546 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 5, 1899 
Vole. 
J THINK NaTuRE should take note of a short article by 
Prof. Skeat in the number of Motes and Queries for September 
16, wherein he points out that vo/e is corrupt Norwegian for 
field, and that therefore a water-vole is a water-field, a field- 
vole a field-field, and a bank-vole a bank-field. 
Exeter. JAMES DALLAS. 
THE INVESTIGATION OF THE MALARIAL 
PARASITE. 
ENDING the arrival here of Major Ross and part 
of the Malaria Expedition connected with the 
Liverpool School of Tropical Diseases, which is expected 
about October 7, we may, from information already to 
hand, forecast some points in his report without in any 
way detracting from the interest with which it will be 
received. 
In the issue of this journal for September 7 we recorded 
the fact that a species of Anopheles was found to be con- 
cerned in the transference of allthe forms of malaria. In 
the barracks of Wilberforce, a suburb of Freetown, Sierra 
Leone, out of four hundred men there was a daily average 
of forty ill in hospital with all three forms of malaria. 
The place seems to have been infested with mosquitoes, 
but only the genus Anopheles was found, and of those 
examined one-third were found to contain zygotoblasts. 
In searching for the haunts of the Anopheles larvee 
the members of the expedition found them chiefly in 
small stagnant pools in which green algae were growing. 
The larve appear to live upon this, for larva hatched 
from eggs did not grow unless they were given some of 
the alge to feed upon. They infer that the conditions under 
which alge will grow, namely, in stagnant puddles, are the 
same as those under which Anopheles larve will hatch out 
and thrive ; the larvee of Culex were found in every re- 
ceptacle for stagnant water, even in old sardine tins. 
Stagnant puddles are only found during the rains on low- 
lying ground, and near a stream or spring, from which 
they can be replenished in the dry season. So far, only 
one experiment on the action of kerosene oil on larve has 
been reported ; one drachm of the oil was poured on the 
surface of a pool of water of about a square yard in area, 
and all the Anopheles larve it contained were found dead 
after six hours. 
Ross considers the Anopheles to be the genus con- 
cerned in propagating malaria, and seems to rely on being 
able to exterminate them from a locality to free it from 
the disease. 
Koch (Erster Berichtiiber die Thitigkett der Malaria 
Expedition, April 25 bis August 1, 1899) found Culex 
pipiens to be concerned in propagating malaria in 
Tuscany, but to a lesser extent than the Anopheles. The 
German Commission find that the parasite requires a 
temperature of 80° F. to develop in the mosquito, and it 
is only found in these insects during the summer months. 
At the commencement of the hot weather the mosquito 
draws the parasite with the blood from a patient who has 
a relapse. Human beings with the parasite in their blood 
they consider to be the connecting link during the nine 
months of the year when the temperature does not allow 
of the parasite developing in the mosquito ; they think 
relapses can be stopped by the use of quinine ; so by 
this means it would become possible to stamp out the 
disease. 
It is evident we want a large series of observations 
made in different parts of the world, for, if the genus 
Culex can propagate the disease, it would be almost im- 
possible to exterminate these if they breed wherever water 
lies. On the other hand, should relapses of fever be 
prevented by a proper use of quinine, malaria would not 
be stamped out in countries where the temperature is 
sufficiently high all the year round to allow the parasite 
to develop in the mosquito. 
NO. 1562, VOL. 60] 
MR. PERGYVOS PIL CHER. 
ANY of our readers who were acquainted with Mr. 
Percy S. Pilcher, and others who have only heard 
of him through his great enterprise and keenness in con- 
structing and using aérial machines, will be very sorry to: 
hear that his accident on Saturday last has proved fatal, 
and that he died at 2.40 on Monday morning. 
Mr. Pilcher, during the last few years, had been making 
a considerable number of experiments with the object of 
constructing a soaring machine which would propel itself. 
The writer of this note was present at one of his trials in 
August 1897, at the time when he was at work in design- 
ing a small light engine for propelling his machine, and 
communicated to this journal an account (with illus- 
trations from photographs) of his experiments on that 
occasion (NATURE, vol. lvi. p. 344). 
Like his forerunner Otto Lilienthal, Mr: Pilcher has. 
come to the same sad end, and now his name must be 
added to that already long list of pioneers in aérial 
Navigation. 
The experiments causing the fatality took place on 
Saturday last at Stanford Hall, the seat of Lord Braye, 
near Market Harborough. 
We gather from the 7Zzmes that after several in- 
effectual attempts to start, a signal was given about 
twenty minutes past four, and Mr. Pilcher rose slowly in 
the machine until he had travelled about 150 yards, and 
had risen to a height of about 50 feet or 60 feet. Then a 
sharp gust of wind came and the tail of the apparatus 
snapped. Instantly the machine turned completely over 
and fell to the earth with a terrible thud, Mr. Pilcher 
being underneath the wreckage. His devoted sister was 
one of the first to reach the scene of the accident. Mr. 
Adrian Verney-Cave, Mr. Everard Fielding, and Dr. 
Stuart, all friends and companions of Mr. Pilcher, re- 
moved him from the machine and found that he was 
unconscious. Raising his left leg it was discovered that 
it was fractured above the knee. Mr. Pilcher was 
carried to his room in the house, and Dr. Stuart and Dr. 
Nash carefully examined him, another surgeon being 
summoned by telegraph from Rugby. 
Way: Sis 
NOTES. ' 
PROF, SIMON NEwWcomB has been elected president of the 
recently established Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of 
America, The secretary is Prof. G. C. Comstock. 
THE seventh International Geographical Congress began a 
series of successful meetings on Wednesday, September 27, at 
Berlin. Papers have been read by, among others, the Prince 
of Monaco, on his Greenland Deep-sea Expedition, and Dr. 
Nansen, on ‘‘ The Hydrography of the Polar Sea.” At one of 
the sittings of the Congress a telegram was read from Mr. H. J. 
Mackinder, the Reader of Geography at Oxford, announcing 
that he had succeeded in reaching the summit of the hitherto 
unscaled Mount Kenia in British East Africa, and that some 
fifteen glaciers were found upon the mountain. It will be 
remembered that Mr. Mackinder left England in June last in 
charge of an exploring expedition. 
A Buoy bearing the inscription ‘‘ Andrée’s Polar Expedition,” 
found on the north side of King Charles Island, north-east of 
Spitsbergen, So° latitude and 25° east of Greenwich, on 
September 11, has been brought to Stockholm and there opened 
in the presence of several experts and Ministers. It was found 
to be the so-called ‘‘ North Pole buoy ” which the explorer was 
to have dropped when passing the North Pole. So far as the 
examination extended no message from the explorer was 
