614 



NATURE 



October 22, 190^ 



Finally, the committee appointed last year to investigate 

 the fauna and flora of the Trias of the British Isles made 

 its first report. It was written by Mr. H. C. Beasley, 

 and deals with cheirotheroid foot-prints. The attendance 

 at the meetings of the section was good, and on several 

 occasions the papers led to animated and interesting dis- 

 cussions. H. W. M. 



ZOOLOGY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 T^HE president's address — which was postponed until 

 -*■ Friday, September ii, in order to avoid the hours 

 fixed for the opening addresses in the other biological 

 sections — dealt first with the inadequacy of the public pro- 

 vision made for the advancement of zoology and its appli- 

 cations in this country, and secondly with some consider- 

 ations bearing on the problems of variation and heredity, 

 more especially as seen in the Coelenterata. In fact, in- 

 fluenced no doubt by the personal work of the president, 

 a considerable number of the communications brought before 

 the section this year dealt with the Coelenterata, especially 

 with corals and coral reefs. 



7 hursday, September lo. — The forenoon was given up 

 to coral papers, and the afternoon mainly to reports of 

 committees. Dr. J. E. Duerden (from the United States) 

 gave two papers, " Septal Sequence in the Coral Sider- 

 astraea " and " Morphology and Development of Recent and 

 Fossil Corals "• — these being some of the results of the 

 author's studies of living West Indian corals while he 

 served as curator of the museum at Jamaica. He directed 

 attention to the general occurrence of boring filamentous 

 Alga;, and to the fact that the colours of West Indian corals 

 are mainly due to the presence of symbiotic yellow cells 

 (zooxanthellae) in the endoderm. Mr. C. Crossland had a 

 paper describing the coral formations he met with on the 

 east coast of Africa, near Zanzibar, and Mr. Stanley 

 Gardiner gave a general account of the coral reefs of the 

 Indian Ocean. In connection with this, Prof. Herdman 

 directed attention to the fact that, in the Gulf of Manaar, 

 calcareous masses (" calcretes ") of great extent are formed 

 in situ on the sea-bottom by the cementing of sand and 

 other loose material by calcareous incrusting Polyzoa. 

 Miss Edith Pratt had a paper on the assimilation and dis- 

 tribution of nutriment in Alcyonium digitatum. The 

 polypes exercise choice, and feed mainly on small Crustacea. 

 Miss Pratt regards the so-called nerve-plexus as part of a 

 system of amoeboid endoderm cells conveying nutriment 

 throughout the colony. Prof. Hickson described a case of 

 polymorphism in a Pennatula murrayi from eastern seas. 

 Dr. J. Cameron gave a lantern demonstration on the origin 

 of the epiphysis in Amphibia as a bilateral structure. 



The reports of committees were as follows : — (i) On bird 

 migration in Great Britain and Ireland. This is the final 

 report, and consists chiefly of Mr. Eagle Clarke's observ- 

 ations on the starling and the rook. (2) Naples Zoological 

 Station. This includes a detailed account, by Mr. W. 

 Wallace, of his investigations on the oocyte of Tomopteris. 

 (3) " Index Animalium." The first volume, dealing with 

 the period 1758-1800, has been issued, and the indexing 

 of 1801-1900 is now being continued by Mr. Sherborn. (4) 

 Zoology of the Sandwich Islands. This is the thirteenth 

 report, and the work is still in progress. (5) Coral reefs 

 of the Indian region. (6) Plymouth Marine Laboratory. 

 (7) Millport Marine Laboratory. As on this occasion the 

 physiological section did not meet separately, the physio- 

 logical papers were taken in Section D. These included 

 two reports : — (i) The microchemistry of cells. This dealt 

 chiefly with the localisation of potassium in the living cell, 

 and was drawn up by Prof. A. B. Macallum. (2) The state 

 of solution of proteids. 



Friday, September 11. — After the presidential address 

 came a paper by Dr. Gamble and Mr. Keeble on the 

 bionomics of Convoluta roscoffensis, with special reference 

 to its green cells. This was followed by three short notes 

 by Prof. R. J. Anderson — the skull of Ursus ornatus, the 

 skull of Grampus griseus, and the peritoneum in Meles 

 taxus. The section did not meet on Saturday. 



Monday, September 14. — The morning was devoted to a 



•joiqt discussion with botanists on fertilisation, in which 



-the; president, Prof. Hartog, Prof. Bretland Farmer, Mr. 



