492 



NATURE 



[March 23, 1905 



and has lately returned to England. The expedition was 

 organised by Major W. Cooke-Daniels, an American 

 traseller, and it also included Dr. C. G. Seligmann, Dr. 

 W. M. Strong, and Mr. A. H. Dunning. The objects were 

 primarily ethnographical, but studies were also made in 

 other branches of science, and a number of general patho- 

 logical observations were made. A collection of photo- 

 graphs was secured by Mr. Dunning, and the travellers 

 have brought back kinematograph pictures and a selection 

 of phonographic records. 



K CORRESPONDENT Writing to the Times from Florence 

 directs attention to the fact that the famous Tower of 

 Galileo, on the hill of Arcetri above Florence, is now 

 practically destroyed. This historic thirteenth century 

 building — known locally as the Torre del Gallo — has for 

 some months past been concealed in scaffolding set up for 

 the purpose of raising its castellated tower by a third of its 

 former height, of placing in its walls new windows, of 

 adding a loggia, and, in fine, of converting the world 

 famous " Star Tower " into a pretentious modern erection. 

 To the .\nglo-Saxon race Galileo's Tower possessed a 

 special interest, in that it was the scene of the classic meet- 

 ing between Milton and Galileo. 



In No. 1395 of the Froceeiings of the U.S. National 

 Museum, Mr. C. D. Walcott continues his account of 

 .\merican Cambrian brachiopods, describing several new 

 genera and species. It is explained that these notes and 

 their forerunners are published in the hope that they may 

 be of service to students prior to the appearance of the 

 full monograph promised on the subject. 



We have received the reports of the Wellington College 

 and of the Felsted School science societies for 1904. The 

 former, which is illustrated, contains summaries of a 

 number of lectures delivered before the society, among 

 which one by Mr. H. W. Monckton on the geology of the 

 London district deserves special mention. In the Felsted 

 report attention is directed to the lack of keenness displayed 

 by the members of the zoological section, who failed to 

 take nature-study seriously. Although one prize was offered 

 for an account of the birds of the district, and a second for 

 the best collection of butterflies and moths, there were no 

 competitors. 



Is addition to the Bulletin on the fauna and flora of the 

 plateau of Baraque-Michel, already noticed (from an 

 author's copy) in Nature of March i6 (p. 468), No. 12 of 

 the Bulletin of the Belgian Royal Academy contains two 

 biological articles of considerable interest. In the first of 

 these. Miss J. Wery discusses the attractions offered to 

 bees by flowers, and, as the result of direct experiments, 

 arrives at the following conclusions. Brilliantly coloured 

 flowers offer much greater attraction when entire than 

 when the petals, &c., have been cut away; honey has no 

 attractive power ; artificial flowers are just as attractive as 

 natural ones if both are under glass shades ; flower perfume 

 by itself offers but little attraction ; while colour and form, 

 apart from scent, are powerfully attractive ; the mingling 

 of the three factors, form, colour, and scent, constitutes the 

 most powerful attraction of all. Finally, if the latter item 

 be reckoned as 100, the attractive power exerted by form 

 and colour will be 80 per cent., while the other factors 

 (pollen, nectar, and scent) will only rank as 20 per cent. 



In the second of the two articles from the Bulletin of the 



Belgian Academy referred to above. Prof. A. Lamcere 



discusses Darwin's theory of female sexual selection as the 



primary factor in the production of secondary sexual 



NO. 1847, '^<^L. 71] 



characters in the male, and comes to the conclusion that 

 such an hypothesis offers an inadequate and untenable ex- 

 planation of the phenomenon. In place of this, the author 

 suggests that such features in the male are the equivalents 

 of maternity in the female, that is to say, the products 

 which in the female are required for generative purposes 

 are superfluous in the male, and are accordingly employed 

 for sexual ornament. If we mistake not, the same theory 

 has been already promulgated by Captain Barrett-Hamil- 

 ton. 



We have received copies of four articles from the third 

 volume of " Marine Investigations in South Africa." In de- 

 scribing, in two of these, the polychaetous annelids collected 

 by Dr. Gilchrist, Prof. Mcintosh directs attention to the 

 community of type between South African and European 

 marine annelids generally, many of the types from the two 

 areas being specifically identical, while others, in a more 

 or less modified form, e.xtend eastwards into the Indian and 

 Pacific Oceans, and westward to .America. A nearly similar 

 feature has been recorded in the case of crustaceans, and it 

 thus seems that the distribution of invertebrates in these seas 

 is goserned by very different laws from those which obtain, 

 for instance, in the case of the commoner food-fishes. The 

 anatomy and variation of the Flabellum-like corals form 

 the subject of the third article, in which Mr. J. S. Gardiner 

 has found himself compelled to dissent from the classification 

 of corals proposed by the late Prof. P. M. Duncan. In 

 the fourth fasciculus Dr. Gilchrist continues his investigation 

 into the development and life-history of South African fishes, 

 describing and figuring a number of larvae, some of which 

 cannot at present be specifically identified. 



In the Monthly Review for March, Mr. W. E. Hodgson 

 discourses very pleasantly on certain problems connected with 

 salmon-fishing. After pointing out the inaccuracy of the 

 common opinion that the north of Scotland in spring is 

 necessarily colder than the south of England, the author 

 proceeds to discuss the reason why loch-fishing for salmon 

 is carried on with a minnow instead of with a fly. One 

 reason seems to be that salmon lie deeper in the water 

 than trout, and will consequently, owing to the set of their 

 eyes, see the approach of a boat at a greater distance. A 

 minnow trolled behind a boat is probably, therefore, the 

 best lure for Salmo salar ; but whether the boatmen are 

 right in giving a sinuous course to the boat is very ques- 

 tionable. In the first place a boat may be rowed right over 

 a deep-lying salmon without being seen by the fish ; 

 secondly, there is considerable reason to believe that dis- 

 turbed water is conducive to the salmon biting ; and thirdly, 

 it is not unlikely that the fish which takes the trailing lure 

 has not been lying in the wake of the boat, but may have 

 made a dash from the side. Mr. Hodgson, who is by no 

 means convinced that salmon fast during their sojourn in 

 fresh water, thinks they take the minnow for a wounded 

 fish, and dash at it owing to the impulse which makes most 

 animals attack a cripple. 



Part iv. of the third volume of Biometrika contains 

 several memoirs of interest. Mr. Punnett contributes a 

 careful study of variation in Spinax niger, showing, from 

 an analysis of the characters of 263 adults and 304 em- 

 bryos, that a well-marked sexual dimorphism exists in this 

 shark, and that the variability of male embryos considerably 

 exceeds that of male adults, this pointing to a more 

 stringent selection in the case of the male. Homoeosis 

 rather than intercalation or escalation is held by the author 

 to be the more feasible explanation of the various relative 

 positions occupied by the structures examined — this sup- 



