July lo, 1890] 



NATURE 



255 



Mr. L, W. WiGLESWORTH, writing from Brunswick, says :— 

 " I am indebted to a friend for the following observation. A 

 squirrel, in leaping from a height of 33 feet to the ground* 

 caused itself, by means of cuiving its tail strongly to one side 

 just before alighting, to swerve in its course and so avoid some 

 hard substance upon which it would otherwise have fallen. It 

 landed safely upon a more suitable spot. If no one has done so 

 already, I should like to call attention to the use of the squirrel's 

 tail as a steering and balancing organ during the animal's 

 passnges through the air. For other uses see Nature, vol. xx. 

 p. 603." 



The fresh instalment of the Panama Canal Report deals with 

 the various plans and specifications submitted to the Committee, 

 which are divided into four categories: (i) a canal completely 

 isolated, and making no use of the existing rivers and streams ; 

 (2) a canal making use of the existing waterways ; (3) a canal 

 with a ship railway over part of the course ; (4) a canal with a 

 tunnel through the high land of Culebra. The Report points 

 out the various defects or omissions in the different schemes. 



Messrs. George Bell and Sons will publish in a few days 

 an octavo volume entitled "The Diseases of Crops and their 

 Remedies," by Dr. A. B. Griffiths. The work is illustrated 

 wiih 51 figures, and the chemical treatment of plant diseases is 

 fully discussed. 



Mr. G. Claridge Druce, 118 High Street, Oxford, is com- 

 piling a Flora of Berkshire, which will give all available informa- 

 tion upon the plants of that county and their distribution 

 through it and the adjoining counties. In order to make the 

 work as complete as possible, the compiler would greatly value 

 any notes on plant occurrences which may be sent to him. 



The schoolmaster, it would seem, is not abroad in Spain, at 

 least as far as geography is concerned. A leading journal of 

 Barcelona announces that England has ceded to Germany 

 Heligoland which is situated on the African coast. This fact 

 suggests to it a number of ingenious political considerations. 

 Ai the end of the article it is mentioned that Heligoland does 

 not belong to anybody, and is situated between the African 

 territories of Nyanza, Victoria, and the Congo. 



Some very remarkable observations on the production of the 

 rine figs of Ficus Roxbu7-ghii, Wall., have recently been pub- 

 lished by Dr. D. D. Cunningham, F.R. S., of the Indian Medi- 

 cal Service. The species is dioecious, the male receptacles or 

 tigs containing perfect male flowers with pollen, together with 

 imperfect or atrophied female or "gall-flowers," which never 

 produce seed ; the female figs contain perfect female flowers 

 only. Both kinds of fig are visited by the "fig-insect," usually 

 a species of Eupristis, for the purpose of laying its eggs in the 

 ovary. This is effected in the "gall-flowers " of the male figs ; 

 hut in the female figs the eff'orts of the insect to deposit its eggs 

 u iihin the ovary are frustrated by the great thickness of the wall 

 f the ovary. It is very rare to find more than a very few grains 

 ■A pollen in the female figs; and, according to Dr. Cunning- 

 ham, the embryo-sac in the female flowers retains, up to the 

 period of the visits of the insect, the character of a uninucleate 

 cell without oosphere, synergidae, or antipodal vesicles. The 

 full development of the embryo in the female flowers is brought 

 about simply by hypertrophy of the tissues, the result of the 

 imulation caused by the unsuccessful attempts of the insect to 

 lerce the wall of the ovary. If these observations are confirmed, 

 \ e have here one of the most remarkable instances of partheno- 

 nesis yet recorded in the vegetable kingdom. 



