September 2; 



1S94J 



NA TURE 



in the whole province), can read and write a little, but 

 the number of those who can even read at all is small, 

 being, if anything, over-estimated at i in looo. ' 



In a work dealing with such wide and far-reaching 

 h subjects, it is quite impossible that an author should not 

 occasionally be led astray. Truth compels us to admit 

 that Miss Simcox is not an exception to this rule, but 

 she has yet succeeded in producing an extremely interest- 

 ing and able work, and one which sums up with clearness 

 the current knowledge we possess of the civilisations of 

 these three great empires. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes. \'ol. ii. By 

 the late Rev. T. W. Webb. Fifth edition. Revised 

 and enlarged by the Rev. T. E. Espin, M..A.. F.R A.S. 

 Pp. 2S0. (London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894.) 



We have already noticed (N'.^ruRE, vol. .\lix. p. 339) 

 the first volume of this edition of Webb's famous 

 " Celestial Objects." The volume under review com- 

 pletes the work. All astronomers are familiar with this 

 guide to the starry heavens, and most are agreed in 

 thinking that the preparation of a new edition could not 

 li.ive been placed in better hands than -Mr. Espin's. It 

 K always a risky proceeding to put new wine into old 

 li'ittles, nevertheless, in the case before us, an analogous 

 I isk has been successfully accomplished. Substantial 

 aiUlitions have been made in the new volume. All 

 'louble stars having primaries above magnitude 65, and 

 stances less than twenty seconds of arc, have been in- 

 ided. After lists of the binary and double stars in 

 I I'-h constellation stars with remarkable spectra are 

 pl.iced. With the latter are arranged variable stars, and 

 then follow the positions and descriptions of conspicuous 

 nebuliu and clusters. Altogether the volume contains the 

 pi. ices of 2272 double stars, 629 stars with remarkable 

 spectra, and 276 nebulae; a total of 3177 objects. The 

 Right Ascensions and Declinations have been bro'ight 

 ;;p to 1900. 



It is almost unnecessary to commend the book to 

 practical astronomers, for ihey are all acquainted with 

 Its merits. Certamly no possessor of a workable 

 telescope can dispense with this trustworthy ^uide to 

 celestial sights. 



I\>nds ajui Rack-Pools, '.uitlt Hints on Collecting for, and 

 the Maita'^cinent of, the .Micro- Aijuariiim. By Henty 

 -Scherren. (London : The Religious Tract Societv, 

 1S94.) 



The chapters of this little book appeared originally in 

 the Leisure Hour, but have been, we are told, " consider- 

 ably enlarged and very carefully revised." The work is 

 divided into si.x chapters, devoted respectively to the 

 subjects of " I'ond and Rock-Pool Hunting,' ''The 

 Beginnings of Life," " .Sponges and Stinging .Vnima's," 

 " \Vorms," " Starfish, .\nthropods, and .Molluscs," and 

 "The Micro-.\quarium." The author has a pleasant, 

 straightforward style, and has avoided as far as possible 

 the use of high-sounding names and language calculated 

 to deter his unscientific readers from taking up the study 

 of the contents of "Ponds and Rock-Pools." His task 

 has been made considerably easier by the insertion in 

 the text of some sixty-six very creditable figures, and he 

 has produced a book full of helpful hints to the \ oung 

 collector, and une which should, we think, have the effect 

 of causing many to strive to know more about the hidden 

 beauties of nature. The general get-up of the book is 

 everything that could be wished. 



NO. 1300, VOT-. 50] 



Newfoundland as it is in 1894.- A Handbooi; and 

 Tourist's Guide. By Rev. M. Harvey, LL.D., 

 F.R.S.C. (London : Kegan Paul, 1894) 

 This book does not require a lengthy notice in these 

 columns, being interesting more from a commercial 

 than a scientific point of view. The author, who 

 has lived for more than forty years in the colony, 

 is evidently quite an enthusiastic lover of Newfoundland, 

 and has written this handy volume for the purpose of 

 making the country better known, and attracting to it 

 the attention which it deserves, and which the author 

 considers it has failed to receive in the past. Mr. 

 Harvey has certainly done his best to alter this condition 

 of things, and has brought together in a readable form a 

 great deal of information respecting the physiography and 

 topography of the island, its roads and railways, agricul- 

 tural resources and forest wealth, minerals, fisheries, 

 characteristics of the people, and other facts likely to be 

 of service to the intending visitor or settler. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold kimsef raponuble for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of rejecttd 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part 0/ Nature. 

 No notice is taken ot anonymous communications. ] 



The Logic of Weisroannism. 



Some lime ago, when I read an account of Prof. Weismann's 

 exiierunent on llie larvx of blow -Hies, as <le5Cribcd in his 

 Romanes lecture, a criticism of it occuricd 10 nie, which I have 

 recently commanicateJ to .Mr. Herbert Spencer. This was 

 that in the experiment the quantity ol food (llesh) was dimin- 

 ished, while the nature of it lemained the same ; wliere.is in ihe 

 case of bees it is well known that the difference between the 

 food of the worker larv.-e and the royal laivas is one of quality, 

 not of quantity. The royal food is pollen, and is highly nitro- 

 genous, while the food of the worker larv.T i~ chietly honey. 

 In the case of Termites, Grassi has found that the fertile indi- 

 viduals are fed during development on the secretion of the 

 salivary glands of other individuals, while the sterile forms are 

 supplied only with macerated wood-dust. 



But I was not aware, until I procured the printed version of 

 the leciure, that Weismann had actually mentioned facts proving 

 the importance of nitrogenous food in relation to the repro- 

 ductive organs of the blow- fly. He seems serenely unconscious 

 that these lacls, mentioned in the notes 10 his lecture, entirely 

 neutralise the force of his argument in the text. In note I r 

 he states that his blow-flies when abundantly fed on carrots and 

 sugar, laid no eggs for more than a monlh, hut as soon .as meat 

 was supplied the y sucked it greedily, and laid a great number 

 of eggs a week afteiwards. In laier experiments, when the llies 

 were fed from the fust with sugar and meat juice, the deposition 

 of eggs commenced ten days alter the meiamotphosis. Weis- 

 mann infers that rich food is necessary in the imago st-ige if the 

 egg-cells are to ripen, and adds that in the ca>e of bees the 

 queen lays eggs because supplied with nitrogenous food in the 

 imago state, while the workers are poorly fed. These remark- 

 able facts concerning the relation between egg-laying and nitro- 

 genous food in the adult blow-lly strongly suggest that if the 

 iarvse were deprived of nitrogenous food during development, 

 the ovaries would not be perfectly developed. 



Weismann contends that the bee has the specific property of 

 responding to imperfect nutrition in Ihe larval statt by the im- 

 perfect development of the ovaries. .\s proof of this, he states 

 ihat blow-lly maggots occasionally starved, but fed ex- 

 clusively on meat like those which were not starved, laid normal 

 eggs in normal abundance, and were only smaller in size. Tbe 

 evidence is quite irrelevant. The point is that the larva of the 

 worker-bee is supplied wilh a non-nitrogenous diet, that of the 

 queen bee with one highly nitrogenous. What is required is 

 evidence that the larva of the blow.lly can fully develop its 

 ovaries when deprived of nitrogenous food. Instead of this, 

 Weismann supplies the information that the blow-lly when 

 reared on a restricted quantity of nitrogenous fojJ, can lay 

 eggs if farther fed with proteids in the imago stage, but if 



