Febrtary. 1911. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



43 



Or a glass tank ma)- be set on the transparent 

 platform, and here the apparatus is invaluable — 

 difficult and fragile objects may be displayed in 

 water, any suitable background can be put in below, 

 or various tints easilv tried, without disturbing the 

 object. 



Further, a fish or other object can be hardened in 

 formalin in a lifelike attitude, or simply spread out in 

 water. A background of weeds, sand, shells, and so 

 on, can be arranged on an opal glass below, the object 

 being raised up or down from the background on 

 the sliding platform, till the correct effect and the 

 absence of shadows has been obtained, and the 

 subject photographed in apparenth" natural surround- 

 ings, with striking results. 



To prevent reflections from water and wet 

 preparations, a ground glass screen can easily be 

 adjusted on the optical bench, as shown, or coloured 

 glass to get orthochromatic effects without screens 

 in front of the lens. 



If need be, a condenser can be made to play 

 a beam of light on the object, with no more 



trouble than adjusting it on the optical bench. 



Figure 2 shows the apparatus being used as an 

 enlarging and reducing camera, which can be used 

 with or without artificial light. 



The essential features of this apparatus are : — 



1. A camera, sliding easily in i central groove, 

 and giving about four feet of extension, with suitable 

 fittings, as indicated. 



2. An optical bench, with fittings, '_■ -:si;'ng of 

 sliding platform for microscope, condenser, .' nd 

 troughs or screens, also sliding fittings c. 

 taking a glass or board easel; all being ceinieu lh 

 the bench. 



This last is vital : to have all parts in alignment 

 and centring adjustments to keep them so, is the 

 secret of success. A camera of this t}'pe without an 

 optical bench as a permanent fixture is only half 

 finished, and will infallibly lead to waste of both 

 time and plates. 



In m}' opinion such a camera complete need not 

 cost more than ten pounds, and could be made so as 

 to secure some measure of portabilitv. 



JAMES WILLIAM TUTT, F H.S. 



On January 10th, there passed away the well-known ento- 

 mologist, Mr. Jas. William Tutt, who for the past twenty years 

 has been the editor oithe Eiifoinologist's Record and Journal 

 of Variation, and who, for many years, has been a regular 

 attendant at, and participant in the work of several of our 

 London Societies. He was a native of Strood, Kent, where 

 he became a pupil-teacher, and from whence he passed to 

 St. Mark's College for Schoolmasters. He entered the service 

 of the London School Board, and having been promoted time 

 after time, was last year selected to open one of the first of the 

 new Central Higher Grade Schools, which are now being 

 established by the London Education Authority. The study 

 of insects was his hobby, and in spite of the onerous burden 

 of his educational duties, his ability, capacity for work, and 

 his forceful character, brought his writings many an eulogistic 

 recognition, not only from all parts of the United Kingdom, but 

 from many Continental circles ,as well as from America. At 

 the time of his death he was President-elect of the great 

 Entomological Society of London. For some years past he 

 had been the editor of the annual organ of the South-Eastern 

 Union of Scientific Societies. His earlier writings were more 

 of a popular nature than his later work, and we may mention 

 those admirable descriptions of country rambles, " Random 

 Recollections of Woodland, Fen and Hill," and " Woodside, 

 Burnside, Hillside, and Marsh." For the past fifteen years 

 Mr. Tutt had spent his holidays in the Alps, and his enthusiastic 



nature pictures in " Rambles in Alpine Valleys," and in many 

 articles written by him in the Record, have led numbers of 

 our insular workers, including the present writer, to extend 

 their narrow experiences and views, by investigating the insect 

 fauna of numerous beautiful regions outside the routes of 

 the ordinary superficial tourist. " The British Noctuae and 

 their Varieties " was a book giving an intimation of the more 

 serious work of which Mr. Tutt was capable. This was 

 succeeded by " The Migration and Dispersal of Insects," 

 " The Natural History of British Butterflies," and soon, works 

 requiring much research and leading up to the commencement 

 of a huge encyclopaedic work, which was of so ambitious a 

 nature that one individual could only have imagined himself, 

 even with long life permitted him, able to write but a small 

 instalment. This was the " Natural History of British 

 Lepidoptera " of which he issued eight volumes, and was at 

 the time of his death engaged upon two more. Mr. Tutt had 

 attracted around him an enthusiastic band of co-workers, 

 Continental as well as British, and the original work done by 

 these gentlemen, his own work and criticism, with a huge 

 amount of all the best done in the past, he welded together 

 with a master hand and had illustrated by the best men, 

 acting under his skilful advice and supervision. The study 

 of F"ntomology, by his death, has lost a huge force, and it 

 will br long ere another can step in to fill his place. 



Henry Turner. 



THE SUN SPOT (GROUPS OF 1906. 



A SPECIAL interest attached to the Sun Spot groups of 1906, 

 because in that year sun spot activity or prevalence was 

 hypothetically at the end of the thirty-five year cycle which 

 has been assigned to it, and should have reached its last 

 maximum. Activity on the solar surface was much less in the 

 early part of that year than in the corresponding period of the 

 previous year. The last phase of the maximum spot period 

 seems to have begun in the earlier half of 1906. A com- 

 parative calm prevailed till May 12th, when a great outburst 

 of solar activity occurred. .At the end of July two large spots 

 appeared, both of which became \isible to the naked eye 

 during .August. The larger of the two spots developed a great 

 deal during its passage across the Sun's disc. When first seen 

 on July 2Sth it appeared as quite a small spot and in the 

 course of its transit had grown to ten degrees in length and 

 six degrees in breadth. A period of calm followed, which was 



broken by a stream of spots lasting through November till the 

 middle of December. In the next year, the maximum 

 appeared to have been passed. 



Dr. C. L. Poor, as the result of his discussion on the figure 

 of the Sun, derived partly from a study of the solar photographs 

 of the Rutherford series extending over several years, and also 

 from the heliometer measures made by the German Transit of 

 Venus Expeditions, concluded that the ratio of the polar to the 

 equatorial diameter of the Sun was a variable quantity, and 

 had relation to the presence or absence of solar spots. This 

 is a conclusion which has since been disputed, but is one of the 

 more interesting speculations with regard to the periodicity of 

 sun-spot areas. Schur and Ambronn did not support Dr. Poor's 

 inferences ; and Dr. C. G. Abbott's recently published memoirs 

 on the Sun, while favouring variations of solar radiation and 

 brightness, does not relate them to variation in the Sun's figure. 



