June 6, 1901] 



NA TURE 



135 



The Annual Report of the Royal Alfred Observatory, 

 Mauritius, for 1S99 has been issued. The chief meteorological 

 feature of the year was the abnormal distribution of rainfall with 

 regard to seasons. The greatest defects occurred in January 

 and December, and the greatest excess in September. The 

 mean rainfall at sixty-eight stations was 76 'So inches, the average 

 amount being 79 '23 inches. In possible connection with this 

 we may mention that the deaths from plague were considerable 

 in the months of October to December, following (as in Bombay) 

 the coldest season and an exceptionally wet winter. The 

 report is entirely satisfactory in all respects save one — for 

 want of proper provision for the library, many valuable works 

 are destroyed by rats and other vermin. The director is 

 naturally seriously concerned at this unsatisfactory state of 

 things. 



Constantly increasing attention is being paid to practical 

 entomology in the United States, and we have just received two 

 new parts of the Bulletin of the New Vork State Museum, both 

 of which relate primarily to agricultural entomology. No. 36, 

 vol. vii. (March 1901) contains the sixteenth Report of the 

 State Entomologist on injurious and other insects of the State 

 of New York; and No. 37, vol. viii. (September 1900) contains 

 an illustrative descriptive catalogue of some of the more important 

 injurious and beneficial insects of New Vork State. These are 

 both by Dr. Ephraim Porter Felt, State Entomologist, and are 

 similar in character to other American Reports which we have 

 recently noticed. We may call attention to two special points 

 in these. The State of Massachusetts seems to be relaxing its 

 campaign against the gipsy moth in despair, and its spread to 

 other States is greatly dreaded. After all the nonsense written 

 in the popular papers about the "kissing bug," it is amusing 

 to find that, according to Dr. Felt, it is neither more nor less 

 than our own wheel bug, Opsicoeltcs (or Redttviiis) personatus, 

 which is common in Europe in outhouses, &c. 



The BulUlitt of the American Museum of Natural History 

 for 1900 (vol. xiii.) contains an unusual amount of matter 

 interesting to the student of vertebrates, both living and fossil. 

 Some of these papers, such as Prof. Osborn's studies of the 

 European and American fossil rhinoceroses, have been already 

 noticed in these columns, owing to the fact of separate copies 

 having been received. The volume opens with an account, 

 by Dr. J. A. Allen, of the caribou, or reindeer, recently 

 described by Mr. Seton-Thompson under the name of 

 Rangifer moiitaniis. The author confirms the distinctness of 

 this form, which is from British Columbia and the North-west 

 Territories, and compares it with other American reindeer, 

 giving a number of excellent photographs of antlers. 



In another communication Dr. Allen gives some interestiilg 

 notes on the so-called wood-bison of the neighbourhood of the 

 Great Slave Lake, which he considers to be rightly regarded as 

 a distinct race of the species, although it probably once inter- 

 graded with the typical bison of the plains. Mr. F. Russell, 

 who hunted these animals in 1S94, informed the author that the 

 herd at that time comprised only a few hundred head. " They 

 cannot be hunted in summer," he writes, "as the country 

 which they inhabit is an impenetrable mosquito-infested wooded 

 swamp at that season. . . . They can only be killed by stalk- 

 ing in mid-winter, when their pelage is at its best." This is so 

 far satisfactory, and affords some hope for the survival of the 

 herd, which the Canadian Government is endeavouring to 

 protect. Additional notes on both the reindeer and the bison 

 of the North-western Territories and neighbouring districts are 

 communicated by Mr. A. J. Stone in his report of a collecting 

 trip. 



P.\L.EONTOLOGlsTS will find much matter for study in two 

 articles communicated to the aforesaid Bulletin by Mr. R. P. 

 NO. 1649, VOL. 64] 



Whitfield, the one dealing with certain Arctic fossils collected 

 by the Peary expedition, and the other with the type-specimens 

 of the marine cretaceous lizard described by Cope as Mosasaurus 

 niaximus. It is inferred that this monster could not have been 

 less than eighty feet in length ; portions of the jaws are figured 

 for the first time. Monmouth county. New Jersey, is their 

 place of origin. The Arctic fossils are of Silurian age, and 

 (^ffer in some cases specifically from their representatives in the 

 New York district. In regard to some of the corals, the author 

 writes as follows : — -"The specimens are from calcareous clay 

 and are finely weathered, indicating a locality where fine collec- 

 tions of fossils might be obtained with little trouble. The 

 specimens have been collected from the surface and are mostly 

 of small size and imperfect, so much so that those representing 

 undescribed forms are too poor for description and illustration, 

 though sufficient to determine the geological position. 



According to its Report for the past year, the Zoological 

 Society of Philadelphia has started a new departure in regard 

 to membership which may be commended to the attention of 

 similar bodies at home. This is the admission of junior members, 

 who pay an annual subscription of one pound (five dollars) up 

 to the age of eighteen, when they are eligible for the full 

 membership. In reporting the construction of a new aviary in 

 the gardens, the directors call attention to the reduction which 

 has been found advisable in the size of the cages. This reduc- 

 tion "has resulted from the long experience of the Society in 

 the eft'ort to adjust the needs of animal life to the economical 

 limitations which are forced upon, most zoological collections 

 formed upon a large scale. In many groups, as in parrots 

 among birds, and in reptiles of sluggish habit, it has not been 

 found that cages relatively extravagant, both in space and cost, 

 have added observably to health or longevity ; in fact, with 

 parrots the best results have been reached in cages too small to 

 induce the attempt to fly." It is added that the public are 

 gainers by the new plan. 



We have received a copy of the British Central Africa 

 Gazette, with a supplement containing a full reprint of meteor- 

 ological observations taken thrice daily at Zomba, during Feb- 

 ruary, 1901. The organisation under which these observations 

 are made is under the direction of Mr. J. McClounie, head of 

 the Scientific Department, and its inauguration has been largely 

 due to the efforts of the British Association Committee on the 

 climate of tropical Africa. 



In the April number of the Zeitschrift fiir physikalische 

 Chemie is a paper by G. Bredig and K. Ikeda, continuing the 

 work commenced by G. Bredig and M. v. Berneck on the 

 "inorganic ferments." It was shown in the first paper that 

 there is a remarkable analogy between the behaviour of a solu- 

 tion of colloidal platinum and the organic enzymes, especially 

 those present in blood. The platinum solution, on account of 

 its perfectly definite composition, lends itself readily to quanti- 

 tative study, and the results of a very numerous set of deter- 

 minations of its catalytic power in decomposing solutions of 

 hydrogen peroxide are given. The most remarkable analogy 

 worked out in the second paper is that just as minute traces of 

 certain substances inhibit the catalytic action of the enzymes of 

 the blood, so traces of the same or similar substances act as 

 "poisons" to the colloidal platinum, the quantities necessary 

 in some cases being extraordinarily small. Thus the strongest 

 blood poison is hydrocyanic acid, and this is also the strongest 

 "poison "for colloidal platinum; thus the presence of only 

 0'00I4 milligram of prussic acid per litre was sufficient to reduce 

 the activity of a certain platinum to one-half its original value. 

 Other blood poisons, such as iodide of cyanogen, mercuric 

 chloride, phosphorus and carbon monoxide, behave similarly 

 towards the platinum solutions. There is no doubt that this 



