May io, 1900] 



NATURE 



ZS 



in the Journal of the New York Botanic Garden for April : — 

 Columbia University, New York, has instituted a summer session, 

 beginning July 2 and ending August 10. The department of 

 botany will be under the charge of Prof. Lloyd, who will offer 

 courses in ecology, general botany, and research work in select 

 subjects. Students in these courses will have access to the 

 museum and collections of the Botanic Garden. The Woods 

 Holl Laboratories will be open from July 5 to August 16, and 

 the botanical staff includes Dr. B. M. Davis, Mr. G. T. 

 Moore, Dr. R. H. True, Miss Rhoda A. Esten, and Miss 

 Lillian G. MacRae. Courses in cryptogamic botany, plant 

 physiology, and plant cytology will be offered. The biological 

 laboratory at Cold Spring Harbour will be open from July 2 

 to August 25, the botanical staff including Dr. D. S. Johnson, 

 Dr. H. C. Cowles, and Mr. W. C. Coker. Courses of lectures 

 •will be offered in cryptogamic botany, ecology, and bacteriology. 



The Annual Summary of the U.S. Monthly Weather Review 

 for 1899 contains a very interesting account of the climate of 

 St. Christopher, by Mr. W, B. Alexander. The island lies in 

 latitude 17° 20' N. and longitude 65° 45' W. ; its length is 23 

 miles, and the breadth of the main body is about 5 miles. The 

 central part is occupied by a range of mountains, the highest of 

 which, Mount Misery, rises to a height of about 4100 feet. 

 Tables and diagrams are given showing the barometric pressure 

 for 35 years, and the rainfall for 44 years at Basseterre, which is 

 situated in a spacious and fertile valley. The climate, generally 

 speaking, is dry and healthy, being tempered and purified by 

 frequent thunderstorms. The mornings and evenings of the 

 hottest days, which occur in August, are agreeably cool ; the 

 coldest months are January and February. The mean annual 

 temperature is about 81^, of August, 83% and February, 78°. 

 The mean annual rainfall is about 51 "6 inches ; 37 per cent, of 

 the amount occurs during the first half of the year, and 63 per 

 cent, during the last half The rainfall is more frequent than 

 heavy ; it has only reached or exceeded 5 inches in 24 hours 

 eleven times in 44 years. 



In the Proceedings of the South African Philosophical Society, 

 vol. xi., Mr. J. R. Sutton publishes an important discussion of 

 the winds of Kimberley. The results are obtained from three 

 years' hourly observations with Oiler and Robinson anemo- 

 meters. The period is admittedly short ; but the excellence of 

 the position and the scarcity of hourly observations in South 

 Africa are quoted as reasons for not delaying the^appearance of the 

 paper. The observatory is situated at Kenilworth, about three 

 miles N.N.E. of Kimberley, at an altitude of nearly 40CXD feet. 

 It has been supposed that there was an overwhelming excess of 

 northerly winds, and theories have been propounded why this 

 is the case ; but the conclusion to be drawn from the paper is 

 that while sometimes one and sometimes another direction may 

 preponderate from year to year, a definite prevailing wind does 

 not exist. Of the 25,898 hours of wind analysed throughout 

 the three years, the final resultant contains the small components 

 of only 50 hours to the north and 100 hours to the west. The 

 diurnal curve of wind velocity contains two maxima (2h. p.m. 

 and loh. 45m. p.m.) and two minima (5h. a.m. and 7h. 30m. 

 p.m.). The mean hourly velocity is 6 •6 miles per hour. 



An interesting illustration of Doppler's principle is noted by 

 Prof. F. Richarz, of Greifswald. The writer was standing by 

 the Brenner Pass near a curve where a railway train was 

 approaching him, the line being backed by a wall of mountain. 

 On the engine giving a short whistle, an echo was heard, the 

 pilch of which was at least half a tone lower than the original 

 sound. 



