MarcH 3, 1904 | 
NATURE 
413 
heard in reference to his terminology. I agree with Prof. 
Armstrong that there is some advantage to be gained during 
early stages of instruction by using names that do not pre- 
judge the chemistry of the problem that is being investi- 
gated. But I think history usually supplies a good pro- 
visional name, such as inflammable air, calx of lead, spirit 
of nitre, and personally I should keep to the historical name 
where possible. 
To call carbon dioxide chalk-stuff gas asserts that it 
comes from chalk, or that, in other words, it is a kind of 
air fixed somehow in chalk. I confess I cannot see that any 
greater presupposition is involved in calling it fixed air 
than in calling it chalk-stuff gas. Historically it was called 
fixed air, and I value the name because Black's clear per- 
ception and proof that a gas could be fixed in a solid and 
be a weighable material part of it was the means of in- 
spiring Lavoisier with the right view of the part played 
by air in the calcination of metals, and so led to results of 
revolutionary importance. ARTHUR SMITHELLS. 
Variation in Oat Hybrids. 
American and English observers have shown that the 
principles enunciated by Mendel are applicable to hybrid 
wheats. From observations carried out at St. Andrews, I 
have been able to demonstrate that the same principles are 
applicable to hybrid oats. 
In 1901 I crossed a few white varieties of oats one with 
the other, and also black varieties with white ones. The 
progeny was in all cases characterised by very great vigour 
and prolificness. The hybrid characters were most easily 
distinguishable in the crosses between black and white 
varieties, the unilateral ear and dark grain of the one parent, 
and the pyramidal ear and light-coloured grain of the other, 
being so blended in the respective hybrids as to result in a 
somewhat one-sided ear and rich brown grain. It should be 
mentioned that by the colour of the grain is meant that of 
the closely adherent flowering-glume. 
The grains of the four hybrids given below, after being 
classed according to their position in the spikelets, were 
sown singly in rows of one hundred each. At harvesting 
the ears of each plant were tied together, and the product 
of each row made into a separate bundle. 
Long continued wet weather had damaged the plants so 
seriously as to render the working out of certain points 
iripossible, e.g. the variation in the ears. From what has 
been noted in the available examples studied, the form of 
the ear will no doubt be found to be a constant character 
in the Mendelian sense. Sufficient material has been 
secured to show the dissociation of the colour of the grain. 
The numbers of plants bearing respectively black, brown, 
white or yellow grain in the several bundles varied con- 
siderably. The totals only are given in the subjoined 
tables, the brown being classed with the black grain, and 
the yellow with the white. The distinction between the 
two classes thus tabulated was in all cases so marked as 
to offer no difficulty in sorting out, and they are therefore 
briefly put as black and white. 
Goldfinder Q x Black Tartarian $ (two plants). 
No. of No. of plants No. with No. with Ratio of 
grains saved at black white black and 
sown harvesting grains grains white 
(1) 1000 567 433 134 Bb230-) 1 
(2) 900 566 415 151 Ory Re 
Black Tartarian x White Canadian (one plant). 
890 532 379 153 2°48 :1 
Black Tartartan x Abundance (one plant). 
600455 274 209 65 Se2ur tr 
The Black Tartarian oat is thus shown, in respect of 
the character in question, to be dominant, whether serving 
as pollen or seed parent. It is impossible to say whether 
the destruction done by bad weather affected one type more 
than another. If all the plants had survived, the propor- 
tion of black to white forms shown in the above tables 
NO. 1792, VOL. 69] 
| factions had enabled the university to build them. 
might have been somewhat altered, but for several reasons 
it may safely be assumed that, at most, the alteration would 
not have materially affected the conclusion so clearly 
pointed to, namely, that the dominant and_ recessive 
characters in hybrid oats, as in many other self-fertilised 
plants, assert themselves in the second generation in a 
ratio closely approximating 3 : 1. Joun H. Witson. 
Agricultural Department, St. Andrews University. 
Visitors from the High North in Central Italy. 
TuHat vexata quaestio the migration of birds presents 
strange anomalies which confound the best informed 
theories on the subject. Last winter we had a surprise in 
the appearance in central Italy of the great white-billed 
diver, Colymbus adamsi, G. R. Gray, two of which were 
captured, a big © on the Lake Chiusi or Montepulciano 
on December 2, 1902, and a large-billed G on the 19th 
of the same month on Lake Trasimeno. Both were adults 
in autumn plumage, and are now in the central collection 
of Italian vertebrata in this museum. It is the first time 
that this sub-polar and eastern species has been noted in 
Italy. 
This winter we have had a considerable invasion of that 
beautiful northern bird, the waxwing (Ampelis garrulus, 
L.). During December and January last they appeared in 
hundreds in our northern provinces, and from Vicenza, 
Padova. and Verona spread in flocks westward and south- 
ward. I received the first specimens on December 18, 1903, 
from Vicenza, and the last from Barberino di Mugello 
(Florence) and from Fano (Marche) on January 1 and 15. 
I also heard from Nice that more than 200 specimens, said 
to have come from Corsica, had been sold in. the market. 
Henry H. Gicrrort. 
R. Zool. Museum, Florence, February 22. 
THE NEW BUILDINGS AT CAMBRIDGE. 
pe King, accompanied by the Queen and Prin- 
cess Victoria, visited Cambridge last Tuesday 
to open the new Law School and Science Laboratories 
which have recently been completed on the’ site the 
university acquired from Downing College a few years 
ago. 
On reaching Cambridge, the royal party proceeded 
to the Senate House, where, in the absence of the 
Chancellor, the Duke of Devonshire, who was pre- 
vented from attending by illness, the Vice-Chancellor, 
Dr. Chase, president of Queens’ College, presented 
an address, which was graciously replied to by his 
Majesty. In the course of his reply, the King re- 
marked that he earnestly desired the well-being of the 
university and ‘‘ the extension and development of all 
branches of study and research which are essential to 
the maintenance and the greatness and the welfare of 
my Empire.’? There must, he added, be ‘‘ new endow- 
ments for education if my realm is to be kept up to 
its proper standard of efficiency.’”? The Vice-Chancellor 
then gave a short description of the buildings, and an 
account of the Cambridge Association, whose bene- 
He 
also dwelt upon the pressing need for buildings for the 
department of agriculture, and for proper provision for 
housing the ethnological and archzological collections 
of the university. 
When the ceremony was over the King 
were entertained at lunch by the university 
gallery at the Fitzwilliam- Museum. The royal lunch 
party was strictly limited in number, and _ the 
university entertained a number of distinguished 
guests in the halls of Gonville and Caius and of King’s 
College. 
and Queen 
in the large 
