554 



NA TURE 



[October 3, 189 = 



fore the force is certainly central, and if it differs at all from the 

 law of Newton, the deviation must be relatively unimportant.'" 



The orbit is also remarkable for its great eccentricity, which 

 surpasses that of any known stellar orbit. 



For many years to come the angular motion will Iw very slow, 

 and Dr. See draws attention to the fact that observations of 

 distance will be more valuable than angular measures in effecting 

 a further improvement in the elements. 



THE THIRD IXTERXATIOXAL ZOOLOGICAL 

 COXGRESS AT LEYDEX. 



"PKOM first to last this Congress, the Session of which 

 lasted from September 15 to 21, was favoured by ex- 

 ccpliotially fine autumn weather, and the quaint old town of 

 Leyden, where the meeting was held, as well as the island 

 of Marken. the Zoological Park at Graveland (where apterj-x 

 thrives and gnus are kept in free pastures), the Zoological Station 

 at Helder, the sea-lieach of Katwijk and Scheveningen. and 

 the port of Rotterdam, to all of which pl.iccs excursions were 

 organisctl, were under these circumstances seen at their very 

 best. 



The character of the meeting was eminently international. 

 The daily bulletin, although edite<l in French, contained an- 

 nouncements of lectures to l>e held and of papers to be read in 

 Knglish and in German, and in the Sections these three diflerent 

 tongues often succeeded one another rapidly and fraternally. 



On the Sunday evening preceding the ofiicial o]>ening there 

 had lieen an informal mustering of the forces then already 

 assembled, and I'rof. Hubrecht, of Utrecht, who, as President 

 of the Netherlands Zoological Society, gave a hearty welcome to 

 those present, hinted at the inadvisabilily of allowing the use of 

 more than these three languages. 



Still, Ijcsiiles forty-two representatives from (ireat Britain and 

 the L'niled Slates, sixly-three from France and Belgium, and 

 twenty from Germany and Austria, there were no less than eleven 

 Russians, eight Scandinavians, and sixty-four Dutchmen in- 

 scrilied as mcml>ers, who had to restrict the use of their native 

 language to conversation among themselves. 



The total number of memlx'rs inscril>ed was 232, .ind not only 

 the number but also the quality of the zoologists assembled was 

 such as to make this international gathering really a ver)' 

 representative one, which served to bring together some of the 

 veterans of the old guard, and a great number of the younger 

 generation of zoologists. 



A glance along the list of those that were present will show 

 this at once. There we find Jul. Vict. Carus. Th. Eimer, V. 

 Hensen, A. Metzger, F. K. Schulze, K. Semon, J. \V. Siicngel, 

 R. Virchow, Aug. Weismann, K. ( iroblien, Ch. Julin, F. dc 

 Selys LonRcham|>s, C Ltitkcn, II. Field, f). C. Marsh, \V. B. 

 Scott, C. W. Stiles. R. Bianchartl. E. Bouvier. .\. Certes, A. 

 Milne-Edwards, E. Perrier, L. VaillanI, J. .Anderson, Sir \V. H. 

 Flower, S. J. Hick.son, John Murray, .\dam Sedgwick, K. B. 

 .Sharpe, R. Trimen, d'Arcy 'rhf)mpson, S. Apathy. S. Hrusina, 

 C. Kmcr)', R. Collctt, A. Kowalevsky, W. Schimkentch, 

 VV. Salensky, VV. Blasius, X. Zograff. \\. Uche. I-'. i\. Smitt, 

 Th. Studer, v.in Wyhe, Max \Vel>er, V<isniaer, .Shiiter, van 

 Rees, Lidth de Jeude, Kcrlieri Jcntink, llulirecht, Hoffmann, 

 Hoek, Horst, Evcrts,Biittikofcr, .M. C. Dekhuy/cn, E. Rosenberg, 

 and van Bemmelen. \'er)" many of these read ]ia|5ers in the 

 Sections, three of them (John Murray, A, Milne- Edwards and 

 Weismann) addressed general meetings ; whereas on the 

 Tuevlay evening a lecture on the curiosities of bird life, 

 ilUistraled by coloured lanlern-slides, was given by Dr. Bowdler 

 Shari>e, nf the British Museum, and was attended by the young 

 t^een and the l,)ueen- Regent. 



The Committee of Organisation, lo whose excellent arrange- 

 ments much of the success of the meeting was due, were Prof. 

 Ilubrechi of Utrecht, Dr. Jcniink, Director of the Natural 

 Hi-' " III, l^yrlen (President of the Congress), Dr. 



Ill" ). and Dr. Ilorsi (Treasurer). 



I i ix different Sections, a new feature of which 



wo* the inclusion of p:d.eontol(,gj' with recent zooiogj'. There 

 Vfxs no sc[>nrntr I'nl i '.nt'. logical Section. 



In the I r.il zcKilogy, geographical dislriliution, 

 with Ihc I ; hiunas and evolulion theory), Mr. A. 

