere. 

 — A. Blondel : The conditions of stability of syn- 

 chronised alternators connected to a constant-pressure 

 network. — H. H. Hildebrandsson : Preliminary reflec- 

 tions on the general movements of the atmosphere. 

 From a studv of experimental data only, without 

 regard to anv existing theories, nine conclusions are 

 drawn of atmospheric movements, the most important 

 being that there is no evidence of a direct higher 

 current from the equator towards the poles, neither 

 is there a lower current in the opposite sense.— G. 

 Julia : .Some general properties of integral functions 

 related to Picard's theorem.— A. Petot : The analytical 

 theorv of hvdraulic turbines.— C. Rabut : Static syn- 

 thesis of constructions.— G. Guillaumin : Ram strokes 

 in pipes of variable diameter. — R. Ledoux-Lebard and 

 A. DauvUlier : The spectral structure of the J rays. 

 The spectrum of the J rays, discovered by Barkla and 

 White, should be verv simple, possibly one radiation 

 onlv. Boron appeared to be indicated as a suitable 

 source of these ravs, and experiments with this 

 material are described. No line of wave-length near 

 A = 0-41 A.U. could be detected.— H. Copaux : A method 

 of extracting glucina from beryl. The mineral is 

 heated to 850° C. with sodium fluosilicate, and the 

 fritted mass "extracted with boiling water. The greater 

 part of the silica and alumina remains undissolved.— 

 L. Benoist : .\ reaction and method for the estima- 

 tion of ozone. The method is based on the destruc- 

 tion of the dve fluorescein bv ozone, and can detect and 

 estimate quantities down to a millionth of a milli- 

 gram of ozone. — A. Guibhard : A new point of view in 

 metailo^enesis.— Ph. Glangeaud : The volcanic group, 

 Banne d'Ordanche, Puv-Loun, and Puy-Gros. of the 

 Monts Dore massif. \ remarkable volcanic and hvdro- 

 thermal fault.— G Reboul and L. Dunoyer : The 

 mutual actions of low and high barometric pressures. 



\. Baldit : Cold storms and their trajectories.— F. 

 Malgnoa : Studv of the mechanism of the action of 

 fats in the utilisation and assimilation of albu- 

 minoids. A theory is developed to explain the ex- 

 perimental lesults published in earlier communica- 

 tions. It is supposed that the amino-acids arising 

 from the nnrtinl di'festion of the albuminoids can re- 

 combine with fattv acids from the fats. This would 

 explain not onlv the increased assimilation, but also 

 the observed reduction in the toxic power of the 

 albuminoids.- T. L. Dantan : The orif*in of the sexual 

 cells in Parantipathes larix.—F. d'Hirelle : The r<Ve 

 ^f the filtering anti-bacterial micro-organism in tvphoid 

 fever. The study of twenty-eight cases of typhoid 

 fever has led to conclusions similar to those arrived 

 at for dvsenterv. Coincident with improvement in 

 the patient, there aptieared in the faeces a substance 

 nossessjnf a powerful bactericidal action upon the 

 tvphoid bacillus, which can only be attributed to an 

 antagonistic micro-organism. 



