i66 



NATURE 



[December 14, 1893 



representatives, the members of the First and Second Chambers. 

 The granting of a considerable sum of money for the building of 

 a new National Museum of Natural History at Leyden, a 

 necessity long felt and perseveringly advised by its director 

 — Dr. Jentink — furnished an occasion to bring the question 

 once more before the public. What the result will be — museum 

 or storehouse? — we cannot tell. If a man is not convinced 

 after reading Dr. Serrurier's pamphlet, he will never become 

 convinced. 



' But whatever may be done'' — Dr. Serrurier concludes his 

 interesting paper — " every change, in this case, will be an im- 

 provemtn:, for now ihe life of the museum is ebbing away. 

 The time is near that it will sink into a lethargic sleep, the end 

 of which will be death," H. ten Kate. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — Mr. T. I. Pocock, of Corpus, has recently been 

 elected to the Burdett-Coutts Geological Scholarship. It is his 

 intention, we believe, to devote himself ultimately to the 

 science of astronomy, which he studied at Oxford under the 

 late Prof. Pritchard. 



Mr. E. A. Minchin has been elected to a Biological Fellow- 

 ship^ at Merton College, and Mr. H. M. Vernon, of that 

 college, has been elected to the Oxford Biological Scholarship 

 at Naples. 



Cambridge. — The council of the Royal Geographical Society 

 offer in the present academical year a studentship of £lOO, to 

 he used in the geographical investigation (physical or historical) 

 of some district approved by the council. Candidates must be 

 laembers of the University of not more than eight years' 

 standing from matriculation, who shall have attended the 

 courses given in Cambridge by the late or present University 

 lec'urer in geography. 



The following awards in Natural Science were made at St, 

 John's College on December ii : — K. C, Browning (Dulvvich 

 College), Foundation Scholarship of £%o ; E. R. Clarke 

 (Tonbridge School), Foundation Scholarship of ;,^50 ; O. F. 

 IDiver (Winchester College) and K. B. Williamson (St. Paul's 

 School), Minor Scholarships of £<^o ; A. A. Robb (Queen's 

 College, Belforl), R. F. C. Ward (Epsom College), J, A. 

 Glover (St. Paul's School i, and G. D. M'Cormick (Exeter 

 Grammar School), to various Exhibitions of ;^5o and under. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London, 



Linnean Society, November i6.— Prof. Stewart, President, 

 in the chair. — Mr. J. H. Veitch exhibited a large and interesting 

 collection of economic and other vegetable products of Japan, 

 recently brought by him from that country, and described the 

 various uses to which different kinds of wood, fibre, gras?, 

 &c. , were applied for domestic purposes, as also the way in 

 which various seaweeds were collected and prepared for food. 

 — Mr. A. G. Renshaw exhibited a remarkably large specimen 

 of ihe giant puffball, Lycopenioii gigafitettm, which he had 

 gathered at Catford Bridge.— On behalf of the Rev. Prebendary 

 Gordon, the secretary exhibited a plant of Veronica salicifolia 

 of New Zealand, found growing in Langland's Bay, Mumbles, 

 Swansea, having been introduced by some chance, — A paper 

 was then read by the Rev. G. Henslow, on the origin 

 of plant structures by self-adaptation to the environment, 

 exemplified by desert and .xerophilous plants. The purport 

 of this paper was to prove by a direct appeal to facts 

 the probably universal application of Mr. Darwin's asser- 

 tions, viz. : (i) that natural selection has no relation whatever 

 to the primary cause of any modification of structure 

 ("Animals and Plants, &c." vol. ii. p. 272); (2) that modifi- 

 cations of structure are due to the direct action of the environ- 

 ment {fide Darwin, Weii-mann, Spencer, &c. ). This always 

 results in "definite vaiiations," by which Mr. Darwin signifies 

 (3) that all, or nearly all, the individuals became modified in the 

 same way ("Origin of Species," 6th ed., p. 106), and con- 

 sequently (4) that "a new variety would be produced without 

 the aid of natural selection" ("Animals and Plants," ii. 271, 

 " Origin of Species," pp. 72, 175). Mr. Henslow showed (i) 

