April 5, 1906] 



NA TURE 



54i 



the British delegates accordingly. In the meantime, 

 packets addressed to the Cancer Research Fund will be 

 delivered." 



The following" awards of medals and other honours for 

 this year have just been decided by the council of the 

 Royal Geographical Society : — A Royal (Founder's) medal 

 to M. Grandidier, for the results of his many years' work 

 on the island of Madagascar; a Royal (Patron's) medal 

 to Dr. Robert Bell, F.R.S., director of the Geological 

 -Survey of Canada ; the Victoria research medal to Prof. 

 W. M. Ramsay, who has been working at ancient geo- 

 graphy for many years, and is an acknowledged authority 

 in that branch of study ; the Murchison award to Major 

 H. R. Davis, for his explorations in the Shan States, 

 Kachin Hills, Vun-nan, Siam, and Sechuan ; the Gill 

 memorial to Major A. St. Hill Gibbons, for the exploring 

 and survey work which he has done in Barotseland on his 

 two expeditions in 1895-6 and in 1S9S-1900 ; the Cuthbert 

 Peek fund to Major H. H. Austin, C.M.G., for his ex- 

 ploration in the Lake Rudolf region, the Sobat region, and 

 his expedition from Omdurman to Mombasa vid Lake 

 Rudolf in 1900 and 1901 ; and the Back bequest to Major 

 R. G. T. Bright, C.M.G., for his exploring work in the 

 Sudan, Uganda, and East Africa. 



In vol. vii., article v., of the Bulletin of the Illinois 

 State Laboratory, Mr. F. Smith continues his notes on 

 North American oligochsete worms, dealing in this instance 

 with a species of Lumbriculus. 



The report of the Australian Museum, Sydney, for the 

 year ending June, 1905, is before us. The most important 

 addition during the year is a collection of ethnological speci- 

 mens from North Queensland made by Dr. W. A. Roth, 

 protector of aborigines for that district. 



In contrasting different statements as to the purpose 

 and function of museums, the March issue of Museum 

 News (Brooklyn, N.Y.) takes occasion to rebuke the 

 " Century Dictionary " for employing the word " curiosi- 

 ties " in this connection, the accumulation of " curiosities " 

 being exactly what every curator who knows his business 

 does his best to avoid. 



The thirty-fourth number of the publications (they have 

 no general title) of the Bureau of Government Laboratories 

 at Manila is devoted to an account of birds from Mindoro 

 and the adjacent islets, and to notes on three birds of 

 rare occurrence in Luzon, one of these latter being the 

 bittern. The first paper, which is well illustrated, contains 

 descriptions of several new species, among them being a 

 needle-tailed swift. 



A fuller account of the Black Hills beetle (Dendro- 

 ctonus ponderosae), a scolytid infesting pine-trees in the 

 Black Hills of South Dakota and elsewhere, described by 

 the author some time ago, is given by Dr. A. D. Hopkins 

 in Entomological Bulletin No. 56 of the U.S. Department 

 of Agriculture. The serious nature of the damage caused 

 by this beetle is indicated by the statement that between 

 700 and 1000 million cubic feet of timber have been 

 destroyed by it in the Black Hills Forest Reserve alone. 



The third part of the Bergen's Museum Aarbog for 

 1905, of which we have received a copy, contains a long 

 and fully illustrated paper by Mr. O. J. Lie-Pettersen on 

 the marine rotifers of Norway, the result of investigations 

 commenced in the summer of 1900, and a second by Mr. 

 H. Brock on Norwegian medusas. The two last papers 

 NO. 1901, VOL. J$\ 



in this part are devoted to archa?ological subjects. We 

 have also received a copy of the Aarsberetning of the same 

 institution, containing the director's report of progress for 

 the past year. 



Part iii. of the third volume of the Transactions of the 

 Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' Club shows careful 

 attention on the part of that body to local subjects. The 

 first article, for instance, deals with the natural aspects 

 of Hull and its neighbourhood ; and others are devoted to 

 the East Riding Mycetozoa, local diatoms, and reclaimed 

 lands of the Humber district. Two local celebrities are 

 accorded biographical notices, with portraits, while the 

 editor, Mr. T. Sheppard, discusses the position of the Hull 

 Museum as regards education. 



The papers in the March Zoologist comprise one on the 

 birds of the Fasroes, and a second on those of Anglesey ; 

 while in a third Mr. R. Warren records a change in the 

 habits of herrings visiting Killala Bay, county Mayo. It 

 appears that since 1899 the fish, which used to keep to 

 the bay, have taken, for about three weeks in the autumn, 

 to entering the estuary and tidal part of the river. So close 

 have thev on some occasions come in-shore that scores 

 may be taken with a landing-net. 



The contents of the first part of vol. lxxxi. of the Zeit- 

 schrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoulogie comprise one paper 

 by Mr. W. Schimkewitsch, of St. Petersburg, on the de- 

 velopmental history of the arachnid Thelyphonus caudatus, 

 and its comparison with that of other members of the 

 same group. In a second paper Mr. R. Meyer discusses 

 the histology of the nervous system of the common star- 

 fish, Asterias rubens, while in the third Mr. O. Kohlmeyer 

 describes the elastic tissue in the mucous membrane of the 

 palate of the brown rat, the distribution of which has never 

 previously been worked out. 



An extinct volcano in Arizona and its crater form the 

 subject of a paper by Mr. D. M. Barbinger in the issue 

 of the Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy for 

 December last. One of the most remarkable features con- 

 nected with this mountain is the presence of an enormous 

 mass of meteoric iron. As the result of his investigations, 

 the author comes to the conclusion that a huge meteor, of 

 which at least the outer coat was metallic, fell to the 

 earth in this locality, and that its size was so great that 

 portions of it were fused and detached. Further, a large 

 hole in the adjacent strata was made by the fall of the 

 meteor. 



Dr. \V. J. Holland has sent us a paper on the osteology 

 of the American dinosaur Diplodocus, with special refer- 

 ence to the model of the skeleton presented by Mr. 

 Carnegie to the Natural History Museum, and installed by 

 Dr. Holland himself. In this paper, which forms No. 6 

 of the second volume of the Memoirs of the Carnegie 

 Museum, the author directs attention to the pose in which 

 the skeleton has been mounted, explaining that, in his 

 opinion, the peculiar structure of the occipital region 

 renders the angle which the skull forms with the vertebral 

 column a matter of necessity. Dr. Holland finds himself 

 unable to accept Baron Nopsca's interpretation of the 

 nature of the problematical bone which has been regarded 

 as a clavicle. 



The black locust tree (Robinia pseudo acacia) is such a 

 familiar inhabitant of railway banks, especially in parts 

 of France, that we read with interest Dr. Charles A. 

 White's account, in the Popular Science Monthly for 



