June 2, 1904] 



NA TURE 



109 



In a recent issue (vol. Ixxii., No. 3) of the Journal of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal, Mr. E. P. Stebbing records the 

 occurrence in the Himalaya of a beetle of the genus Thana- 

 sinius, a discovery which may be of some commercial im- 

 portance, owing to the fact that these insects feed on the 

 bark-beetles so destructive to timber. 



A FEATURE in the report of the proceedings of the 

 sixteenth annual meeting of the U.S. Association of 

 Economic Entomologists (Ent. Divis. Agric. Dept., Bull. 

 No. 46). is an address on insect photography by Mr. M. V. 

 Slingerland. While urging the importance of this com- 

 paratively new application of photography, the author points 

 out that many of the replicas of photographs published in 

 current literature are of a very inferior type. 



In the May number of the Zoologist the editor continues 

 his notes on the influence of rivers on animal distribution, 

 dealing, first, with their active, and, secondly, with their 

 passive effect as dispersers. .\ very large number of cases 

 are cited where animals — singly or in parties — have been 

 involuntarily carried down by rivers, while in the second 

 part the author has been equally industrious in collecting 

 records of instances where animals have swum rivers of 

 considerable breadth. 



Inverteer.^tes form the subject of the four articles in the 

 latest issue (vol. Ixxvi., part iv.) of the Zeitschrift fiir 

 u'isscnscltaftliche Zoologie. Messrs. Schuberg and Schroder 

 describe a new thread-worm infesting the muscles of leaches 

 of the genus Nephelis. The spermatogenesis of sponges 

 and coelenterates is discussed by Mr. W. Gbrich, while Mr. 

 C. Julin gives the result of his investigations into the 

 phylogeny of tunicates, and Dr. H. Simroth describes a 

 remarkable new slug, Ostracolethe fruhstorferi, from 

 Tonquin, and its bearing on the classification of gastro- 

 pods. 



According to the classification generally in use in this 

 country, fishes are divided into the four subclasses Elasmo- 

 branchii, Holocephali, Dipnoi and Teleostomi, while the 

 Palaeozoic Ostracodermi (Pteraspis, Cephalaspis, Pterich- 

 thys, &c.) are placed in a class by themselves. Mr. C. T. 

 Regan, of the British Museum, in a paper on the phylogeny 

 of the Teleostomi, published in the May number of the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History, has, however, 

 arrived at the conclusion that a much simpler scheme is 

 advisable, and that it will suffice to divide the class (inclusive 

 of the Ostracodermi) into the two groups Chondropterygii 

 and Teleostomi, the former including the Elasmobranchii and 

 Holocephali, together with Pteraspis and its allies, and the 

 latter all the rest. The most primitive group of Teleostomi 

 is considered to be the Chondrostei (sturgeons and 

 Palsoniscidse), from which all the others are derived. One 

 branch gave rise to the Crossopterygii, from which in turn 

 sprang the Dipnoi (Dipneusti), the author regarding the 

 resemblance which has long been known to exist between 

 the fins of the two latter groups as over-riding the differ- 

 ences in the skull-structure. The Teleostei take origin as a 

 separate branch from the Chondropterygii. The most pro- 

 nounced departure from the views of others is, however, 

 the brigading of the Ostracodermi (exclusive of Pteraspis, 

 which is regarded as a chondropterygian) with the 

 Arthrodira (Coccosteus, &c., generally grouped in the 

 Dipnoi), as an offshoot of the Crossopterygii, under the 

 title of Placodermi. Mr. Regan will, we think, have con- 

 siderable difficulty in persuading palaeontologists to accept 

 this part, at any rate, of his scheme. 

 NO. 1805, VOL. 70] 



It is stated in La Nature (May 28) that Dr. Chaput has 

 found that peroxide of zinc (discovered by Elvas) proves an 

 efficient substitute for peroxide of hydrogen for dermat- 

 ological and other uses, and is much less irritating than 

 the last named substance. 



The April issue of the Journal of Hygiene (vol. iv., 

 No. 2) contains a number of most interesting and important 

 contributions. Staff Surgeon Dalton, R.N., and Dr. Eyre 

 have investigated the thermal death point of the Micrococcus 

 meletensis, which proves to be 57°-S C. They describe an 

 apparatus whereby constant temperatures may be main- 

 tained, and suggest standard conditions for the determin- 

 ation of the thermal death points of micro-organisms. Dr. 

 Houston, in a paper on the bacteriological examination of 

 oysters and estuarial waters, details the main facts obtained 

 during an investigation undertaken on behalf of the Royal 

 Commission on Sewage Disposal. Dr. Nuttall and Mr. 

 Inchley describe an improved method for measuring the 

 amount of precipitum in connection with tests with pre- 

 cipitating antisera. Dr. Stevenson suggests a method of 

 estimating future populations. Messrs. Bowhill and Le 

 Doux give a note on a case of piroplasmosis canis, a tick 

 disease of the dog, occurring near Grahamstown, and Dr. 

 Nuttall describes the disease in a lengthy article illustrated 

 with photos and temperature charts. Lastly, Dr. Graham 

 Smith describes very fully a study of diphtheria bacilli 

 isolated from 113 individuals during an outbreak of diph- 

 theria at Cambridge in 1903. 



The fifth volume (second series) of the Publications of 

 the U.S.A. Naval Observatory is devoted to a complete 

 record of the meteorological observations made at the new 

 Naval Observatory, Georgetown Heights, during the years 

 1893-1902 inclusive. After a preliminary description of 

 each of the instruments used, the readings of the barometer 

 and the wet and dry bulb thermometers, and the cloud and 

 wind observations at three-hourly intervals during each day 

 are given. The whole of the results are summarised in an 

 exhaustive series of tables which conclude the volume. 



In the Annals of Botany for January, Mr. Harold Wager 

 discusses the function of the nucleolus in plants and animals, 

 and, basing his deductions upon the investigation of the 

 nucleus in the cells of the root-apex of Phaseolus, he comes 

 to the conclusion that the nucleolus is intimately bound 

 up with the formation of the chromosomes, and that there 

 is a definite continuity of nuclear substance from mother- 

 nucleus to daughter-nucleus through the chromosomes. 

 Mr. Wager has also attacked the problem of the cell 

 structure in the Cyanophyceae, and in a preliminary paper 

 communicated to the Royal Society he claims that the central 

 body of the Cyanophyceae is a nucleus of a simple or rudi- 

 mentary type. 



The second volume of the second revised and enlarged 

 edition of Prof. W. Pfeffer's work on " Pflanzen- 

 physiologie " (Leipzig : Engelmann ; London : Williams and 

 Norgate) has been received. The volume is chiefly con- 

 cerned with transformations of energy resulting in various 

 movements in plants. 



Three pamphlets on radium and radio-activity have just 

 been received from German publishers. One is a second 

 edition of a useful summary, by Prof. K. Hofmann, of 

 investigations of Becquerel and other rays from 1S96 to 

 the present time; the title is "Die radioaktiven Stoffe 

 nach dem neuesten Stande der wissenschaftlichen 

 Erkenntnis " (Leipzig: Barth). The same publisher has 



