May 29, 1890] 



NATURE 



119 



from the albumose, and it is possible that the living tissues have 

 a similar action when the albumose is introduced into a living 

 animal. 



Entomological Society, May 7.— Captain Henry J. 

 Elwes, Vice-President, in the chair. —Mr. H. Goss, the Secre- 

 tary, read a letter from the Vicar of Arundel, asking for advice 

 as to the course to be taken to get rid of the larvae of a beetle 

 which were destroying the beams of the parish church. Mr. C. 

 j O. Waterhouse said he had already been consulted on the ques- 

 tion, and had advised that the beams should be soaked with 

 paraffin oil. — Dr. Sharp exhibited specimens of Caryoborus 

 lacerdcE, a species of Bntchidcc, and the nuts from which they had 

 been reared. He stated that these nuts had been sent him from 

 Bahia by the late Seuor Lacerda, about six years ago, and that 

 one of the beetles had recently emerged, after the nuts had been 

 in this country for five years. Dr. Sharp also exhibited several 

 specimens of Diptera collected by Mr. Herbert Smith in St. 

 Vincent, and read a letter from him to Mr. Godman on the sub- 

 ject of the vast number of species of this order which he had 

 recently collected in that island. Mr. McLachlan, F.R.S., Dr. 

 Mason, Mr. Waterhouse, and Captain Elwes took part in the 

 discussion which ensued. — Mr. R. F. Lewi«, on behalf of Mr. 

 W. M. Maskell, of Wellington, New Zealand, exhibited and 

 read notes on about twenty-five species of Coccidic from that 

 colony. He also e.xhibited some specimens of the larvae and 

 imagos of Icerya Purcliasi, Maskell, obtained from Natal, where 

 the species had proved very destructive to orange, lemon, and 

 other fruit-trees. He also showed specimens of the larvae of an 

 allied species from Natal, originally assigned by Mr. Douglas to 

 the genus Ortonia, but which Mr. Maskell was inclined to 

 regard as a new species of Icerya. Mr. McLachlan and the 

 Chairman commented on the interesting nature of the exhibi- 

 tion, and the importance of a knowledge of the parasites of 

 injurious insects, in connection with which special mention was 

 made of the researches and discoveries of Prof. Riley. — The 

 Secretary exhibited, on behalf of Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell, of 

 Colorado, a large collection of insect-galls, and read a letter 

 from Mr. Cockerell on the subject. Dr. Mason said he should 

 be happy to take charge of these galls, w ith a view of rearing 

 the insects and reporting the results. — Mr. W. H. Bates, 

 F.R.S., communicated a paper entitled, " On New Species of 

 Cicindelidir. " 



Royal Meteorological Society, May 21.— Mr. Baldwin 

 Latham, President, in the chair. — The following papers were 

 read :— Rainfall of the globe, by Mr. W. B. Tripp. This was 

 a comparative chronological account of some of the principal 

 rainfall records. The earliest record is that of Paris, which 

 commenced in 1689. The English records began in 1726. The 

 rainfall observations in the southern hemisphere do not extend 

 over :i very long period ; at Adelaide they were commenced in 

 1839, but they do not go back further than 1866 for New 

 Zealand. The greatest fall in any particular year at the stations 

 given by the author was 160*9 inches at St. Bernard in 1839, and 

 the least 3 inches at Sandiego in California in 1863. By com- 

 bining the stations in the northern and southern hemispheres the 

 author finds that in recent times the years with the highest 

 average rainfall were 1878, 1879, and 1883, and the years with 

 the lowest average were 1854 and 1861. — Mutual influence of 

 two pressure plates upon each other, and comparison of the 

 pressures upon small and large plates, by Mr. W. H. Dines. — On 

 the variations of pressure caused by the wind blowing across the 

 mouth of a tube, by Mr. W. II. Dines. In these two papers 

 the author gives the results of some experiments on wind 

 pressure which he has made mostly on a whirling machine at 

 Hersham, Surrey. From these experiments it seems probable 

 that a decrease of pressure per square foot with an increase of 

 size of plate may be taken as a general rule. 



Geological Society, May 14. —Dr. A. Geikie, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — The following communications were 

 read :— The so-called Upper Lias Clay of Down Cliffs, by S. S. 

 Buckman, The blue clay of Down Cliff, Dorset, which has 

 been referred to the Upper Lias, has yielded Ammonites of the 

 genus Duniorlieria to the author, notably D. radians. This 

 blue clay is belmv the Yeovil Sands ; but the position of D. 

 radians in the Cotteswolds is in the limestone aboi-e the Cottes- 

 wold Sands, which has been placed in the Inferior Oolite series. 

