446 



NATURE 



[March 9, 1905 



The preliminary programme has been issued for the Inter- 

 national Congress of Botany to be held at Vienna in Whitsun 

 week, June ii-iS. The formal opening of the congress 

 will take place on Monday, June 12, in the large hall of the 

 University of Vienna. A conference on the nomenclature 

 question will be opened on the same day, and will be con- 

 tinued on other days. The chief subject of papers on June 13 

 will be the development of the European flora since the 

 Tertiary period. On June 14 a general meeting of the 

 botanical societies assembled for the conference will be 

 held, as well as a conference of agricultural botanists. The 

 subjects of discussion for the scientific, meetings on June 14 

 will be (i) the present condition of the theory of the assimila- 

 tion of carbonic acid, and (2) regeneration, .\mong the 

 papers to be read on Friday, June 16, may be mentioned 

 one by Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S., on the fern-like seed-plants 

 of the Carboniferous flora. The organising committee has 

 arranged for excursions before, during, and after the 

 congress, and these will afford visitors an opportunity of 

 learning to know botanically interesting regions under the 

 guidance of specialists. In connection with the conference, 

 too, an international botanical exhibition has been arranged, 

 and will take place in the orangery of the Imperial Chateau 

 at Schonbrunn. Full particulars of the conference can be 

 obtained by intending visitors on application to the general 

 secretary, Dr. A. Zahlbruckner, I., Burgring, Vienna. 



A SHORT time ago we chronicled the death of Prof. Emilio 

 V'illari, of Naples. Some interesting biographical details 

 relating to this well-known physicist have now been published 

 by Prof. A. Roiti in the Memorie of the Italian Speclro- 

 scopists' Society (Catania, December, 1904) and the .4/(i of 

 the Lincei .Academy, xiv. (i), i. As in the case of the late 

 Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald, there can be no doubt that Villari's 

 death was largely due to overwork, a result in both instances 

 brought about by the great amount of teaching work which 

 these physicists were required to undertake in their pro- 

 fessorial duties, and which, when combined with research 

 work, left them no time for rest. From his birth, in 1836, 

 Villari suffered from epilepsy, and, partly in consequence of 

 this, his early education was obtained at private schools. 

 He graduated in medicine at Pisa. In i860 he taught in the 

 medical school of Naples ; the next year he returned to 

 Pisa as professor of physics and chemistry : in 1864 he 

 studied in the laboratory of Magnus at Berlin. From 1S65 

 to 1871 he occupied chairs at Florence ; he was then, bv 

 competition, appointed to the chair at Bologna, which he 

 held until 1889, when he went to Naples. His duties at the 

 latter place involved the conducting of three separate Uni- 

 versity courses of lectures, and it is not surprising that in 

 the session 1902-3 he broke down under the stress of work, 

 and after a long and painful illness died on .August 20 of 

 last year. In the forty years from 1865 to 1904, Mllari pro- 

 duced a long series of papers, w'hich might advantageously 

 be collected and published in a volume. His most recent 

 work refers to the properties of air and gases which have 

 been rendered radio-active by Rontgen rays, and to which 

 he gave the name " aria ixata," or, literally, " X'd air." 

 He was an honorary member of our Royal Institution and 

 the Physical Society of London, and for some time previous 

 to his death was president of the Lincei Academy. 



The usual prize announcements of the Royal Lombardy 

 Institution are given in the Reiidiconii, xxxviii., i. The 

 triennial gold medal for industry is awarded to Messrs. 

 Vermot and Rejna for carriage springs and axles. The 

 Cagnola prizes for velocity of kathode rays, steering of 

 balloons and prevention of forgery, as well as several other 

 prizes, remain unawarded, w^hile for cure of pellagra a 

 NO. 1845, VOL. 71] 



premium is awarded to Dr. Carlo Ceni, of Reggio (Emilia), 

 and for miasma and contagion the full prize and a gold 

 medal are conferred on Dr. .Adelchi Negri, of Pavia. As 

 usual, there is keen competition for the Brambilla industrial 

 prize, and the institution has awarded three first prizes with 

 gold medals and four second prizes with gold medals to Lom- 

 bardy manufacturers. Under the Fossati foundation an 

 award is made to Dr. Giuseppe Pagano for a thesis on 

 cerebral localisation. The Kramer prize for an essay on 

 electric traction is awarded to Giovanni Giorgi, engineer, of 

 Rome, and three awards under the Ciani prize are given 

 for books on modern Italy. 



The following list of prize subjects now- issued by the 

 Lombardy Institution for 1905 and following years includes 

 the announcements made last year. Institution prizes, for 

 1903, on the ophiolitic formations of the .Apennines; for 

 1906, on modern psychiatry. Cagnola prizes, for 1905, on 

 phenomena of catalysis ; for 1906, on pathology of supra- 

 renal capsules. Fossati prizes (open to Italian subjects), for 

 1903, on our present knowledge of neurology ; for 1906, on 

 visual centres of higher vertebrates ; for 1907, on nuclei of 

 cranial nerves ; for 1908, on the central nervous system. 

 Kramer prize, for 1903, on the resistance of cement 

 structures. Secco Comneno prize for a discovery on the 

 virus of rabies. In addition, the triennial medals, Cagnola, 

 Brambilla, Pizzamiglio. Tonimasoni, Zanetti, and Ciani 

 prizes are offered under the usual conditions, which have 

 been referred to in previous years in the columns of Nature. 



In the West India Committee Circular, Mr. Kenrick 

 Gibbons suggests that mosquitoes are largely destroyed in 

 Barbadoes by swarms of small fish, locally known as 

 " millions," which prey on the larva;. 



In the February number of the Zoologist Mr. E. Ber- 

 groth, of Tammerfors, Finland, gives a list of generic 

 zoological names not included in the supplement to the 

 " Index Zoologicus " compiled by Mr. C. O. Waterhouse 

 and published in 1902. While the number of names in the 

 latter is about 250, no less than about 300 are recorded by 

 Mr. Bergroth, all dating before 1901. 



Some months ago Schaudinn published some interesting 

 observations on the development of trypanosome forms from 

 Halteridium, a protozoan blood parasite of birds. Novy and 

 MacNeal now criticise Schaudinn's work, and ascribe his 

 results to a double infection with Trypanosoma and Hal- 

 teridium, and not to the development of the former from the 

 latter. 



We have received the Transactions of the Epidemiological 

 Societv for the session 1903-4 (vol. xxiii.). It contains a 

 paper bv Prof. Simpson on the epidemiology of plague, in 

 which he shows that the domestic animals and birds may 

 contract plague by feeding on plague-infected offal, and 

 important discussions on sleeping sickness, the etiology of 

 scurvv, industrial anthrax, and enteric fever and cholera in 

 Hamburg, together with an obituary notice of the late 

 Sir John Simon. 



Some interesting notes on the habits of Natterer's bat 

 (Myolis naitereri) are contributed by Mr. T. .A. Coward to 

 the Zoologist for February. From these it appears that in 

 certain habits this bat is to some extent intermediate between 

 other members of the Vespertilionidae and the horse-shoe 

 bats (Rhinolophid*). It has, for instance, the habit of 

 turning in the air, characteristic of the latter. Again, 

 whereas in the horseshoc-bats the short tail is carried bent 

 over tlie back, while in most British Vespertilionidx this 