 .Sedgwick. *'i ' .iij exjxisilifm of his views con- 



cerning direct ' in ihe living organi.sm. In a 



later meeting ■■: ;i..n, Prof. Aisilhy, of Klausen- 



NO. 1353, VOL. 53] 



burg (Hungarj'), demonstrated a series of the most beautiful and 

 delicate microscopical preparations, which, already at an earlier 

 date, have led him to conclusions very similar to those of 

 Sedgwick just referred to. 



Prof. Hensen, of Kiel, gave an interesting account of the 

 Plankton expedition, its aims and its results. 



Prof. Eimer, of Tubingen, spoke in this Section on the 

 subject of orthogenesis, and on the impotence of natural selection 

 for the production of new species. 



In the second and third Sections, devoted to living and extinct 

 vertebrates, their anatomy and embrj'olog)-, papers were read by- 

 Profs. Zograff of Moscow, Vaillant, U. C. Marsh, Biitlikofer,. 

 Liitken, Leche, Semon, Hubrecht, and van Bemniclen. 



The fourth, fifth and sixth Sections embraced the invertebrates, 

 one of them being specially devoted to entomolog)-. Messrs. 

 Warden Stiles (from the United States), Hickson, Blanchard, 

 Goto (from Tokyo), Perrier, Kowalevsky, Schimkevitch, (Jilson, 

 Salensky, and Julin were among the princijial s|X'akers in these 

 Sections. 



The sectional meeting which proved to be Ihe most attractive 

 w.as the one that was held on the last day of the meeting, when 

 in the second Section, temporarily presided over by Rudolf 

 Virchow, Dr. E. Dubois, the indefatigable naturalist, who has 

 devoted the last six years lo the collection of pahvontological 

 specimens in Sumatra and Java, gave a full account of the find- 

 ing of Ihe remnants of his Pilluiaiithrofiis ercdtts. 



The four fragmenls (a femur, the upper jiart of a skull, and 

 two teeth) upon which this new sjjecies, looked upon by ils 

 author as an intermediate stage between the anthropoids and 

 man, was founded, were laid before Ihe Section, together with a 

 good many pieces intended for comparison. A most inleresliiig 

 discussion followed, in which \irchow, O. C. Marsh, tmii 

 Rosenberg, Sir William Flower and Prof. Martin U>ok a 

 prominent part. \'irchow's contention was that the four 

 fragments did not belong lo the same anim.al. He attempted lo 

 derive arguments from ixathological anatomy, which woukl show 

 that the osteophytic outgrowths of the femur described by 

 i)ul)ois were indications lending rather towards the human than 

 towards the simian origin of the femur. Nevertheless, he spoke 

 in a very appreciative lone, telling the Section that he had only 

 wished to put in a point of interrogation where Dubois' affirma- 

 tions did not appear lo him lo be as yet fully justified. 



Prof. Marsh was inclined, on grounds derived from his v.ist 

 experience in palivonlological excavations, to su]>port many of 

 Dubois' conclusions. He had noticed exostoses of a similar 

 nature as those of Pithecanthropus in fossil animals of (|uile 

 different orders. He ]Hiinted out the necessity of carefully 

 comparing these remains with those from the SIvalik Hills. 



Prof. Rosenberg, considering move especially the femur and 

 the cranium from the point of view of Ihe analcunlsl, tried lo 

 show that ihe four characlerislics, by which Dubois sc|>arates 

 the femur of Pithecanthropus from that of man, are found also 

 in human femora, in .some few cases even all of them cond)incil. 

 The skull, on the contrary, is more that of a jirimate ; but he 

 did not agree with Dubois' argument that certain jieculiari- 

 lles of its />/<?;;«/« iiiic/ialc tended lo show thai ihe animal had 

 assumed a more erect gait. \'ery similar jHculiarilies arc 

 found in Ihe New-World Cebus, which moves on all fours. 

 Rosenberg acknowledge<l, however, that the high Intrinsic value 

 of Ihe fragmenls was in no way diminished by the doubts ex- 

 pressed by him, because the femur, even if human, would prove 

 Tertiary man lo have existed in Java, the origin of man being 

 thus pushed further back towards the earlier 'lerliary period. 



The results of this discussion, thimgh not a decisive triuinphi 

 for Pithecanthropus as a valid species, was a unanimous 

 recognition of the great Impnrtance of Dr. I Hibois' researches. 



.\nolher inlerestingafleriioon lecture, which attracted numerous 

 members of different Sections, w.as given by I'mf. W. B. .Scott, 

 of Princeton, and was illustraled by lanlern-slides. The won- 

 derful conlinuily of the American tertiary formations, the vast 

 geographical scale on which Ihey are developed, and the excel- 

 lent .slate of preservallcm nf their fossils, was specially insisted 

 u|K>n. Skeletons of man)' members of the beautifully contlnvious 

 piiyliigenetic series were projected on the screen. 



Of the lectures held at Ihe general meetings, those of Dr. 

 John Murray and Prof. Milne-Edw.ards were most interesting 

 lo the audiences ihey adilressed. Prof. Milne-Edwards spoke 

 cm Ihe extinct avifauna of the Mascarene Islands m ils relation 

 to thai of certain islands in the I'aeific Ocean, and Dr. Murray 

 gave an admlralile survey of deep-.sea rsplorntir.n In general. 



