_=— 
SEE 
NOVEMBER 22, 1906| 
NATURE 
83 
NOTES. 
Tue meetings for the discussion of important contribu- 
tions to meteorological literature, arranged by the director 
of the Meteorological Office, will be resumed on Monday, 
November 26, at 5 p.m., with a discussion of Mr. J. 
Aitken’s paper ‘‘ On Dew.” 
A Reuter message from Toronto records that on 
November 19 electrical energy generated at Niagara Falls, 
eighty miles away, was delivered there for the first time. 
A supply of 40,000 horse-power is available. 
CapTaIN AMUNDSEN, the leader of the Gjoa Polar Ex- 
pedition, and his companions arrived at Christiania on 
November 20. Among the large number of people who 
assembled on the landing stage to receive the explorer 
were the President of the Storthing, the members of the 
Government, and the magistracy, the President of the 
Municipal Council, the admirals of the station, the general 
in command of the capital, and the president of the 
Norwegian Geographical Society. 
On November 13, at 11 p.m., a sharp shock of earth- 
quake was felt both in the south and the north of Jamaica. 
It was immediately followed by a second shock, the heaviest 
experienced in Kingston for many years. From Perth, 
Western Australia, it is reported that an earthquake was 
felt at 3.20 p.m. on November 19 along the whole of the 
coast from Albany to Sharks Bay. The shock 
severe at Perth, Busselton, Geraldton, and Marble Bar. 
Was very 
THE spermatogenesis of one of the swallow-tailed butter- 
flies (Papilio rutulus) forms the subject of a long article 
by Dr. J. P. Munson in the Proceedings of the Boston 
(U.S.A.) Society of Natural History (vol. xxxiii., part iii.). 
In the Irish Naturalist for November Mr. R. J. Ussher 
gives an account of the excavation of certain ‘‘ hyzena- 
dens’’ in the Mammoth Cave near Doneraile, county 
Cork. The discovery of the system of caves of which 
this forms a part is recorded in the Proceedings of the 
Royal Irish Academy for November, 1904. Seventy-six 
baskets of bones and teeth were obtained from the 
Mammoth Cave and dispatched to the Dublin Museum. 
All the remains identified appear referable to the ordinary 
cavern species; but the remains of the cave hyzena are the 
first record of the occurrence of that species in Ireland. 
Two articles are included in vol. Ixxxiv., part iv., of 
the Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie, one by Mr. 
F. Hempelmann on the morphology of two marine annelids 
of the genus Polygordius, and the second by Dr. E. Zander 
on the filtering apparatus of the gills of teleostean fishes. 
In 1903 the latter author discovered a certain appendage 
to the gill-filters of fresh-water fishes, and the present 
paper is based on a fuller study of this structure, more 
especially in marine species, of which a large number has 
been examined. It has been found that the development, 
and in some degree also the function, of the filtering 
apparatus vary considerably according to the mode of life, 
bottom-dwelling species using it to aid in the supply of 
nutriment. 
AN interesting article on entomological photography 
appears in Focus of November 21. The object of the 
article is to show how photographs of many kinds of 
insects may be taken in all stages of their existence from 
living specimens in captivity, and in some instances amid 
imitations of their natural surroundings. When aquatic 
insects form the subject of the experiment, a narrow and 
deep tank is, of course, essential. When dealing with 
butterflies, it is found most advantageous to take them just 
after leaving the chrysalis, or, failing this, they may be 
NO. 1934, VOL. 75 | 
| made quiescent by the application of a small quantity of 
chloroform. The photograph of a group of five ** tortoise- 
shells’? appears very successful. In the case of night- 
flying moths, it is impossible to display the full characters 
of the species from living specimens when at rest, while 
to depict flying is likewise an impossibility. To 
overcome these difficulties the photographer has resorted 
to the plan of first photographing mounted specimens in 
the positions desired, and then combining the photograph 
thus obtained with one of a suitable background. If a 
suitable landscape-negative has been previously taken, by 
placing this behind the focusing screen the moths can be 
arranged in such a position that they will appear exactly 
in the right place in the compound picture. 
them 
In the course of a paper on the papillary ridges and 
papillary layer of the the hand and foot of 
mammals other than man, published in vol. xli., part i., 
of the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, Dr. Walter 
Kidd points out that these structures attain their maxi- 
mum development in the and their relatives. 
“These characters suggest very clearly that in this group 
of animals the sense of touch important. 
. If one bears in mind that three [groups] of them 
are nocturnal and arboreal and the other two diurnal and 
arboreal, one can gather from these facts the great import- 
ance to them that their sense of touch should be very 
acute. A continual need of their arboreal lives is that 
they should maintain by reflex means their equilibrium, and 
I would suggest that in their highly developed papillary 
ridges and papillary layer of the corium they possess most 
efficient structures for the transmission of impulses to 
their nerve-centres for the performance of this important 
function.’’ To the same issue Mr. E. J. Evatt contributes 
a paper on the development of these structures. The other 
articles are mainly devoted to the description of various 
monstrosities and other abnormalities. 
skin of 
lemurs 
is extremely 
In the Proceedings of the American Academy for October 
there is an interesting study of inheritance in fishes, by 
Mr. A. P. Larrabee. In the majority of the teleosts, the 
fibres of the two optic nerves do not interlace at the 
chiasma, but remain distinct, and it has been shown for 
certain species that specimens in which the nerve running 
to the right eye is dorsal, and specimens in which the 
reverse is the case, are almost equally frequent. The 
present investigation, commenced by Dr. W. E. Castle 
and completed by Mr. Larrabee under his direction, was 
undertaken with the view of determining whether this 
character is heritable, and if so in what manner. Cross- 
ings were made with the brook trout and with the cod, 
and the rather remarkable conclusion is reached that 
the character is not inherited at all. Of 971 trout, for 
instance, in both the parents of which the right nerve 
was dorsal, 52 per cent. had the right nerve dorsal, while 
of 1519 with unlike parents, 56 per cent. had the right 
nerve dorsal. The character does not appear to be affected 
by gravity; the dimorphism is not due to an earlier 
development of one of the optic nerves, and in monstrous 
two-headed specimens of the trout the two heads differ in 
structure as often as not; practically speaking, it seems 
to be a matter of chance which nerve is dorsal. There is 
however, a curiously persistent preponderance of cases with 
the right nerve dorsal, and Dr. Castle, in a footnote, 
directs attention to the apparent similarity of the pheno- 
menon with the more frequent occurrence of polydactylism 
in guinea-pigs on the left side of the body. 
In the first part of vol. xxxvi. of Gegenbaur’s Morpho- 
logisches Jahrbuch Prof. Schmaltz, of Berlin, furnishes 
