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NATURE 
[JANUARY 28, 1897 
the population, 9835 deaths have occurred in excess of the 
These are attributed by the 
Continental Governments are 
average for the last five years. 
Times of India to the plague. 
showing great activity in regard to precautionary measures. 
The Austrian Academy of Science has decided to despatch three 
medical men to Bombay to study the circumstances connected 
with the prevailing epidemic. A special sanitary mission, sent 
by the Medical Board and accompanied by the French delegate, 
has left Suez for the quarantine stations on the coast of the 
Sinai Peninsula, in order to determine what measures are neces- 
sary to assure the immunity of Egypt from contagion. The 
Times correspondent at St. Petersburg states that the Russian 
newspapers continue to complain of the British Govern- 
ment for delaying to take measures against the spread of the 
plague. ‘To secure the safety of Russia’s Asiatic possessions, the 
Minister of the Interior has issued instructions for the opening 
of fourteen stations of medical observation along the land 
frontiers of Persia, Afghanistan, and Chinese Kashgar. <A 
special commission has been appointed by the Tsar to take 
measures for;the prevention of the importation of the plague 
into Russia. Practically all the European Governments have 
appointed representatives for the Sanitary Conference to be held 
at Venice on February 10. 
THE weather has continued very wintry during the past week, 
sharp frost occurring at night over the entire kingdom, and snow 
has fallen on most days over a large part of the country. A 
heavy north-easterly gale occurred on Friday and Saturday, the 
storm, coupled with the high sea which was running, doing 
much damage on our east coasts. The gale was accompanied 
by a heavy fall of snow, deep drifts -being formed in the mid- 
land, southern, and eastern districts of England, and occasioning 
mich mconvenience and delay to the ordinary traffic. In places 
trains were blocked, and some few deaths have occurred owing 
to ‘the ‘severity of the weather. There was a temporary give 
in the frost on Monday, owing to the arrival over the northern 
part of our islands of a cyclonic storm area from the Atlantic. 
There ‘was a renewal of the gales on our coasts, and snow fell 
again in many places.-. In' London a heavy snow squall occurred 
at'about five o’clock on Monday afternoon, and was accompanied 
by thunder and lightning: The frost was very sharp again on 
Tuesday‘and: Wednesday, but the changes of temperature con- 
tinue very fitful. 
THE worked flints obtained by Mr. W. J. Lewis Abbott from 
the Cromer Forest-Bed are described by him in the February 
number of Watural Science. For the benefit of those not 
familiar with the geology of the Cromer district, it is pointed out 
that the valley to the west of Cromer, towards Sherringham, is 
still cloaked with a palzolithic gravel, below which come the 
fantastically-twisted and folded glacial beds, termed the con- 
torted drift, and under this occurs the Forest Bed series. This 
series is, however, not a Forest-Bed at all, but was deposited in 
the estuary of a river. The flints obtained by Mr. Abbott have 
every appearance of having been fashioned by man. The con- 
clusion arrived at is: ‘‘ Bearing past history in mind, and the 
reception which has been accorded to these specimens, the un- 
questionable evidences they offer of being artificially worked, the 
unmistakable positions from which they were obtained, and the 
conditions under which some of them were found in the matrix, 
are we not justified in admitting the existence of man in Britain 
in the Forest Bed period ?” 
Mr. J. Lu. Wriitams has a very curious note in the number 
of the Journal of Botany for January, on the drunken habits of 
certain humble-bees. The intoxicant is the honey produced by 
the crowded flowers of the capitulate heads of certain Composite 
(Carduus nutans and lanceolatus, and Centaurea scabiosa), and 
Dipsacaceze (Scabzosa Succtsa). Theintoxicationis indicated by 
NO. 1422, VOL. 55] 
rolling on the back, striking the legs wildly in the air, and 
general helplessness. The bees rapidly recovered from the 
effects, and, in most cases, were eager to repeat the debauch ; 
but one individual, which had been shut up in a vasculum with 
copious supplies of Cextaurea Scabiosa, manifested, the next morn 
ing, a praiseworthy remorse and disgust, ‘‘ raising its head and ~ 
fore-legs as high as it could above the plants, then precipitately 
hurrying away as soon as released.” The most dissolute species 
appears to be the neuter of Bowzbus lapidarzus. The author 
suggests that this may in time become a normal mode of cross- 
pollinating the flowers in queston. 
SoME interesting experiments by Prof. Felix Plateau, of 
Ghent (Budletin de [Académie Royale de Belgique), tend. to 
disprove the view, so often advanced, that the brightly coloured 
petals of flowers are necessary to attract insects. The method 
of observation adopted—viz. by removing the corolla‘ and 
watching whether insects continue to visit the flower—had 
previously led to contradictory results in the hands of different 
observers, including Charles Darwin. These discrepancies the 
author attributes to want of care in removing the petals; caré 
must, indeed, be taken to avoid handling the flowers, or doing 
anything which might influence an insect’s sense of smell. 
Prof. Plateau removed the brightly coloured corollas from the 
flowers of Lobelia Erinus, Qinothera biennis, Ipomea purpurea, 
Delphinium Ajacis, Digitalis purpurea, and Antirrhinum 
majus, and the blue barren florets from the capitulum of 
Centaurea cyanus. In every case, except that of Anterrhinum 
majus, the mutilated flowers were observed to be freely visited 
by various kinds of insects (bees, bumble-bees, flies of the 
Syrphide family, and an occasional butterfly), no special pre- 
ference being exhibited for flowers that were left intact. The 
insects not only sucked honey from the mutilated flowers, but 
they often circled round them without alighting. In the case 
of the snapdragon, several bumble-bees hovered round the 
mutilated heads, but subsequently left them for those with 
entire flowers, a result explained by the peculiar mode in which 
bees have to enter the corolla, which would render the absence 
of that organ perplexing to them. Finally, Prof. Plateau 
covered several of the large umbels of Heracleum Fescherit 
with rhubarb leaves, and it was found that even when thus 
masked they were freely visited by insects. These results 
suggest that insects are guided to flowers largely by their sense 
of smell. 
In the same publication, M. Victor Willem describes experi- 
ments showing that the variations observed by Semper and 
Varigny, in the development of fresh-water mollusca (Lzmnea, 
Planorbzs), are attributable to the greater or lesser aération of 
the water in which they grow, those specimens which are reared 
with free access of air developing to the largest size. 
Pror. D. Mazzorro has completed a determination of the 
index of refraction of water for electric waves of length varying 
from two metres down to twenty-five centimetres. The ex- 
periments, which are described in the Asti dec Lincec, show 
that between these limits the index is constant and equal to 
9'00 at 19°, thus agreeing well with the theoretical value (8°85) 
obtained by taking the square root of the dielectric constant. — 
In a part of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of 
Washington, just issued, Dr. C. H. Merriam describes a very 
remarkable small, short-eared, tailless rabbit, which has recently 
been discovered on Mount Popocatepetl, in Mexico, at the height 
of about 10,000 feet. This singular animal, which, instead 
of moving by leaps, like an ordinary rabbit, runs about on all- 
fours, in the grass of the mountain, has been named by Dr. 
Merriam Romerolagus Nelsont. The clavicles in this new form: 
are complete, and not imperfect as is usual in the family 
Leporide. mane de 
