NATURE 1, 
I 
Marcy 19, 1914] 
spot nor its absence is dominant in the Ry hybrids ; 
F, generation shows even greater variability.— 
C. F. M. Swynnerton : Short cuts by birds to nectaries. 
Certain birds, and some individuals more than others, 
apparently disliked being besprinkled with pollen, and 
tended always to enter flowers by breaches made by 
themselves or their predecessors. Other birds tried, 
contrariwise, to enter the flowers by their natural 
openings and so to be of use to them for cross- 
fertilisation excepting in the case of individual flowers 
that happen, through inconvenience in their own or 
the bird's position, etc., to offer some difficulty. If 
these were insufficiently protected as well, they were 
often either pierced or the openings already made in 
them by the more indiscriminating birds were utilised. 
Insects also tended to utilise the breaches made by 
birds, and so probably in large part failed to counter- 
act the latter’s discriminative influence. In most 
cases the eliminative effect, if any, of the damage was 
not traced. In two instances it was (for individuals) 
immediate and clear, flowers of a certain type being 
bodily removed. 
Mathematical Society, March 12.—Prof. A. E. H. 
Love, president, in the chair.—Prof. W. Burnside : The 
rational solutions of the equation x*+y%+z°=o in 
quadratic fields.—Prof. H. Hilton and Miss R. E. 
Colomb : Orthoptic and isoptic loci of plane curves.— 
G. H. Hardy: The roots of the Riemann ¢-function.— 
Dr. T. J. I’A. Bromwich: Normal coordinates in 
dynamics. 
MANCHESTER. 
Literary and Philosophical Society, February 10.—Mr. 
R. L. Taylor in the chair.—R. F. Gwyther : The speci- 
fication of the elements of stress. Part II1].—The 
definition of the dynamical specification and a test of 
the elastic specification. A chapter on elasticity. The 
author proposed to simplify the methods current in the 
treatment of stresses in an elastic body in treatises and 
papers on elasticity. The chief point of the paper is 
that full attention should be paid at the outset to the 
dynamical (or Newtonian) conditions and that the 
elastic (or Hooke’s) conditions should not have the 
exclusive prominence given to them which has been 
the established practice. 
February 24.—Mr. F. Nicholson, president, in the 
chair.—M. Copisarow : Carbon: its molecular structure 
and mode of oxidation.—J. B. Hubrecht: Studies in 
solar rotation. An account of a spectrographic deter- 
mination of the solar rotation, as observed at Cam- 
bridge. . Photographs were taken showing the dis- 
placement of the absorption lines due to the rotation 
of the sun. The law which has been found by earlier 
investigators to govern the solar rotation was on the 
whole confirmed. Two new points, however, appear 
to be definitely established for the period of observa- 
tion (fourteen days): (1) that there is a difference in 
the rotation velocities of the northern and southern 
hemispheres of the sun amounting to about 54 metres 
a second; (2) the latitude law expressing the retarda- 
tion of the rotation away from the equator was found 
to be more complicated than usual for the period of 
time in which the observations were made. 
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A Study of Education in Vermont. Prepared by 
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Jahresbericht der Hamburger Sternwarte in Berge- 
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Astronomische Abhandlungen der Hamburger Stern- 
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