June 28, 1900] 



NA TURE 



201 



In the June number of the Zoologist, Mr. A. H. Meiklejohn 

 raises the question as to the manner in which the cuckoo carries 

 her egg when about to deposit it in the nest of the bird selected 

 to act as foster-mother. It is commonly supposed that the egg 

 is carried in the beak, and in Prof. Newton's edition of " Yar- 

 rell " several instances are quoted where observers state they 

 have actually seen the modus operandi. Mr. Meiklejohn, who 

 was fortunate enough to observe a cuckoo in the act of deposit- 

 ing its egg in a robin's nest, is, however, of opinion that the 

 throat of the bird serves as the receptacle fur the egg. He states 

 that (i) the cuckoo was constantly opening her mouth during a 

 preliminary encounter with the robins ; (2) that the egg was cer- 

 tainly not laid in the ordinary way in the nest ; (3) that the egg 

 itself was slightly moist and sticky ; (4) that the throat of the bird 

 presented a slightly distended appearance, which might well 

 have been due to the presence of the egg. It will be interesting 

 to note what his fellow-ornithologists think of the auth ir's 

 e.xplanation of the mystery. 



I.\ American laboratories it appears that the place of the com- 

 mon frog is largely taken by the furrowed salamander {Necturus 

 maculattts), which forms the general subject for anatomical in- 

 vestigation. Mr. W, S. Miller, assistant professor of anatomy 

 in the Wisconsin laboratory, has accordingly undertaken to 

 describe in detail the anatomy of this amphibian, and papers on 

 its lungs, vascular system and brain appear in the latest issue of 

 the Bulletin of the University. The author calls attention to 

 the great amount of individual variation which occurs in the 

 vascular system of Necturus. 



In a communication to the latest issue of the Proceedings of 

 the Philadelphia Academy, Mr. Witmer Stone shows that the 

 various species of eider-duck, as well as the red-breasted mer- 

 ganser, have a " summer moulting plumage" analogous to that 

 assumed by the mallard after the breeding season. As in the 

 last-named species, this plumage lasts only during the time 

 when the birds are unable to fly, owing to the shedding of their 

 flight feathers, and its dull coloration is doubtless for the pur- 

 pose of rendering them as inconspicuous as possible during this 

 period. The author calls attention to the circumstance that 

 the feathers of this temporary dress, like those of the first 

 plumage of all birds, are very inferior in their structure. The 

 moulting plumage of the king-eider has hitherto been considered 

 as the ordinary dress of immature birds. 



In a paper on mosquitoes, by Mr. W. R. Colledge, which 

 appears in vol. xv. of the P, oceedings of the Royal Society of 

 Queensland, the author states that he has succeeded in keeping 

 one of these insects alive for three weeks, and that Dr. J. Ban- 

 croft has had some in captivity for eighty or ninety days. 

 Probably their ordinary full term of existence is three months. 

 In cases where the application of kerosene is inconvenient, the 

 introduction of a few minnows into the ponds or pools in which 

 they breed will speedily lead to the destruction of the larvce and 

 pupae. 



The origin and formation o. the Red Sea are discussed 

 in a brief article by M. A. Issel {Bull. Soc. Beige de Geol., 

 tome xiii. April). Following Suess, he considers that the 

 lacustrine conditions of the Arabic depression (" Lacus 

 Arabicus ") were probably determined in late Miocene times. 

 He maintains that then, or early in Pliocene times, the Nile, a 

 mightier river than it now is, emptied its waters directly into 

 the great lake, the outlet being an immense waterfall. Even in 

 post-Pliocene times the Nile continued to send a portion of its 

 waters into the Red Sea, although it had meanwhile formed 

 new outlets into the Mediterranean area. Traces of this former 

 fluviatile connection are furnished in the actual faunas of the two 

 NO. 1600, VOL. 62] 



seas. The opening of the Straits of Bab-el- Mandeb was caused 

 after a period of volcanic activity, the eruptions being succeeded 

 by subsidence and by erosion of the barrier which separated 

 the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. It is remarked that the 

 opening of the Suez Canal has sensibly affected the distribution 

 of some forms of life. 



In a paper on the fruiting of the blue flag, or Iris, published 

 in the May number of the American Naturalist, Prof. J. G. 

 Needham shows that, in addition to the bees by which they are 

 fertilised, the flowers of this plant are visited by a number of 

 insects of other kinds. The visits of these latter appear for the 

 most part to have been hitherto noticed ; and as many of these 

 illicit visitors are of no use for the purpose of fertilisation, the ill- 

 adapted ones are, according to the author, habitually deceived 

 by the flower itself as to its proper entrance. Of the various 

 visitors, two small bees of the genera Clisodon and Osmia were 

 thoroughly at home in the flower, alighting at the entrance and 

 passing immediately down the narrow passage leading into the 

 nectary, and as quickly emerging and flying off". On the other 

 hand, numerous kinds of Syrphid flies spent a much longer time 

 on the flower, which many of them visited only for pollen. 

 Other visitors were certain small flower-beetles and weevils, 

 which never by any chance succeeded in reaching the nectary. 



Two interesting lectures by Prof. D. T. MacDougal, delivered 

 at the Woods Holl Marine Biological Laboratory, are reprinted 

 hom the Bulletin of the New York Bjtanic Garden. In his 

 address on the "Significance of Mycorhizas" a general sum- 

 mary is given of our present knowledge of the occurrence of 

 these organisms, both endotropic and ectotropic. All known 

 species of mycorhizal fungi are stated to belong to the families 

 Oomycetes, Pyrenomycetes, Hymenomycetes, and Gasteromy- 

 cetes ; and it is suggested that their further study and identification 

 may result in a considerable increase in our knowledge of the 

 physiology of vegetable life ; and that their culture may not be 

 without importance in the nutrition of a number of perennial 

 flowering plants. The lecture on the "Influence of inversions 

 of temperature, ascending and descending currents of air, upon 

 distribution " is devoted to an explanation of the distribution of 

 the flora in the United States, especially in the region of the 

 great cafions. 



Appendix III. tor 1900 of the /Tew Bulletin of Miscellaneous 

 Information is entirely occupied with a list of the additions to 

 the Library of the Royal Botanic Gardens, made during the 

 year 1899 



The West Indian Bulletin, vol. i. No. 3, published in 

 Barbados, contains the completion of the report on the papers 

 read at the Agricultural Conference held in that island, and 01 

 the discussions arising out of them. 



The last two parts which have reached us of Engler's 

 Botamsche Jahrbucher (vol. xxviii. Hefts I and 3) are occupied 

 entirely with the useful description and systematic papers which 

 form so conspicuous a character of the work. Among those re- 

 lating to flowering plants are the following, or instalments of 

 them : — Compositae of Ecuador, by Hieronymus ; The flora of 

 Central America, by Loesener ; Classification of the Caly- 

 ceraceae, by Reiche ; Revision of the genus Linnaea^ by 

 Graebner ; African Verbenacese, Borragineae, and Labiatae, by 

 Giirke ; Triplochiton, a new genus of Malvales from the 

 Cameroons, constituting the type of a new family, Triplo- 

 chitonaceffi, by Schumann ; Report of the botanical results of 

 the Nyassa Lake Expedition, by the Editor. Herr Hennings 

 and Dietel furnish respectively instalments of their papers on 

 the Fungi and on the Uredineae of Japan. 



