430 



NA rURE 



[March 2, 1905 



f 



the arteries of the brain in the class Aves : F. E. 

 Beddardi F.R.S. — The function of the antenna; in 

 insects : M. Yearsley. After reviewing the litera- 

 ture on the subject the author pointed out that Lowne, 

 in his work on the blowfly, suggested that the antennte 

 were probably balancing rather than auditory organs. 

 Lord Avebury and LatreiUe were cited in favour of this 

 view, and the work of Yves Delage on Crustacea and of 

 Clemens upon a moth {Samia cecropia) as confirmatory 

 experiments. The author then gave details of experiments 

 upon thirty wasps {Vcspa vulgaris) in which the antennae 

 had been removed. The results of this mutilation were : — 

 (i) Loss of power of flight; (2) loss of sense of direction; 

 (j) noticeable slowness in all movements. The conclusion 

 arrived at was that in wasps, the antenna; were equilibrat- 

 ing in function. This supported Lowne's surmise and 

 .orroborated the experiments of Clemens on Samia cecropia. 



Anthropological Institute, February 14. — Prof. W. 

 (iowland, president, in the chair. — Exhibition of native 

 dances and ceremonies from the Torres Straits : Dr. A. C. 

 Haddon, F.R.S. The exhibition was illustrated by lantern 

 slides and kinematograph films, and dealt with the 

 " Malu " ceremony, secular dances, and fire-making 

 by a rotary inethod. Dr. C. S. Myers sang several 

 of the native songs, which are sung at the dances, 

 and accompanied himself on a native drum. — Dog- 

 motive in Bornean design : E. B. Haddon. The methods of 

 tattooing are constant among the tribes of Borneo, and most 

 of the patterns are derived from the Kenyah and Kayan 

 tribes. The different patterns are all derived from the dog- 

 motive. The rosette pattern, for instance, which is tattooed 

 on the shoulders of the men, is directly derived from the eye 

 of a dog, although the Iban tribe, who have adopted the 

 pattern, call it by the name of various fruits and flowers. 

 The conventional tattoo pattern found on the firearms of 

 Kenyah and Kayan men in Sarawak, although modified out 

 of air recognition, is also clearly derived from the same 

 source, as it is named asii, which means dog ; from this 

 same pattern a series can be traced to the Iban pattern, 

 which is said to represent a scorpion, Kala, but was clearly 

 originally a dog. Similarly the so-called prawn pattern, 

 i'daiig, was shown to be derived from the dog-motive. 



Royal Meteorological Society, February 15. — Mr. R. 

 Bcntley, president, in the chair. — Report on the phenological 

 observations for the year 1904 : E. Mawley. The weather 

 of the phenological year ending with November, 1904, was 

 chiefly remarkable for the persistent rains in January and 

 February, the absence of keen frosts in May, the long con. 

 tinuance of hot and dry weather in July, and the small rain- 

 fall during the autumn. Throughout the year wild plants 

 came into flower behind their usual dates, but at no period 

 were the departures from the average exceptional. Such 

 spring migrants as the swallow, cuckoo, and nightingale 

 made their appearance in this country at as nearly as pos- 

 sible their usual time. The yield of wheat per acre was the 

 smallest since 1895, while those of barley, beans, and peas 

 were also deficient. On the other hand, there were good 

 crops of oats, potatoes, and mangles. The best farm crops 

 of the year were, however, those of hay, swedes, and 

 turnips. Both corn and hay were harvested in excellent 

 condition. Apples were everywhere abundant, and all the 

 small fruits yielded well, especially strawberries, but there 

 was only a moderate supply of pears and plums. — Ob- 

 servations of meteorological elements made during a balloon 

 ascent at Berlin on September i, 1904: Dr. H. Elias and 

 J. H. Field. — The winds of East London, Cape Colony: 

 J. R. Sutton. 



Linnean Society, February 16. — Prof. S. H. Vines, F.R.S., 

 vii o-president, in the chair. — A revised classification of 

 roses : J. G. Baker, F.R.S. The author dealt with the 

 genus by dividing it into three groups. In the first group 

 primary species were enumerated ; in the second, sub' 

 species and varieties ; in the third, the principal hybrids 

 The primary species as estimated by the author arc sixty 

 nine in number, and they are classified under eleven groups 

 The geographical distribution can be very briefly stated as 

 fcilliiws : — Five species are found south of the Tropic o:' 

