October 22, 1903] 



NATURE 



615 



Hoard announced would be commenced by Prof. Hudson 

 at King's College, Strand, on October 17, has been post- 

 poned until next term, and will begin on January 23, 1904. 



At a special convocation of the University of Toronto 

 on October 2, the following honorary degrees were con- 

 ferred in connection with the opening ceremonies of the 

 new physiological and medical laboratories :— LL D 

 {honoris causa) Prof. W. W. Keen, Jefferson Medical 

 College. Philadelphia ; Prof. W. H. Welch, Johns Hopkins 

 University ; Prof. William Osier, F.R.S., Johns Hopkins 

 L niversity ; Prof. R. H. Chittenden, Yale University ; Prof. 

 Chares S. Sherrington, F.R.S., University of Liverpool. 

 In absentia. Prof. H. P. Bowditch, Harvard University. 

 I he inaugural address at the opening of the laboratories 

 was delivered by Prof. Sherrington. 



The new buildings of the Essex Countv Technical 

 Laboratories, Chelmsford, will be opened by "the Earl of 

 Onslow, President of the Board of Agriculture, on Friday 

 afternoon, October 30. The buildings, which have just 

 been completed at a cost of nearly 12,000/., comprise 

 chemical, physical and biological laboratories and class- 

 rooms, together with agricultural and horticultural 

 museums and libraries, and provide facilities for systematic 

 instruction in agriculture and horticulture, as well as in 

 pure science. The laboratories are intended to be a centre 

 for agricultural and horticultural information for the whole 

 county, and they include rooms for the analysis of soils, 

 manures, foods, seeds, &c., and for other scientific work 

 carried on in the interest of these industries. 



In reply to a memorial to the Board of Agriculture, ask- 

 ing that ordnance maps might be sold at reduced prices 

 for teaching purposes, the Geographical Association has 

 been informed that the Board is prepared to authorise the 

 Ordnance Survey Department to produce and supply to 

 educational authorities a special edition of the outline i-inch 

 maps, printed on cheap but reasonably strong paper, at the 

 following prices : — 200 copies, il. 5s. ; 500 copies, 2I. ; 1000 

 copies, 3/. ; 5000 copies, 12Z: For larger numbers the estim- 

 <ited price would be 2I. per 1000 copies. The Board has 

 stipulated that any maps thus supplied should not be sold, 

 and a heading is to be printed on the maps to this effect. 

 Referring to the educational advantages of the Board's 

 decision. Dr. Herbertson, secretary of the Geographical 

 Association,, remarks: — "'it is universally agreed that all 

 sound geographical teaching must begin in a study of the 

 home region, and it is therefore to be hoped that most 

 icachers will avail themselves of the facilities so generously 

 j:;;^ranted, either, individually or by making application 

 through the local education authority." 



Much of the success of the Glasgow and West of Scotland 

 Technical College could probably be traced to the wide- 

 spread interest in its work shown by the Corporation of 

 Glasgow, by Scottish manufacturers and merchants, and 

 by the associations both of professional men and of artisans. 

 The most recent annual report of the governors of the 

 college provides many indications of the belief in the value 

 of higher technical education by the inhabitants of Glasgow 

 and its neighbourhood. The Corporation of Glasgow has 

 made a grant of 5000/., of. which 4500/. was towards work- 

 ing expenses and 500/. towards the building fund ; many 

 manufacturers and others have given facilities for visits to 

 their works by parties of students, and many merchants 

 have made additions to the college equipment or have sup- 

 plied laboratory material. It is of interest to note that the 

 total expenditure involved by the erection of the new build- 

 ings, the foundation stone of which was laid last May by 

 the King, exclusive of equipment, will be not less than 

 210,000/. Of this sum the governors are able to announce 

 promises of donations and grants amounting to 182,382/. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Entomological Society, October 7,— Prof. E. B. Poulton, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Mr. G. C. Champion 

 exhibited on behalf of Prof. Hudson Beare some specimens 

 ■of a Ptinus new to the British list, captured in a granary 

 at Strood on May 11. 1901. — Mr. C. O. Waterhouse ex- 

 hibited on behalf of Mr. Charles Pool specimens of a beetle 

 of the genus Niphus, closely resembling N. crenatus, but 



NO. 1773, VOL. 68] 



with distinct shoulders, and more parallel elytra which 

 are less strongly striated. They were found in large 

 numbers in a corn chandler's at Edmonton.— Mr. H. St. J. 

 Donisthorpe exhibited specimens of Aphanisticus emarpin- 

 atus from the Isle of Wight, a beetle new to the British 

 list and a Scymnus, new to science, from the same locality. 

