July 19, 1894] 



NA TURE 



275 



information has been collected, and the nature of a large num- 

 ber of the more destructive species of bliijhts have been ascer- 

 tained ; but, as the memorandum urged, what was wanted was a 

 specialist free to move about the country, and supported by 

 laboratory assistants in some fixed place. To render the work 

 of practical value, it is essential thai it should be carried on 

 continuously from year to year, so that the observations made in 

 one season may be supplemented and verified by those made in 

 the next, and that a record may be kept up of the increase or 

 decrease of particular blights, so that the planting and agricul- 

 tural community may be warned in time of impending danger. 

 For the sake of Indian agriculture, we are glad to see that 

 the scheme put forward by the Hon. J. Buckingham has been 

 favourably considered. The Government of India has expressed 

 a readiness to appoint two or three entomologists for the benefit 

 of agriculturists throughout the country. It is not, of course, 

 supposed that the appointment of this small staff of entomolo- 

 gists will result in the suppression of every destr uctive insect ; 

 but there can be no doubt that careful local investigations would, 

 in many cases, lead to the development of improved methods 

 of fighting the evil. In connection with the subject of the 

 memorandum, it is worth remark that the Planters' Assjciation 

 of Ceylon have recently made the modest request for one 

 entomologist to study the insects which attack tea and other 

 plants under cultivation there. Dr. Trimen, of the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, has, however, informed the 

 Colonial Secretary at Colombo that, while he would support 

 the appointment of an entomological assistant for the Colombo 

 Museum, who would pay special attention to injurious insects, 

 he could not recommend the appointment of an entomologist 

 for the agricultural community alone. Mr. A. Haly, the 

 Director of the Museum, also thinks that a special officer is 

 not needed for the small area covered by Ceylon, and suggests 

 that the case would be fully met by the appointment of an 

 entomological referee. 



The Illiiii informs us of the establishment on the Illinois 

 Kivcr, at Havana, of a biological station devoted to the syste- 

 matic and continuous investigation of the plant and animal life 

 of the waters of that region. This establishment, authorised by 

 the trustees of the University in March, is under the direction 

 of Prof. .S. A. Forbes, with Mr. Frank Smith in immediate 

 charge of the work. The field work is done from a cabin boat, 

 chartered for the summer, which carries the seines, dredges, 

 surface nets, plankton apparatus, and other collecting equip- 

 ment, together with microscopes, reagents for the preservation 

 of specimens, a small working library, a number of special 

 breeding cages for aquatic insects, and a few aquaria. This 

 boat is provided with sleeping accommodation for four men, 

 and with a well-famished kitchen. In Havana itself are office 

 and laboratory rooms supplied with running water and electric 

 light, and provided with the usual equipment of a biological 

 laboratory, consisting of first-class microscopes, microtomes, 

 biological reagents, lic, and tables for five assistants. The 

 boat is established in (,)uiver Lake, an elongated bay of the 

 Illinois, two and a half miles above Havana. From the lake 

 and the river, selection has been made of a number of typical 

 situations, and from these, and from Phelps and Thompson 

 lakes, a little tiislance away, collections of all descriptions are 

 made at regular intervals for a comparative study of the organic 

 life — the relative abundance of the species at different seasons 

 ol the year, and tlii; general system of conditions by which it is 

 affected. We understand th.at this is the first inland aquatic 

 biological station in America manned and equipped for con- 

 tinuous investigation ; and the first in the world to undertake 

 the serious study ol the biology of a river system. 



We learn from the Lancet that an admirably appointed 

 biological station, modelled upon that at Naples, has just been 



NO. 1290, VOL. 50] 



opened at Diribatt, on the Christiania Fiord, not far from 

 Christiania. It is said that the international element so wisely 

 encouraged in the Neapolitan institution, by which, in return 

 for an annual subsidy, the universities of the world are entitled 

 to avail themselves of its facilities, will also be recognised at 

 the Norwegian station. 



The report for 1893 of Dr. S. Schonland, the Curator of 

 the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, to the Committee of the 

 museum, has been issued. We learn from it that the institu- 

 tion has largely increased in popularity, the number of visitors 

 having been over 22,000, or more than 2000 in excess of those 

 of 1892. Its value as an educational institution has also been 

 widely appreciated. The Committee dwells on the necessity 

 of the appointment of an assistant who would take over the 

 Entomological Department, the work having become too great 

 for the Curator. It is also urged that, as the grant hitherto 

 accorded to the institution by Parliament is insufficient, even 

 with the greatest economy, to meet urgent requirements, a 

 suitable increase will be made. As many as 7660 specimens 

 were added to the collection in the museum during 1893, all 

 of them being of South African origin. 



The changes of plumage in the Red Grouse [Lagopus mtttus) 

 have long attracted the attention of ornithologists. Mr. W. 

 R. Ogilvie-Grant gives, in The Annals of Scottish Natural 

 History for July, an interesting account of these changes, the 

 nature of which he has described in vol. xxii. of the Catalogue 

 of the birds in the British Museum. In that publication it was 

 conclusively shown that both the male and female of the Red 

 Grouse have two dis'.inct moults during the year, but whereas 

 in the male they occur in autumn and winter, in the female 

 they take place in spring and autumn ; the former having no 

 distinct spring, and the latter no distinct winter, plumage. 

 These seasonal variations are clearly explained in the paper 

 referred to, and the principal changes, moults, and varieties are 

 illustrated in two beautifully coloured plates, the feathers of 

 each sex being shown separately. 



Dr. R. Hanitsch, of Liverpool, has done a most useful 

 and, we need scarcely say, laborious piece of work in his 

 revision of the generic nomenclature and classification in 

 Bowerbank's "British Spongiad:e " (Trans. Liv. Biol. Soc, 

 viii. 1894, pp. 173-206). His paper consists of two parts, 

 dealing with the nomenclature and classification respectively. 

 In the first section are given parallel columns of Bowerbank's 

 and the revised nomenclature ; and in the second a list of the 

 British sponges described by Bowerbank, classified in accord- 

 ance with recent research. Definitions of all British genera of 

 Monaxonida are given. Lissomyxilla, for the reception of 

 Bowerbank's Tethea spincsa, is new. For the most part, how- 

 ever, the author's arrangement is compiled from the revisions 

 and work of Ridley and Dendy, Sollas, Topsent, Von Lendeo- 

 feld and Vosmaer. 



K NEW form of phonograph of a particularly simple con- 

 struction has been described before the Electro-chemical Society 

 of Berlin by Herr A. Kceltzow. In this instrument, which ia 

 consideration of its low price appears suited to many purposes, 

 at any rate in those countries wliere patent rights will not pre- 

 vent its introduction, the cylinder on which the record is made 

 is composed of a hard kind of soap. Each cylinder, which 

 co-.ts about three shillings, .idmits of being used for recording 

 250,000 words, since an arr.ingement allows of the removal of 

 a very thin layer from the surface when this has been covered. 

 Thus the cost of the cylinders for registering any number of 

 words is not more than the cost of the paper which would be 

 required if ihey were written down. 



