July 9, 1891] 



NATURE 



223 



I quite agree with Mr. Dyer that it is little short of monstrous 

 for the Government to set up in London two such organizations 

 as Burlington Gardens and the federal Albert ; there is the 

 strongest reason for insisting that there shall be only one of them, 

 whether Convocation likes it or not. 



Meanwhile, we are no nearer than we were seven years ago 

 to the formation in London of a Senatus Academicus which shall 

 retain in the metropolis — in contact with its statesmen, lawyers, 

 physicians, authors, and the intelligent men and women of wealth 

 and leisure— the strongest and best of our scholars, historians, 

 physicists, and biologists. Is it well that the President of the Royal 

 Society of London should have to travel from Glasgow to the 

 meetings of that body ? that its senior Secretary should spend 

 his life in Cambridge ? and that there is absolutely no professor- 

 ship in the metropolitan area which can, by virtue of its dignity 

 or its pecuniary value, entice men from the seclusion of provincial 

 Universities ? The draft charter of the Albert University does 

 not even attempt to supply such a want. It actually makes 

 the London professor more a creature of competition and the 

 servant of red-tape officialism than he is at this moment. 



E. Ray Lankester. 



Mr. Thiselton Dyer has done good service in pointing 

 out the nature of the proposed Albert University, which, 

 unfortunately, seems not unlikely to be the result of the dis- 

 cussions that have been going on for the last six or eight 

 years with respect to a "Teaching University for London." 

 Should the charter petitioned for by the Councils of University 

 and King's Colleges be granted, it will not constitute a teaching 

 University in any real sense, but, as Mr. Thiselton Dyer says, an 

 institution very similar to what the present University of London 

 was as constituted by the original charter of 1837. There are, 

 of course, differences of organization and machinery, such as the 

 institution of Assemblies of Faculties and Boards of Studies 

 (which the existing University might institute next week, if it 

 saw fit), but there is little or nothing that can be looked upon as 

 a difference of principle. The nearest approach to this are the 

 provisions : (i) that the Colleges whose students are to be eligible 

 as candidates for degrees shall have a certain amount of repre- 

 sentation on the governing body of the University ; (2) that the 

 claim of additional Colleges to enter the University shall be 

 decided by the governing body of the University, subject to 

 appeal to the Queen in Council (instead of, as in the charter of 

 1837, being decided on directly by the Crown); (3) that "the 

 University may appoint lecturers independeatly of a C allege or 

 medical school to give instruction in any subject, whether it be 

 or be not included in a Faculty." 



With the exception of this last provision, slipnei in at the end 

 of Section V., '■'University Degrees and Certificates,^' as though 

 modestly shunning the notice that a separate heading might call 

 to it, there is no allusion from beginning to end of the draft 

 charter to any teaching to be done by or through the University 

 as such. If it comes into existence, it will- be a mere examining 

 Univer^ity over again. Such a scheme can go no appreciable 

 way towards remedying the existing defects of University or- 

 ganization in London. It is not easy to see what public 

 advantages are likely to result from it. Seeing that it is put 

 forward as representing the views of University College, London, 

 it does not seem irrelevant to the present stage of the discussion 

 to say that the scheme of the Albert University has never been 

 submitted to a general meeting of the Governors of the College. 



University College, London. G. Carey Foster. 



The Draper Catalogue. 



On p. 133 of the current volume of Nature (June 11) Mr. 

 Espin gives a comparison of the Draper Catalogue of Stellar 

 Spectra with the catalogues of Vogel and Duner. Vol. xxvi. of 

 the Harvard Annals, of which the fir-t part will be distributed 

 in a few days, discusses at length the deviations from Vogel and 

 also from the similar catalogue of Konkoly. A second examina- 

 tion was made on photographic plates having a long exposure of 

 those stars which appeared discordant. Since spectra of the 

 first type pass by insensible degrees into the second, and these 

 in turn into the third, no two observers would agree on the exact 

 points of distinction. Moreover, different characteristics would 

 distinguish the photographic and visual portions of the spectra 

 {H. C. Annals, xxvi. pp. 177, 189). Some discrepancies, as in 

 the case of the three fourth-type stars which are erroneously 

 entered in the Draper Catalogue, are due to errors of identifica- 

 tion (xxvi. p. 192). The photographic spectra of faint third- 1 



NO. TT32, VOL. 44] 



type stars are always indistinguishable from those of the second 

 type (xxvi. p. 178). See also remarks following Table II. o( 

 vol. xxvii. The bright lines cited by Mr. Espin are probably 

 portions of the spectra contained between dark bands or lines 

 (xxvii. p. 3). Spectra are difficult to classify when measured as 

 faint as 6"5 ; not when the final magnitude is brighter than 6"^, 

 as might be inferred from Mr. Espin's reference (xxvii., 

 preface). Edward C. Pickering. 