 —Mr. M. Burr exhibited a living adult male earwig, Labi- 

 dura rtpana, Pall., captured near Boscombe at the end of 

 August. He said that the very noticeable pale color- 

 ation becomes darker after death, sometimes nearly black, 

 which might account for some of the numerous " colour- 

 varieties. "—Dr. Norman Joy e.xhibited a specimen of 

 Argynnts selene, taken last year in Berkshire, showing a 

 remarkable tendency to melanism, and rare Coleoptera 

 taken in the same county during 1903.— Sir George 

 Hampson exhibited a collection of Norwegian butterflies 

 made by him on the Dorsefjeld, on the Alten fiord, at 

 Bossekop, and other localities this year, including series 

 of Colias hecla, Lef., Chrysophanus hippothoe, and var. 

 stieberi, Gerh., CEneis noma, Thnb., Melitaea, var. 

 Norvegica. Auriv., the Norwegian form of M. aurelia, 

 Argynnis freiga, and A. frigga, a Labrador, Arctic, and 

 North American species, now found further south, at 

 Kongsvold, for the first time.— Mr. A. H. Jones exhibited 

 examples of Erebia christi, taken this summer in the 

 Laquinthal, and of the species of Erebia, to which it is 

 allied ; a local form of Satyrus actaea, var. cordula, from 

 Sierre; and a short series of Chrysophanus dorilis' (tvpe) 

 and C. var. subalpina from the Laquinthal, with' P. 

 hippothoe, var. eurybia, showing the strong resemblance 

 on the upper surface which the Q of this latter species 

 bears to the 9 subalpina.— Mr. A. J. Chitty exhibited 

 specimens of Procto trupid, which he said approached 

 Poncra consfricta in appearance, but might be an Iso- 

 brachium. If so, it was new to the British list.— Mr. H. 

 Willoughby Ellis exhibited Criocephalus polonicus, Motsch, 

 a longicorn beetle new to Great Britain, from the New 

 Forest, and also specimens of all stages, from the egg to 

 the imago, to illustrate the life-history of the species. He 

 also exhibited specimens of Asemum striatum, L., with 

 larva and pupa, accounted heretofore rare in the New 

 Forest, but this year occurring in abundance. — Mr. 

 Ambrose Quail exhibited cases showing the life-history of 

 some Australian Hepialidae.— Dr. D. Sharp, F.R.S.," ex- 

 hibited specimens illustrative of the egg-cases and life- 

 histories of eight species of South African Cassididae, as 

 described in a paper by Mr. F. Muir and himself. — Mr. 

 W. L. Distant also showed the pupa cases of some African 

 species of Aspidomorpha, with the cast heads of the larvae. 

 — Mr. Roland Trimen, F.R.S., exhibited some cases of 

 mimicry between butterflies inhabiting the Kavirondo- 

 Nandi district of the Uganda British Protectorate, par- 

 ticularly that in which Planema poggei, Dewitz, is imitated 

 by an apparent variety of Pseudacraea kiinowii, Dewitz, and 

 also by a hitherto undescribed form of the polymorphic 

 Q Papilio merope. Cram. He mentioned that both 

 Planema poggei and Pseudacraea kiinowii were described 

 and figured by Dewitz in 1879 from single specimens taken 

 by Dr. Pogge irf Angola, and added the interesting fact 

 that the oAly other example of the undescribed mimicking 

 form of the 9 PapiHo merope known to him — in the Hope 

 Department of the Oxford University Museum — is ticketed 

 "Angola; Rogers, 1873." The president referred to 

 the special interest attaching to an interpretation of 

 this remarkable form of the female merope ; at the 

 same time he pointed out that the interpretation 

 so convincingly illustrated that evening had been made 

 out last spring by Mr. S. A. Neave, who exhibited this 

 form of the female merope, together with Planema poggei 

 as its model, at both soiries of the Royal Society in May 

 and June, a time when Mr. Trimen's absence from England 

 unfortunately prevented him from seeing them. — Dr. T. A. 

 Chapman exhibited Coenonympha oedipus, Satyrus dryas, 

 and Heteropterus morpheus, taken last summer near 

 Biarritz, and Erebia crias and E. stygne, from the Logroflo 

 Sierra, Spain. These he suggested were probably examples 

 of homoeochromatism. Little attention has been directed 

 to homoeochromatism in European butterflies, and these 

 were certainly not examples of the detailed mimetism we 

 are now familiar with in Miillerian groups from the African 