W. Bateson, Mr. M. D. Hill, and Mr. Jenkinson took part. 



NO. 1773, VOL. 68] 



The following papers were then read : — M. D. Hill, on 

 nuclear changes in the egg of Alcyonium ; Prof. Hartog, 

 on the function of chromatin in cell division, and on the 

 tentacles of Suctoria ; Prof. Hickson, on conjugation in 

 Dendrocometes (demonstrated with slides) ; J. W. Jenkin- 

 son, on some experiments on the development of the frog ; 

 Dr. Leighton, on British reptiles; N. Annandale, on the 

 coloration of Malayan reptiles ; H. C. Robinson, on the 

 walking fish of the Malay Peninsula, and also an ex- 

 hibition of convergent series of Malayan butterflies. 



Tuesday, September 15. — Prof. Herdman gave a short 

 account of a remarkable phosphorescence phenomenon 

 observed in the Indian Ocean, which led to descriptions of 

 other similar occurrences by the president, Mr. Stanley 

 Gardiner, Mr. Bateson, and others. Prof. Herdman then 

 read a joint note by Mr. James Hornell and himself on 

 pearl-formation in the Ceylon pearl oyster, giving a bio- 

 logical classification of pearls into (i) ampullary, (2) 

 muscle pearls, and (3) cyst pearls. The remaining papers 

 were mainly physiological in their bearing, viz. Captain 

 Barrett-Hamilton, on a physiological theory of the 

 winter whitening of animals ; Prof. B. Moore, on a 

 new form of osmometer for direct determinations of 

 osmotic pressure of colloids, and also experiments on the 

 permeability of lipoid membranes ; Prof. Sherrington and 

 Dr. Griinbaum, on the cerebrum of apes; Mr. J. Bar- 

 croft, on the origin of water in saliva ; Dr. Greaves, 

 demonstration of visual combination of complementary 

 colours ; Mr. C. V. Hughes, note on two rare birds ; 

 Dr. Rennie, on epithelial islets in the pancreas of 

 Teleosteans ; Mr. D. C. Mcintosh, on variation in 

 Ophiocoma nigra; and Prof. W. C. M'Intosh, on the 

 eggs of the shanny. Dr. Rennie suggests that his 

 epithelial islets are blood-glands which have entered into 

 a secondary relation to the pancreas, and that they main- 

 tain their primitive function of producing an internal 

 secretion. 



The section did not meet on Wednesday, but on Thursday, 

 .September 17, there was a dredging expedition, in which 

 the president and a number of the members of Section D 

 took part. The expedition was in the Lancashire Sea- 

 Fisheries steamer, John Fell, kindly lent for the purpose 

 by the committee, and was under the leadership of Mr. 

 Dawson (Superintendent of Fisheries), Mr. Isaac Thomp- 

 son (of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee), and 

 Prof. Herdman. The first hauls of the fish and shrimp 

 trawls were taken in the shallow waters off Southport and 

 the estuary of the Mersey, in order to show the fauna of 

 the characteristic Lancashire small-fish "nurseries"; a 

 visit was paid to the local shrimping fleet, a fishing boat 

 was overhauled and boarded and its nets examined, and 

 the other routine operations of the fisheries steamer in 

 policing and inspecting the district were fully explained to 

 the party. The processes of taking the physical observ- 

 ations, and of examining, counting, and recording a haul 

 of the trawl were also gone through. Later in the day 

 dredging and tow-netting took place further out to sea 

 on harder ground with a more varied fauna. Although 

 not strictly part of the work of the section, this dredging 

 expedition made an interesting and appropriate finish to a 

 very successful zoological meeting. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Dr. Sydney Young, F.R.S., professor of chemistry in 

 University College, Bristol, has been appointed to the chair 

 of chemistry in Trinity College, Dublin, vacant by the 

 resignation of Prof. Emerson Reynolds. 



One of the two open entrance scholarships which were 

 recently founded at the Victoria University of Manchester, 

 each of the value of looZ., has been awarded to Mr. W. C. 

 Denniston. 



Dr. John White, of the University of Nebraska, has been 

 appointed head of the department of chemistry at the Rose 

 Polytechnic Institute, succeeding Prof. W. A. Noyes, who 

 was recently appointed chief chemist of the American 

 National Bureau of Standards. 



The course of Saturday morning lectures on the teaching 

 of mathematics, which the London Technical Education 



