Marcu 7, 1907 | 
NATURE 
445 
have a geological side, will be asked to send delegates. 
Personal invitations will also be addressed to geologists 
of note in the old and the new world, who are not 
already enrolled in the foreign lists of the society. The 
official programme will probably extend over three days 
in London. The arrangements for each of these three 
days are under consideration, but Sir Archibald Geikie 
proposes to give his presidential address as the piece de 
résistance of one of the forenoon or afternoon meetings. 
In that address he will offer a sketch of the state of geo- 
logical science outside Britain at the when the 
Geological Society of London was founded, and indicate 
the external influences that affected its start. By this 
choice of a subject he hopes to interest the foreign guests, 
while at the same time inviting the fellows of the society 
into a domain of the history of science which is perhaps 
less familiar than it deserves to be. The chronicle of the 
society itself during the first hundred years of its exist- 
ence has been carefully and fully compiled from all avail- 
able sources by Mr. Horace B. Woodward for publi- 
cation in volume form. Excursions to places of geological 
note in this country will probably be arranged, some to 
precede and others to follow the meeting in London. The 
various museums and places of interest in the metropolis 
will, of course, be shown to the expected visitors, and 
there will doubtless be no lack of public and _ private 
hospitality. It is anticipated that the Universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge will both receive the foreign guests. 
time 
To Naturen for January Prof. A. W. 
tributes an illustrated account of the oldest stone imple- 
ments of Norway. These are all Paleolithic, and include 
““celts,’” together with two distinct types of ‘‘ axe-heads.”’ 
Brégger con- 
A paPER by Mr. E. D. Congdon on the hydroid polyps 
of Bermuda is published in the January number of the 
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts 
Sciences, and two on plankton crustaceans from the San 
Diego region, by Mr. C. Juday, are issued in vol. iii. (parts 
ix. and x.) of the zoological series of the University of 
California Publications. f 
and 
In an earlier number of Nature reference was made to 
an exhibition in the hall of the Natural History Museum 
of specimens sent by the Marine Biological Association at 
Plymouth. This exhibit has been augmented by a jar 
of specimens illustrating the transition from the marine 
leptocephalus larva into the fresh-water elver, or young 
eel, and by a second vessel containing specimens of the 
various animals which go to form the ordinary diet of the 
cod. Thirteen species are included in the latter, among 
which four are (for the most part immature) fishes. 
Tue January number of the Victorian Naturalist con- 
tains an account of a traverse of the Owen Stanley Range, 
British New Guinea, by Mr. C. C. Simpson. Some 
interesting observations on the habits of birds-of-paradise, 
of which several species were seen, are recorded. The 
““six-plumed *? and ‘‘ magnificent *’ species have dancing- 
grounds, carefully cleared, on which they disport them- 
selves, while the “‘ raggiana”’ has a special tree to which 
the males resort for their nuptial display, but the other 
species use for this purpose any tree that may be con- 
venient. In the author’s opinion, many of the rarer 
species lay only a single egg. 
Tue Paris illustrated magazine Madame et Monsieur 
for February 17 contains an appreciative account of Prince 
Roland Bonaparte and his scientific researches. The 
Prince is, indeed, before all things, a savant, and devotes ! 
NO. 1949, VOL. 75] 
the whole of his available time to scientific investigation. 
Although botany claims the first share of his attention, 
he likewise devotes much time and money to anthropology, 
having brought together a unique collection of anthropo- 
geology is by no means 
traveller, 
logical photographs, while 
neglected. Prince Roland is likewise a 
having visited a large part of the North American con- 
The herbarium in his palace in the Avenue d’Iéna 
700,000 species of plants. 
a member of the French 
great 
tinent. 
is stated to contain not less than 
The Prince has just been elected 
Academy of Sciences. 
We have been favoured with a copy of the first part 
of a new work, ‘‘ The Kennel Encyclopedia,” edited by 
Mr. J. Sidney Turner, and published by the Encyclopedic 
Press, Sheffield. The work, it is estimated, will run to 
about sixteen parts, to be issued at intervals of from four 
to six weeks. Judging from the illustrations to the article 
on Airedale terriers, the work promises to be of an ex- 
ceptionally attractive nature. Mr. R. I. Pocock con- 
tributes an excellent article on the ancestors and relatives 
of the dog, while Prof. Hobday illustrates canine anatomy 
by means of sketches. Mr. Croxton Smith, who writes 
on the antiquity of the dog, appears, however, to be un- 
acquainted with all the literature of the subject, notably 
a recent article in Globus, by Prof. Kremer, on the St. 
Bernard and the Tibet mastiff. 
recently arrived in this 
communicated to 
Mayor Powett-Cotron, who 
country, during journey 
Reuter’s Agency at Rome some of the results of his twenty- 
seven months’ sojourn in the heart of Africa. According to 
this account, the explorer specimen of the 
Central African race of the white rhinoceros near Lado. 
Like other British explorers of the Ituri Forest, he failed 
to see a living okapi, although he approached within twenty 
yards of cne in dense jungle. The skeleton and skin of a 
male and the body-skin of a calf were, however, secured, 
and have now been transferred to the British Museum. 
Important information, derived from the Ituri pigmies, 
regard to the habits of the okapi is promised in 
Several mammals collected have been 
described as new by Mr. Lydekker. They are the 
black honey-badger, and local races or phases of the 
African tiger-cat, water-chevrotain, Stuhlmann’s elephant- 
shrew, and a guereza from the Ituri Forest, 
together with a large tawny buffalo from the open Semliki 
country near the Albert Edward Nyanza. Major Cotton 
has demonstrated that the range of the dwarf red buffalo, 
the water-chevrotain, and the potamogale extends right 
across the forest region. It may be added that Mr. 
Boyd Alexander has presented to the British Museum the 
skull and skin of an okapi obtained by his expedition in 
the southern Bahr-el-Ghazal country. 
PUBLISHED as parts of the current volume of the Kew 
Bulletin, appendix ii. furnishes a catalogue, with alternate 
pages left blank, of additions to the library during the 
year 1906, and appendix iii. contains a list of new garden 
plants for the same year. Again a large number of the 
new plants have been obtained from China, being intro- 
duced by Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons, derived from the 
collections made for them by Mr. E. H. Wilson. Four 
species of Primula are added to a previously long list, 
among them being the vivid blue-flowered Primula deflexa. 
Of new species from Brazil a dozen are recorded, all 
except Asplenium laceratum being orchids. 
A piscussion, mainly theoretical, of the much-debated 
question of the water supply in plants, by Dr. A. Ursfruny, 
appears in the Biologisches Centralblatt (vol. xxvii., Nos. 
his home 
secured a 
with 
due course. 
monkey 