A NEW crystalline carbohydrate, of the composition CigHjjOig, 



named by its discoverers stachyose, has been extracted by Drs. 



von I'lania and Schulze from the bulbs of Stachys tnberifera 



' /'eric/ite, 1850, No. 10, p. 1692). It crystallizes from 90 per 



NO. 1080, VOL. 42] 



cent, alcohol in well-defined hard brilliant crystals belonging to 

 the triclinic system, and containing three molecules of water 

 of crystallization, CigHajOig -f 3H2O. When these crystals are 

 powdered, and heated to 103°- 104°, they lose their water, leav- 

 ing a colourless powder consisting of the free carbohydrate 

 Ci8^320i6- The crystals and their aqueous solution possess a 

 faint sweet sugar-like taste, and the solution in water, which is 

 of neutral reaction, rotates the plane of polarization strongly 

 to the right. The solution does not reduce Fehling's solation 

 until after warming with a mineral acid, when reduction rapidly 

 ensues. On heating with nitric acid, the carbohydrate furnishes 

 37 '3 per cent, of mucic acid. When heated with resorcinol 

 and concentrated hydrochloric acid, a deep red coloration is 

 produced. One of the principal products of the inversion of 

 stachyose is galactose, as shown by the following experiment. 

 About 30 grams of stachyose were boiled with a litre of 2^ per 

 cent, sulphuric acid for an hour in a flask furnished with a reflux 

 condenser. After cooling, the sulphuric acid was precipitated 

 by barium hydrate, the barium sulphate filtered off", and the 

 filtrate evaporated to a syrup. On extracting the syrup 

 with 95 per cent, alcohol, and allowing the extract to 

 evaporate over oil of vitriol, crystals slowly separated, pos- 

 sessing, after recrystallization, the right-handed rotation of 

 galactose (ou = 80° "5). From these properties stachyose is 

 considered to belong to the group of carbohydrates termed by 

 Prof. Tollens crystallizable polysaccharides. In this group 

 are included raffinose or mellitose, gentianose, and lactosine 

 Stachyose resembles the latter substance very closely, especially 

 as regards the formation of galactose on inversion ; but it is dis- 

 tinguished from lactosine by its much lower dextro-rotatory 

 power. As regards the preparation of stachyose from the 

 Stachys tuberifera, the bulbs were first crushed and the juice ex- 

 tracted as completely as possible by water. The extract was 

 then successively treated with lead acetate and nitrate of 

 mercury, the lead and mercury removed by a current of sul- 

 phuretted hydrogen gas, the filtered liquid neutralized with 

 ammonia and evaporated to a thin syrup upon a water-bath. 

 This syrup was then poured into alcohol, when a thick precipi- 

 tate was formed, which gradually collected as a dark-coloured 

 syrup in the lower portion of the flask. After removal of the 

 alcohol the syrup was dissolved in water, treated with phospho- 

 tungstic acid, and filtered, excess of phospho-tungstic acid being 

 subsequently removed by baryta-water. A stream of carbon 

 dioxide was then led through the liquid, which was again filtered, 

 evaporated, and poured into absolute alcohol, when a perfectly 

 white precipitate was obtained, consisting of almost pure stachy- 

 ose. The crystals are best obtained by pouring a concentrated 

 aqueous solution of the precipitated carbohydrate into such a 

 quantity of absolute alcohol that a 91 per cent, solution of 

 alcohol is obtained. Crystals of stachyose immediately com- 

 mence to separate. 



For the first time since the establishment of the Gardens of 

 the Zoological Society there is now to be seen there one of the 

 ancient breed of the English wild cattle. Earl Ferrers having 

 presented to the Society a fine young bull, which he captured in 

 Chartley Park, Staffordshire. From Garner's " Natural History 

 of Staffordshire " it appears that the wild ox formerly roamed 

 over Needwood Forest. In the thirteenth centuiy William de 

 Farrarus caused the park of Chartley to be separated from the 

 forest, and the turf of this extensive enclosure still remains 

 almost in its primitive state. Here a herd of wild cattle has 

 been preserved down to the present day, and they retain their 

 wild characteristics, like those at Chillingham. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during 

 the past week include a Water- buck {Cobm dlipsiprymnus <J ), 

 a Serval {Felis serval), six Vulturine Guinea Fowls {Numida 