 that all the species constituting the peculiar Jacies of a desert 

 flora are the direct result of their climatic conditions ; (2) that 



these peculiarities are in nearly all cases of the utmost benefit 

 to the plants, such as the hardening of the tissues, the reduction 

 of parenchyma, the minute size of the leaves, the dense 

 clothing of hair, a thick cuticle, the presence of wax, storage of 

 water tissue-, &c. But (3) these features are just those which 

 systemaiists utilise as descriptive characters of varieties and 

 species. Mr. Henslow observed that by Darwin's assuming that 

 "indefinite variations" which are characteristic o{ cultivation 

 were equally so in nature, he reasonably required natural 

 selection to correspond with artificial selection ; but that as- 

 sumption he believed to be erroneous. For experiments proved 

 that by sowing seeds in a very different medium, all the seed- 

 lings vary in the same direction, viz. that of adaptation to the 

 new environment, verifying Mr. Herbert Spencer's statement 

 that " under new conditions the organism immediately begins to 

 undergo certain changes in structure, fitting it for its new con- 

 ditions." The conclusion is thus arrived at which is expressed 

 in the title of this paper. The functions of natural selection 

 therefore become limited, as follows: (i) The survival of the 

 constitutionally strongest amongst seedlmgs ; (2) delimitation 

 of species by the non-reproduction of intermediate forms ; (3) 

 the geographical distribution of plants by self-adaptation. An 

 interesting discussion followed, in which Prof. Reynolds Green, 

 the Rev. Dr. Klein, Mr. Perry Coste, and others took part. 



Zoological Society, November 21. — Sir W. H. Flower, 

 K. C.B., F. R.S., President, in the chair. — The secretary 

 read a report on the additions that had been made lo the 

 Society's menagerie during the month of Octotier, 1893, and 

 called special attention to an example of Goliath beetle 

 {Goliathus dniryi), the largest of known Coleoptera, obtained 

 near Accra, and presented October 5, by Mr. F. W. Marshal, and 

 to an adult female and a young of the Manatee {Mauattis 

 americanns), captured in Manatee Bay, Jamaica, and most 

 kindly sent home for the Society's collection by Sir Henry 

 A, Blake. Unfortunately the Manatees had reached the gardens 

 in a very exhausted condition, and died soon after their anival. 

 — The secretary read an extract from a letter addressed to him 

 by Mr. J. S. Mackay, of the Kangra District, Punjaub, relating 

 to a young snow-leopard which he had in captivity, and 

 exhibited some photographs of this animal. — Mr. .Sclater 

 exhibited and made remarks on a mounted specimen of an 

 African monkey [Cercopithectis albognlaris) belonging to the 

 Leyden Museum. — Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier exhibited and made 

 remarks on two hybrid pheasants, believed to be crosses between 

 the common pheasant and the gold and silver pheasants. — A 

 communication was read from Messrs. G. W. and E. C. 

 Peckham, on the spiders of the family Attidiz of the island of 

 St. Vincent, based on specimens collected in that island by the 

 agency of the joint committee of the Royal Society and the 

 British Association for the exploration of the Lesser Antilles. 

 The series had been collected by Mr. Herbert H. Smith and 

 Mrs. Smith, who had been specially sent to the island as skilled 

 collectors by Mr. F. D. Godman, F. R.S. — A communication 

 was read from Mr. P. R. Uhler, containing a list of the 

 Hemiptera Heteroptera collected in the island of St. Vincent 

 by Mr, and Mrs. Herbert H. Smith, with descriptions of new 

 genera and species. — Dr. G. Lindsay Johnson made some 

 observations on the refraction and vision of the eye of the 

 com.mon seal {Phoca vitidina). — Mr. Sclater read a paper on 

 some specimens of mammals from Lake Mweru, British Central 

 Africa, transmitted by Vice-Consul Alfred Sharpe, through 

 Mr. II. H. Johnston, C.B, The specimens were referred to 

 seventeen species, amongst which was a new monkey of the 

 genus Ccrcopithecus, proposed to be called C. opisthosticlus, 

 and a new antelope allied to the waterbuck, which was named 

 Cobus craivihayi, after Mr. R. Crawshay, who had first dis- 

 covered the species, 



Cambridge. 



Philosophical Society, November 27. — Prof. T. McK. 

 Hughes, President, in the chair. — The following communications 

 were made. — Ttie action of light on bacteria, by Dr. H. Marshall 

 Ward. By throwing the spectrum on various bacteria suspended 

 in films of agar, it is possible to obtain photographic records of 

 the action of the various rays ; because, after incubation, those 

 spores or bacilli, &c. which are killed by certain rays remain 

 invisible, w hereas those still left capable of development render 

 the agar opaque. The experiments show that those germs wlrch 

 are struck by the infra-red, red, orange and yellow, develop as 

 rapidly as those net exposed to light at all. The action begins 



NO. 1259, VOL. 49] 