 The author, by combining the Down Cliffs and Chideock Hill 

 sections, obtains a sequence of beds from the Middle Lias to the 

 top beds of the Inferior Oolite, including the zones of spinattim, 



NO. 1074, VOL. 42] 



commune t ^ndfakiferum, Jurcnse, opalinum, Mttrckisomc, con- 

 cavum, and Farkinsoni. The genus Dumortieria binds the 

 opcilinum and jurensc zones together ; while at Symondsbury 

 Hill the author has found Ltidwigia Murchisona: and I.ioceras 

 opalinum in the same bed, which renders it difficult to draw a 

 line of demarcation between Lias and Oolite at the top of the 

 opalinum zone. The facts adduced in the paper furnish ad- 

 ditional evidence of the untrustworthiness of a grouping which de- 

 pends upon lithological appearances, and it was because no satis- 

 factory line could be drawn between Lias and Oolite that the 

 author, in a previous paper, supported the continental plan of 

 grouping Upper Lias and part of the Inferior Oolite under the 

 term Toarcian upon palaeontological grounds. In the present 

 paper he furnishes further statements in support of this view. 

 After the reading of this paper some remarks were offered by 

 Mr. H. B. W^oodward, Mr. Hudleston, and the President.— On 

 some new mammals from the Red and Norwich Crags, by E. T. 

 Newton.— On burrows and tracks of Invertebrate animals in 

 Palaeozoic Rocks, and other markings, by Sir J. William Dawson,, 

 F.R.S. — Contact-alteration at New Galloway, by Miss M. I. 

 Gardiner. Communicated by J. J. H. Teal. 



Zoological Society, May 20.— Prof. W. H. Flower, F.R.S.,. 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. Gambier Bolton exhibited a series 

 of photographs, principally of animals living at the Society's 

 Gardens and in Mr. Walter Rothschild's menagerie. — Prof. 

 Flower exhibited a photograph of a nest of a Hornbill {Toccus 

 melanoleucos), taken from a specimen in the Albany Museum,. 

 Grahamstown, in which the female was shown "walled in." — 

 A communication was read from Sir Edward Newton relating to 

 the reported discovery of Dodo's bones in Mauritius in 1885, by 

 the late Mr. Caldwell. It appeared that there had been some 

 error in the matter, and that the bones discovered w^re not those 

 of the Dodo. — Mr. Sclater, F.R.S., pointed out the characters 

 of a new Toucan of the genus Ptcroglasus from the Amazons, 

 proposed to be called P. didymus. — Mr. R. Lydekker read a 

 paper describing some bird-remains from the cavern-deposits of 

 ^lalta. These remains indicated a Vulture larger than any. 

 existing species, which, from the characters of the cervical 

 vertebrae, he referred to the genus Gyps, under the name of G. 

 melitensis. They also comprised some bones of a crane, of the 

 size of Grus antigone, for which the name Grus melitensis was. 

 proposed. — Dr. Hans Gadow gave an account of some cases of 

 the modification of certain organs in Mammals and Birds which 

 seemed to be illustrations of the inheritance of acquired 

 characters. 



Edinhurgh. 

 Royal Society, May 19. — After the reading of some obituary 

 notices, Prof. Crum Brown read a paper written by himself and 

 Dr. J. Walker on the synthesis of sebacic acid. — Prof. Tait 

 communicated a note on some remarkable quaternion formulae. 

 — Dr. Alexander Bruce read a paper on the roots of the auditory 

 nerve and their connections. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, May 19.— M. Hermite in the chair. 

 — Experiments on the deformations experienced by a spheroidal 

 envelope subjected to pressure ; possible applications to the ter- 

 restrial globe, by M. Daubree. From the experiments described 

 in this and in a previous communication, it appears that the 

 author has been able to produce in various spheroids configura- 

 tions like those exhibited by the earth's crust. He finds that 

 the southern parts of the three continental masses are not 

 deviated towards the east because of the influence of the earth's 

 rotation, but by the effect of simple torsion in a spheroidal 

 heterogeneous envelope subjected to contraction, similar reason- 

 ing is extended to explain characteristic canals of Mars. — New- 

 method of calculation for the interpolation and correction of 

 meteorological observations, by M. Marc Dechevrens. The 

 interpolation formula generally used in researches into the laws 

 of variations of meteorological phenomena, and due either to 

 Bessel or Fourier, is long and tedious. From considerable use 

 of this method the author has found that it may be simplified, 

 and in the memoir presented shows how arithmetic— multiplica- 

 tion and addition — may replace trigonometry, angles and 

 logarithms. — Observations of Brooks's comet (a 1890) made 

 with the great equatorial of Bordeaux, by MM. Rayet and 

 Courty. Measures of position are given. A photograph of the 

 comet was obtained on May 15 with an exposure of one hour. 

 It appears on the negative as a disk having a sensible diameter. 