Cambridge, U.S., June 22. 



The Cuckoo. 



I DO not know if the hibernating of swallows and other 

 summer visitors is still a debated question or not, but the 

 following account of a cuckoo may be of interest to some of 

 your readers. 



In the month of August a young cuckoo was taken from its 

 nest and kept in the house, where it lived and throve — until one 

 day in November, when it escaped and could not be found. But 

 in the following March, during the usual spring cleaning, this 

 very bird was discovered on a shelf in the back kitchen, hidden 

 away behind some old pots and pans, still alive, and asleep, 

 with all its feathers off, and clothed only in down, the feathers 

 lying in a heap round the body. The rude awakening which the 

 cuckoo received was fatal to its existence, for it survived only for 

 a few hours. E. W. P. 



Colour-Associations with Numerals, &c. 



The following record of experiments extending over a period 

 of nearly ten years, under exceptionally good conditions, appears 

 to me to be worthy of attention. A preliminary note on the 

 subject was printed in Science, vol, vi. No. 137, 1885, p. 242, 

 part of which is reproduced below. 



In 1880, while I was in Washington, I read Mr. F. Gallon's 

 note on " Visualized Numerals," in Nature, vol. xxi. p. 252. 



After I came to Wisconsin — probably late in 1881, or early in 

 1882 — I mentioned my own entire inability to visualize numerals 

 or anything el>e of the kind to a member of the University 

 faculty. Prof. Owen. I was interested to learn that, when a boy, 

 he had always conceived the vowel sounds as having colour, and 

 that he still retained some traces of this early habit. 



I spoke of this subject in my house shortly after ; and my 

 daughter Mildred, then about seven years old, said she also had 

 colours for the days of the week, as follows: Monday, bltte ; 

 Tuesday, pink ; Wednesday, brown or grey ; Thursday, brown 

 or grey ; Friday, zvhite ; Saturday, pure ivliite ; Sunday, black. 

 It was said laughingly, and at the time it passed to my mind as 

 a joke— that she wished m sport to assume the idio-yncrasies of 

 elder persons. A few days after, I questioned her on these 

 colours, and she gave the same replies. It was again spoken of 

 as a kind of a joke and a question of memory, but I wrote the 

 colours down in my memorandum-book for 1882. A year later 

 I produced this, and again questioned her — this time seriously — 

 and found her answers the same as at first. Again, on August 

 5, 1885, her replies were the same. The tenacity of a child's 

 memory is very remarkable ; but I was convinced this was not 

 a case of memory and imagination, but a true phenomenon of 

 the kind referred to. I therefore went farther, and asked her if 

 there were any other phenomena of the same sort (she was now 

 ten and a half years old). I found that each of the letters of 

 the alphabet had a colour to her, as follows : — 



A, zvhite ; B, blue; C, yellow, cream colour ; D, dark blue; 

 E, red ; F, black ; G, green ; H, white ; I, black ; ],grey, brown ; 

 K, grey; L, dark blue; M, N, brown, not much colour ; O, 

 yelloiv ; P, green ; Q (?) ; R, brown ; S, yellow ; T, green ; 

 [5, yellow; V, w/tite;V», brown; X, Y, not much colour; Z, 

 greenisA. 



The prevalence of yellow and green, and the scarcity of reds 

 and pinks, are noteworthy. I found that she knew these colours 

 instantly, and when I asked for them in any order. What is 

 more remarkable, she could instantly name the brown letters in 

 a group, the black ones, &c. Apparently she did not require to 

 pass the alphabet in review to decide this. The numbers also 

 had colours to her, as follows : — 



I, black ; 2, cream colour ; 3, light blue ; 4, brown ; 5, white ; 

 6, crimson, pink ; 7, greenish ; 8, white ; 9, greeniih (?) ; 10, 

 brown ; II, black ; 12, cream colour ; 13, blue ; 14, broivn ; 15, 

 white ; that is, II had the same colour as I, 12 as 2, 13 as 3, &c. 



These colours were also named instantly, and in any order, 

 and in groups. 