The American Museum of Natural History, New York, as 

 we learn from a note recently published by Mr. J. A. Allen, 

 has recently obtained a specimen of the head of the wood-bison 

 NO. 1593, VOL. 62J 



(Bison americanus athabascae), which is still in existence in the- 

 forests near Great Slave Lake. Compared with the bison of 

 the plains (now extinct in a wild state) the woodland bison is 

 stated to be rather larger than the former, and to have the 

 bases of the horn-cores relatively thicker. In 1894 the herd of 

 wood-bisons in the Great Slave Lake district was estimated to 

 be some hundreds in number, but in 1899 it was reduced to 

 about fifty. A very few years more will probably witness the 

 complete extinction of this animal. 



At a recent meeting of the Geographical Society of France, 

 the well-known naturalist, M. Grandidier, the author of the 

 great work upon the natural history of Madagascar, gave an^ 

 account of his last expedition to that Island, in 1898-99^ 

 M. Grandidier landed at Tulear, on the south-western coast of 

 the Island, and thence made an adventurous journey through 

 the interior to Fianarantsoa, in the Betsileo country, in the south- 

 eastern district. M. Grandidier on his way visited the well- 

 known deposits of Ambolisatra, about 35 kilometres north of 

 Tulear, where numberless fragments of Aepyornis, and almost 

 entire skeletons of the small Madagascar hippopotamus, besides 

 remains of many lemurs of gigantic size and other extinct 

 animals were obtained. From Fianarantsoa, M. Grandidier 

 proceeded north through awellknowncountry to Antananarivo, 

 the capital of the Island. 



As in the case of other larger mammals, the process of 

 dividing the giraffe {Giraffa camelopardalis) into " sub-species" 

 is now proceeding apace. Mr. de Winton (P.Z.S. 1897, 

 p. 273) first showed, on good grounds, that the giraffe of South 

 Africa was, in certain points of structure, different from the 

 giraffe of the Sahara and Nubia, and proposed to call the former 

 Giraffa capensis, leaving the old name Giraffa camelopardalis 

 for the northern form. Since then, Mr. O. Thomas (P.Z.S. 

 1898, p. 40) has separated the giraffe of Upper Nigeria from 

 the northern form under the title Giraffa camelopardalis peralta. 

 Still more recently, Herr Matschie, of Berlin (Sitzb. ges. Nat. 

 Fr. Berlin, 1898, p. 75), has added two new names to the list 

 of giraffes, and called them after their discoverers, G. tippels- 

 kirchi and G. schillingsi, the former being from German East 

 Africa, and the latter from British East Africa. It is curious 

 that these two closely adjoining districts should not agree even 

 in having the same form of giraffe ! 



The Quart. Journ. Micr. Science for April contains an account 

 by Monsieur P. Bouvier of the results of his examination of the 

 specimens of the primitive Arthropods, commonly known as 

 Peripatus, in the collection of the British Museum. The author, 

 who adopts the generic divisions proposed by Mr. Pocock, 

 names one new Andean form after the Director of the Museum, 

 and shows that, with the exception of one from the Congo and 

 a second from Sumatra, all the representatives of the typical 

 genus Peripaliis are American. To the same journal Mr. E. 

 Warren communicates a paper on the individual differences 

 exhibited by one of the water-fleas (Daphnia magna)\n its power 

 of withstanding the introduction of salt into the water in which 

 it lives. The physiological condition of the individual is found 

 to have a great effect on it salt-resisting powers. 



In the last issue of the Zeitschr. IViss. Zool., Dr. R. Gast 

 relates the life-history of a rotifer of the genus Apsilus, speci- 

 mens of which were recently found in an aquarium at Leipzig. 

 This paper is followed by one on the development of a spjnge 

 of the group Sycones by Dr. O. Maas, which is worthy of 

 special notice on account of the beauty of the illustrations. 



Mention has already been made in these columns of the descrip- 

 tion in the Notes from the Leyden Museum of the crustaceans 

 collected during the Dutch Expedition to Central Borneo. In 

 the March issue of the same serial this is followed by an account 