 ('.iiKpr in elevated situations, two in Abyssinia, one in the 

 Ni ili.rhP''ries, and two in Mexico. Tiiere are six geographical 



regions in the North Temperate Zone, each with a con- 

 siderable proportion of endemic species, (i) Europe, with 

 twenty-nine species ; (2) Northern Asia with China and 

 Japan, twenty-six species; (3) Western Asia, with eighteen 

 species; (4) India, with nine species; (5) Western North 

 America with the Rocky Mountains, with ten species ; (6) 

 Eastern North America, six species. — The botany of the 

 .■Xnglo-German Uganda Boundary Commission — Polypetalae, 

 E. G. Baker; GamopetalEe excl. Convolvulacca;, S. Moore; 

 Convolvulacea;, Apetalae, and Monocotyledons, Dr. A. B. 

 Rendle. The Commission commenced demarcating the 

 boundary in the Uganda Protectorate in December, 1902, 

 H.M. Commissioner on the British side being Lieut. -Col. 

 Delm^-Radcliffe. The collections which are the subject of 

 this paper were made by Dr. A. G. Bagshawe, the medical 

 officer. They contain a considerable number (some fifty) of 

 novelties, as also of known plants not hitherto recorded 

 from the Uganda Protectorate. For the Angolan plant pre- 

 viously known as Asystasia africana, C. B. Clarke, which 

 also is in the collection, a new genus, Styasasia, is pro- 

 posed. A considerable percentage of West African coast- 

 plants is a feature of the Protectorate flora as now made 

 known, and worthy of mention is the presence of a small 

 South Afri' an element. 



Cambridge. 



Philosophical Society, January 30. — Prof. Marshall Ward, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — On the non-electrification of 

 y rays ; Prof. Thomson, F.R.S. Experiments were described 

 in which the electrifications imparted to two equal cylinders 

 made of thin brass, one of them hollow and the other filled 

 with lead, were measured. The cylinders were in electrical 

 connection and were symmetrically placed in a large vessel 

 from which the air was exhausted. The cylinders were ex- 

 posed alternately to the 7 rays of radium, and from the 

 measurement of the charges received by them it was con- 

 cluded that the electrifications observed when 7 rays fall on 

 a body are not due to a charge on the 7 rays, but to the 

 charge carried by secondary /3 rays excited by the 7 rays when 

 they fall on the body or on the walls of the vessel containing 

 it. — Are metals made radio-active by the influence of radium 

 radiation? Prof. Thomson, F.R.S. From experiments 

 made on lead, brass, and tin it was shown that these bodies, 

 after exposure to radium radiation, exhibit no trace of radio- 

 activity four minutes after the radiation has ceased to fall 

 upon them ; there was no evidence of induced activity of any 

 kind, but the method used was not adapted for testing the 

 existence of a very short-lived radio-activity ; this has been 

 done by Prof. Bumstead by a method described in the next 

 paper. — Are metals made radio-active by the influence of 

 radium radiation? Prof. Bumstead. The experiments 

 described formed a continuation of those reported by Prof. 

 Thomson, and were designed to ascertain whether the 

 secondary rays given out by a surface exposed to the $ and 7 

 rays of radium persisted for a very short time after the 

 exposure to the exciting rays had ceased. A rotating disc 

 was used and four substances were tested, viz. copper, lead, 

 tin, and blotting-paper which had been soaked in a solution 

 of uranium nitrate and then dried. The Interval between 

 exposure to the rays from 30 mg. of pure radium bromide 

 and the subsequent test for residual activity was less than 

 0009 second ; and no rays capable of penetrating 7 mm. of 

 air and 0.00005 cm. of aluminium were detected. If any 

 were present they must have been considerably less intense 

 than those given out by a layer of potassium uranium sul- 

 phate with a surface-density of one milligram per square 

 centimetre. — Note on the positive leak from hot platinum In 

 air : O. W. Richardson. Experiments showing that the 

 rate of discharge of positive electricity by a platinum wire, 

 which had been heated in air long enough for the current to 

 become steady, consists of two parts, one proportional to, 

 and the other independent of, the pressure. — Some methods 

 of increasing the spark length of the Wimshurst machine : 

 B. J. Palmer. 



February 13. — Prof. Marshall Ward, president. In the 

 chair. — Orthogonal and other special systems of invariants, 

 part i. : Major P. A. MacMahon, F.R.S. In this paper 

 orthogonal concomitants are discussed by means of a sym- 

 bolic calculus with imaginary umbr.ne. For a binary quantic 

 of any given order, the author finds an inferior limit to the 

 maximum degree of an irreducible covariant of given order 



NO. 1844, VOL. 71] 



