January 28, 1904] 
_ NATURE 
301 
started off again in June, 1902, this time to East Africa 
in the hope of there finding a locality with physical 
conditions more favourable to the prosecution of his 
research. Finding, however, that conditions were 
less rather than more favourable, Mr. Budgett re- 
turned down the Nile to England. In June, 1903, he 
started again for West Africa, and took up his quarters 
at a point in the Niger delta where he knew Polypterus 
to be abundant. Here at last he succeeded, by means 
of artificial fertilisation, in obtaining a fine series of 
the long wished for eggs and larva. He returned to 
England and settled down to work out his material 
in the laboratory of his friend and teacher, Mr. Adam 
Sedgwick, and there he was at work on that fateful 
Saturday when there came to him the first premonition 
of impending illness. 
Budgett’s personality had a peculiar charm. Un- 
assuming, modest to a fault, his diffidence at times 
brought him moods of severe depression. Latterly, 
however, he had been cheered and encouraged by the 
appreciation of his work by those to whom he most 
looked up. 
He was a zoologist of the best type. He was a keen 
and accomplished observer in the field, and always 
recognised to the full that the first and main interest 
in an animal lies in the fact that it is an organism 
which lives. But in addition he was a most accom- 
plished laboratory investigator. With great interest 
in laboratory technique he combined tireless patience 
in research and almost fastidious accuracy. His 
artistic powers were shown in the charming sketches 
which he brought back from his various expeditions, 
and they are again apparent in the beautiful prepar- 
ations with which he enriched the museum at 
Cambridge. 
He has gone, but he has left behind an enduring 
memorial in the work he has done and in the 
affectionate memories which will be treasured by his 
many friends. 
NOTES. 
Lorp RayreiGH has been created a foreign Knight of 
the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts by 
the German Emperor. 
THE remains of James Smithson, the Englishman who 
founded the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, reached 
New York on January 20, having been conveyed from Genoa 
in the Prinzessin Irene. The United States despatch-boat 
Dolphin awaited the arrival of the vessel in order to act 
as an escort of honour from the lower bay to the city. 
Smithson’s remains were taken to Washington in the 
Dolphin; and on January 25 the transfer of the coffin, 
draped with the American and British flags, was witnessed 
by Sir Mortimer Durand, the British Ambassador, Mr. 
Loomis, Acting Secretary of State, and a number of 
members of the Senate and House of Representatives. 
Escorted by a troop of cavalry and a marine band, the re- 
mains were conveyed to the Smithsonian Institution, where 
a suitable tomb will be erected. 
Pror. WEISMANN’S seventieth birthday was celebrated in 
Freiburg on January 17, when a large and representative 
gathering assembled to do him honour. A_ bust by 
Kowazik, of Frankfort, had been subscribed for by 
biologists in various parts of the world, and was presented 
in the name of the subscribers by Prof. H. E. Ziegler, of 
Jena; it is to be placed in the zoological institute of the 
university. A special number of the Zoologische Jahr- 
biicher, containing papers by various naturalists, was pre- 
sented by Prof. Spengel, of Giessen, and from the Grand 
NO. 1787, VOL. 69] 
Duke of Baden Prof. Weismann received the highest order 
conferable, that of the Cross and Star of Bertold I. To 
all interested in the advance of biological science, and more 
especially to those who know him also as a man of wide 
culture and high ideals, it will be a satisfaction to learn 
that Weismann retains unabated his freshness, vigour, and 
untiring energy. 
Tue President of the Board of Trade has appointed a 
committee to inquire and report as to the statutory require- 
ments relating to the illuminating power and purity of 
gas supplied by the metropolitan gas companies, and as to 
the methods now adopted for testing the same, and whether 
any alteration is desirable in such requirements or methods, 
and, if so, whether any consequential alteration should be 
made in the standard price of gas. The members of the 
committee are:—Lord Rayleigh, F.R.S. (chairman), Sir 
William de W. Abney, K.C.B., F.R.S., Dr. Robert 
Farquharson, M.P., Mr. William King, and Mr. J. Fletcher 
Moulton, M.P. Mr. Herbert C. Honey, of the Board of 
Trade, has been appointed secretary to the committee. 
WE regret to announce that the Rev. Dr. Salmon, F.R.S., 
Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, since 1888, died on 
Friday last at eighty-four years of age. 
Mr. F. E. Bepparp, F.R.S., has been elected a corre- 
sponding member of the Kénigliche Bohmische Gesellschaft 
de. Wissenschaften. 
A Reuter message from New York on January 22 states 
that the University of California has been informed of the 
discovery of remarkably fine remains of an ichthyosaurus 
in Chile. 
A pespatcH from Buenos Ayres announces that the 
Francais, with Dr. Charcot’s Antarctic Expedition on 
board, reached Ushuaia, Patagonia, on January 15, and 
left for the south after coaling. 
Dr. Lorenzo Camerano, of the Royal Zoological 
Museum, Turin, Dr. Fritz Sarasin, and Dr. Paul B. 
Sarasin, of Basel, have been elected foreign members of 
the Zoological Society of London. 
A Preuistoric Society of France has just been founded 
at Paris with the object of studying questions of palao- 
ethnology. The president for 1904 is M. Emile Riviere, and 
the monthly meetings are held at 93 Boulevard Saint- 
Germain. 
Mr. W. Savitte-Kent has been engaged to investigate 
and advise towards the further development of the pearl, 
shell and other fisheries pertaining to certain Polynesian 
Island properties, and will leave England in a few weeks’ 
time to take up his new appointment. 
Tue death is announced of Prof. Georg Wagner, pro- 
fessor of chemistry in the polytechnic at Warsaw, aged 
fifty-four. 
Tue Guy medal of the Royal Statistical Society has been 
presented to M. Yves Guyot for his paper on *‘ The Sugar 
Industry on the. Continent.” 
Tue St. Petersburg Physico-Chemical Society has pro- 
jected a new Arctic expedition to be undertaken for the 
following objects :—observations of solar radiation and 
atmospheric refraction, of cloud movements, and of atmo- 
spheric electricity in connection with the extinction of ultra- 
violet light; determination of the phenomena of terrestrial 
magnetism and of electric currents in the ocean ; chemical 
analyses of the composition of the air and water; and ex- 
aminations of the polar ice. 
