April 6, 191 6] 



NATURE 



129 



land, and is met with also in the Midlands. Miss 

 Pitt seems to be under the impression that it is found 

 only in the south and west of England. 



In an account of his observations on the feeding 

 habits of the purple-tipped sea-urchin {Echinus inili- 

 aris), which he contributes to the Zoologist for March, 

 Mr. H. N. Milligan adds a number of new tacts 

 which are well worth recording. The diet of these 

 animals ranges from bits of chalk to living fish and 

 moUusca ; nothing seems to come amiss to them. 

 The cast shells of Crustacea are eaten with the same 

 avidity as the dead animal. When legs of Crustacea 

 are placed near them they are partly eaten, and the 

 remaining portions are carried up by the tube feet 

 and placed upon the back, to serve apparently as a 

 disguise. How they discover and locate the position of 

 edible morsels is yet unknown, but Mr. Milligan, by 

 means of an ingenious experiment, has shown that 

 ; they soon detect the introduction of food into the tank 

 I in which they are confined, and, furthermore, make 

 I strenuous efforts to seize it when it is placed out of 

 reach. 



I A REPORT on the chlorosis of the tobacco plant, 



I generally known as "calico," is published by Mr. 



I G. P. Ciinton in the Connecticut Experimental Station 



j Report for 1914. "Calico" is an infectious and, to a 



I certain extent, a contagious disease which can be 



communicated by mere contact of calicoed plants or 



i their juice with healthy plants. Infected plants in 



I the seed-bed are probably primarily responsible for 



: most of the calico in the fields. The disease is remark- 



lable in appearing to be due, not to bacterial or fungoid 



I agencies, but to an enzymic "virus." The virus can 



ibe filtered through a Berkefeld filter, and can be 



j extracted from calicoed leaves by antiseptic solvents 



; such as ether, chloroform, and alcohol, and the 



infected juice has its activity preserved by adding 



toluene. A number of precautionary measures are 



given for dealing with the disease and a useful biblio- 



jgraphy of the subject. 



Among the foreign guests of the British Association 

 jin Australia in 19 14 was Dr. C. H. Ostenfeld, of 

 ICopenhagen, who has now published his observ^ations 

 on the vegetation of Western Australia {Geograp.sk 

 Tidskrift. xxiii., 1915, pp. 35-46 and 132-48). He 

 divides Western Australia into three climatic regions, 

 ieach with a characteristic vegetation, tropical, central 

 and north-west and south-west. The last region has 

 jthe greatest rainfall, and is most important. It falls 

 into three belts, depending on rainfall, which are 

 named respectively the cattle, wheat, and timber belts, 

 |but since one or other species of eucalyptus char- 

 jacterises each, belt of increasing rainfall from the 

 interior to the sea. Dr. Ostenfeld proposes another and 

 jitricter classification into five belts. The Wandoo belt 

 j;£. redunca), with 450 to 700 mm. annual rainfall ; 

 me Jarrah belt {E. marginata), 700-1000 mm. ; the 

 Tuart belt (E. gomphocephala), about 900 mm. ; the 

 [Karri belt {E. diver sicolor), 1000-1200 mm. ; and the 

 j oast scrub, with Agonis flexuosa and Acacia, on the 

 |;ea cliffs. The Jarrah belt is the most important, not 

 merely on account of its timber, but also for its cattle- 

 ,armmg and fruit-growing. The paper is well illus- 

 I rated. 



In the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts for 

 anuary 28, a review of the work of the British 

 .otton-growmg Association since its formation in 

 902 is given by Mr. J. A. Hutton, chairman of the 

 ouncil of the association. To the activities of the 

 issociation the successful cultivation of cotton in 

 nany parts of the Empire is due, and in particular 

 Jganda, Egypt, and the West Indies mav be cited, 

 n Uganda the first export of cotton took place in 

 NO. 2423, VOL. 97] 



1904, when 54 bales were shipped, and in 19 14 the 

 shipment had risen to 40,000 bales. The transport 

 facilities afforded by the Uganda Railway have made 

 possible this successful cultivation, and in Nyasaland 

 the extension of the Shire railway to Chindio, an 

 enterprise largely helped by the association, will no 

 doubt bring beneficial results to the cotton industry in 

 the Protectorate. The association has made experi- 

 ments in British colonies, both suitable and unsuit- 

 I able, and has many failures to record, particularly in 

 I West .Africa, where either conditions of climate were 

 j unsuitable or other crops were preferred by the native 

 I growers. In many colonies the association has been 

 ( instrumental in hastening the formation of agricul- 

 tural departments, with which it is now working in 

 close harmony. Owing to the existence of the 

 efficient Imperial Department of Agriculture in the 

 I West Indies, the Cotton-growing Association has been 

 \ able to render very great help to the West Indian 

 islands, and the cotton from that region is highly 

 appreciated by the spinners in Liverpool. 



A BLizz.\RD of unusual severity' swept over the British 

 Isles on March 27 and 28, causing a large amount of 

 damage, both on land and sea, with some loss of life. 

 In London the weather changes indicated the passage 

 of a double-centred disturbance, or a parent storm and 

 its subsidiary. The first disturbance reached its maxi- 

 mum force late on Monday evening, March 27, when 

 the barometer in London fell below 29 in. The gale 

 was from the south-west and was accompanied by 

 heavy rain and snow. The wind had abated on Tues- 

 da)' morning, but the barometer remained low. In the 

 afternoon the mercury rose briskly and the wind 

 shifted to the northward, blowing a severe gale in the 

 early evening of March 28, with heav\% driving snow. 

 On the morning of March 29 the barometer had risen 

 an inch in the twenty-four hours. The velocity of the 

 wind is given as 70 to 80 miles an hour in parts of 

 England, and in London early on the evening of 

 March 28 the rate was about 60 miles an hour. 



Symons's Meteorological Magazine for March gives 

 a rainfall table for February, 19 16, which shows that 

 the month was wet over nearly the whole of the 

 British Isles, Aberdeen being the only station among 

 those chosen for the tentative results with a deficiencv 

 of rain. The total rainfall during the month is sai^ 

 to have been most excessive in the south-east of 

 England generally, the fall being more than double 

 the average to the south of a line drawn from Hull 

 to Cardiff. The greatest excess of rain at the given 

 stations occurred in Derbyshire, the measurement at 

 Mickleover being 289 per cent, of the average. At 

 Bury St. Edmunds the fall was 273 per cent., at 

 Launceston 271 per cent., and at Tenterden 258 per 

 cent, of the average. The London rainfall at 

 Camden Square was 208 per cent, of the average. 

 Generally over England and Wales the fall was 193 

 per cent, of the average, in Scotland 150 per cent., 

 in Ireland 160 per cent., and for the British Isles as 

 a whole 170 per cent. The duration of rainfall in 

 London was 909 hours, which is 51-9 hours above 

 the average of the previous thirty-five years, and the 

 greatest duration in February since ' records com- 

 menced in 188 1. \ map is given showing the Thames 

 Valley rainfall, and from this it is seen how excessive 

 the rains were. In Hampshire there is a considerable 

 area with more than 6 in., and a large portion of 

 the map shows the rainfall to have exceeded 5 in. 



P.ART 5 of vol. iv. of the Science Reports of the 

 University of Sendai, Japan, contains a paper on the 

 daily variation of underground temperature bv Mr. 

 S. Sat6, which shows the un trustworthiness of 

 placing the recording thermometer in an iron pipe 



