October 20, 1892] 



NATURE 



595 



In the current number of the "Annals of Scottish Natural 

 History," Mr. E. P. Knubley discusses the questicrn whether 

 legislative protection is required for wild birds' eggs. He sug- 

 i^ests that the most practicable plan might be for Parliament to 

 L;rant powers to the County Councils from time to time, and as 

 necessity arose, to place certain portions of a district, such as 

 mountains, commons, waste places, lakes and meres, or por- 

 tions of cliffs or foreshores, under an Act for specified months in 

 the year— say, from April i to June 30. What, however, is 

 most urgently wanted, as Mr. Knubley says, is that landlords 

 and occupiers shall, as far as possible, protect birds breeding 

 on their property or "occupation." 



Mr. Ernkst Anderson recently read before the Field 

 Naturalists' Club of Victoria an interesting paper on some 

 Victorian Lepidoptera. He said that a great charm accom- 

 anied the rearing out of the Victorian species, because the 

 esults were very frequently of a most unlooked-for character, 

 rhe Victorian forms followed the same rule as many plants and 

 animals in having characteristics and habits purely Australian ; 

 and not only so, but they helped to bridge over the sharply- 

 defined divisions known in Europe, and merged the various 

 groups so imperceptibly into each other that it was hard to say 

 where one ended and another began. Speaking of the proces ■ 

 sional caterpillars ( Teara melanosticta), Mr. Anderson described 

 how a female laid some ova in a small box and covered them 

 very thickly with yellow down. Very shortly afterwards a 

 thread-like structure was visible, which close examination 

 revealed to be composed of newly-hatched caterpillars in Indian 

 file, each having its head close up to the tail of its forerunner, 

 and the whole line moving simultaneously with mathematical 

 precision. 



The use of gas engines does not seem to be nearly so common 

 in the United States as in Great Britain. According to the 

 Railroad and Engineering Journal, they are generally regarded 

 in America as of service for light work only, and it is with some 

 surprise that our contemporary has noted the advertisement of 

 an English firm, which keeps all sizes up to forty-horse-power 

 in stock, and offers to furnish single engines of any size up to 

 two-hundred-and-fifty-horse-power. This much exceeds the 

 capacity of any gas engine built until very recently. 



The U.S. Department of Agriculture has published a valu- 

 able account, by Harvey W. Wiley, of experiments with sugar- 

 beets in 1891. The experiments were divided into three classes ; 

 (i) culture of the sugar-beet conducted by farmers in different 

 parts of the country ; (2) culture of the sugar-beet conducted 

 by the agricultural experiment station of Wisconsin and nume- 

 rous farmers in Wisconsin, under the direction of the agricul- 

 Uiral experiment station of that State, by authority of theSecre- 

 ary of Agriculture ; (3) experiments conducted at the beet- 

 ugar experiment station of the Department at Schuyler, 

 Nebraska. 



We learn from the American Naturalist for October that 

 the vertebrate fossils collected by Prof. Marsh, to which we 

 lately referred, are not likely, after all, to be soon exhibited in 

 the National Museum at Washington. Our contemporary says : 

 " One side of a small room is the only space at present occu- 

 pied by the material in question, and it is safe to say that no 

 other space has been yet provided. As the National Museum 

 committed the error at its establishment of attempting an exhibit 

 of modern human industries, as we pointed out at the time, the 

 space for scientific exhibits is necessarily greatly curtailed. The 

 necessities of this department require the erection of a new 

 building, and until that is done it is safe to say that the verte- 

 brate collections of the U.S. Geological Survey will not be 

 «xhibited." 



NO. I 199, VOL. 46] 



Sleep is one of the least understood of physiological phe- 

 nomena. A new theory of it (we learn from the Revue Scientifique) 

 has been offered by Herr Rosenbaum. He supposes the essential 

 fact in the fatigue of the nervous system leading to sleep to be a 

 hydratation of the nerve-cells, an increase of their water-content. 

 The greater the hydratation, the less the irritability. This 

 hydratation arises through chemical change of the nervous subs- 

 tance during activity. A small part of the water escapes by day 

 through the lungs, but the greater part is eliminated during 

 sleep. Its passage into the blood takes place by virtue of the 

 laws of diffusion, and depends on the quantity and density of the 

 blood, its amount of fixed principles, its speed of flow, &c. 

 Elimination of the expired air takes place according to the laws 

 of diffusion of gases. The assimilable substances of the body- 

 take the place of the water eliminated in sleep. The repair of the 

 physical and mental forces through sleep is due to this elimination 

 and replacement. Intelligence is in inverse ratio of the propor- 

 tion of water in the brain, and may be measured by this proportion, 

 at least in the child. It may be doubted whether this theory ex- 

 plains the sleep of hibernating animals, or that caused by 

 opium and anaesthetics. 



D. J. Madison Taylor has been elaborately investigating 

 the various problems relating to physical exercise in health and 

 as a remedy, and some of the results are set forth in the journal 

 of the Franklin Institute for September and October. One 

 conclusion is, he says, uniformly prominent in the instances of 

 damage from boat and other racing. Always the training has 

 been "either insufficient or bad, or both." 



In one of the papers contributed to the third number of the 

 Trinidad Field Club's Journal, Mr. J. Edward Tanner describes 

 some interesting observations of the habits of the Parasol or 

 Leaf Cutting Ants. Two nests of these ants were on his table 

 at the time when his paper was being prepared. He begins by 

 noting that all in Trinidad who are interested in such subjects 

 know the hurried manner in which a parasol ant returns to her 

 nest (all leaf-cutting workers are females), bearing erect in her 

 mandibles the portion of leaf she has herself just cut off, and 

 apparently running home with it in triumph. These foragers, for 

 they are the ones who supply the household, carry their portion of a 

 leaf well into the nest, drop it, and return for another piece, nor 

 do they cease doing so till the supply is more than those in the 

 nest require. Mr. Tanner could not induce the ants in one of 

 his nests to carry any leaf whatsoever into the nest, till one day 

 he coaxed a small worker to do so. As she entered she was 

 caressed by those in the nest, who stroked and patted her with 

 their antenna. The small piece of leaf she had brought was at 

 once taken by one of the larger workers, to go through its various 

 processes, while she returned for more, and she continued to 

 bring in pieces till late in the evening. Strange to say, none of 

 the others followed her example. Even four weeks later only 

 two or three carried in any portions of leaf. Mr. Tanner sug- 

 gests that this may have been due to the fact that the queen was 

 accidentally killed while the nest was being taken. The other 

 nest had a queen, and with it there was no trouble, for the ants 

 kept themselves well supplied from whatever was offered to them 

 on their feeding ground, whether rose leaves, plumbago, or 

 quis-qualis. "Each forager," says Mr. Tanner, "drops her 

 portion of leaf in the nest, which is taken up as required by the 

 small workers, and carried to a clear space in the nest to be 

 cleaned. This is done with their mandibles, and if considered 

 too large it is cut into smaller pieces. It is then taken in hand 

 by the larger workers, who lick it with their tongues. Then 

 comes the most important part, which almost always is done by 

 the larger workers, who manipulate it between their mandibles, 

 mostly standing on three legs. The portion of leaf is turned 

 round and round between the mandibles, the ant using her palpi, 

 tongue, her three legs, and her antennae while doing so. It 



