504 



NATURE 



\Oct. II, 1877 



Angle So ... Distance 24'5 

 „ 138 - .• 94 



212 ... I, 22"0 



August II and September 30 appears to be id. 6h. i8m. 



I2S. 



The Near Approach of Saturn and Mars, 

 November 3. — At the times of meridian transit at 

 Greenwich the position of Saturn with reference to Mars 

 near the conjunction of those bodies at the beginning of 

 the ensuing month will be — 



November 2 



., 3 



• > 4 



It will be seen that on November 3, about 8 P.M., the 

 distance is about equal to the greatest elongation of the 

 Saturnian satellite Japetus, but the satellite is not on this 

 occasion in a position to be occulted by Mars. 



New Comet. — A telescopic comet was discovered on 

 the evening of October 2, at Florence, by M. Tempel, to 

 whom we already owed the discovery of the remarkable 

 comet of January, 1866, which is found to be associated 

 with the November meteor- stream, and the comets of 

 short period of 1867 and 1S73. Its position at gh. is 

 stated to have been in R.A. 23h. 51m., N.P.D. 100° 19'. 

 It was observed by Prof. Winnecke at Strasburg on the 

 6th, and is described by him as pretty bright, about o'-4 

 in diameter with a star-like nucleus lo'iim., and a faint 

 tail 4' in length on an angle of 25°. The diurnal motion 

 appears to be about 3-5 minutes in R.A. diminishing, and 

 in N.P.D. about 64' increasing. 



It may be noted that the position of this comet on 

 October 2 was not far from that which would be occupied 

 by the short-period comet of De Vico, due about this 

 time, if it had arrived at perihelion at the end of the first 

 week in September, but the observed direction of motion 

 of the new comet is contrary to that which De Vice's 

 must have under such condition, so that there can be no 

 suspicion of identity. Prof. Winnecke's observations on 

 October 6 give for the comet's apparent place at 

 ilh. 15m. ss. mean time at Strasburg, right ascension 

 23h. 36m. 2i'S9s., south declination 14° 36' 33"-o. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES 



The Gombi Arrow Poison.— In a recent number of 

 the Bulletin Mcnsucldc la Sociitc a'Acdi mat alio n of Paris, 

 M. M. E. Hardy gives a detailed account of researches and 

 experiments on the active principle of the poison obtained 

 from the seeds of Stioplv.iiitJius hispidus. This plant, 

 which belongs to the poisonous order Apocynace;e, was 

 first observed by Houdetct, a French naturalist in Sene- 

 gambia, afterwards by Snieathmann near Sierra Leone, 

 by Baikie at Nupe, by Griffon du Bellay at Gaboon, and 

 by Gustav Mann in Western Tropical Africa. It is a 

 climber with a hollow cylindrical stem, and grows in the 

 forests, where it ascends to the summits of the highest 

 trees. The oblong, nearly sessile, opposite leaves are 

 from ten to twelve centimetres long by live wide, and are 

 covered with hairs, particularly on the under surface. 

 The yellow flowers are borne on terminal cymes. The fruit 

 is a cylindrical follicle somewhat thicker that the thumb, 

 and contains from 100 to 200 oval seeds. I!y meai's of a 

 fruit given them by the Paris Society, MM. Hardy and 

 Gallois have discovered that the active principle is not, 

 as was supposed, an alkaloid, and for it the name Strophan- 

 iine, given to it some years ago by Dr. Fraser, is retained. 

 Besides, they succeeded in isolating a substance presenting 

 the characters of an alkaloid, but which did not seem to 

 possess any marked physiological properties ; for this 

 they propose the name liuinc. The former is very 

 poisonous, a single crystal placed under the skin of a 

 frog's foot causing the cessation of the heart's action in a 

 few moments. Even after this has taken place the animal 

 still possesses the power of motion, and it is only after 

 respiration has become impossible, owing to the inter- 



ruption of circulation in the nervous centres, that death 

 ensues from paralysis of the heart. These observations, 

 though yet incomplete, accord pretty well with facts 

 recorded by dilTerent authors, and seem to prove that 

 Strophantiiic is really the poisonous agent in Strophanthus 

 hispidus. The most elaborate experiments on the poison 

 found at the extremity of the arrows (used by the natives 

 both in war and in hunting) are those conducted by MM. 

 Carville and Polaillon in the laboratory of M. Vulpian. 

 They were made on various classes of animals and show 

 that the deadly action is much more rapid in mammals 

 and birds than in molluscs, crustaceans, and fishes. On 

 frogs under the influence of curare the poison acts much 

 more slowly, though the respective actions of the two 

 substances do not neutralise each other. 



The Gelada — Several living specimens of this ex- 

 tremely rare Abyssinian monkey, first described by Dr. 

 Ruppell in 1S35, have quite recently reached this country 

 for the first time, and are being exhibited at the Alex- 

 andra Park. The exact affinities of the species have 

 never been fully determined, different biologists placing 

 it, some with the Macaques, others with the Baboons. 

 It is peculiar in that the male is covered with very 

 lengthy air, like that of the Wanderoo, whilst the female 

 is a much more ordinary-looking monkey. In the male, 

 also, there is a bare spot in shape like an inverted T, 

 upon the breast, which is of a bright-pink colour, 

 becoming red and expanded into an inverted heart- 

 shaped patch upon excitement. The tail is long and like 

 that of a lion, having a bushy tuft at the extremity. The 

 colour is a sooty dark-grey brown, verging upon black ; 

 the hands and feet are black ; the nails are powerful and 

 long. The size of the male is about that of a Chim- 

 panzee four years old. The eyes are close together, and 

 the snout prolonged. The living animal has a habit of 

 everting the whole upper lip when irritated, and thus 

 exposing its formidable array of teeth. 



American Insectivora. — Precursory notes on Ame- 

 rican insectivorous mammals, with description of new 

 species, by Dr. Elliott Coues, have reached us. A new 

 sub-genus of Blarina is named Loriciscus. Sorex 

 sphagiiicola and .S. evolis are new species determined by 

 the author, whilst descriptions of .S'. pacificus, S. [Notio- 

 sorex) crawfofdi, and Blatiiia mexicana are given from 

 manuscripts of Prof. Baird. 



Coagul.\tion of Blood. — We notice an interesting 

 paper by M. Fredericq, " On the Coagulation of the 

 Blood," in the seventh number of the Bulletin of the 

 Belgian Academy. The paper deals especially with 

 fibrinogen and its transformation into fibrine. The 

 author having discovered that fibrinogen coagulates at 

 56° C, /.(-., at a temperature far lower than the tempera- 

 ture of coagulation of other albuminoids of the blood, 

 this property of fibrinogen enabled him to study the 

 transformation of that body into fibrine, and to throw 

 some new light on the obscure problem of coagulation 

 of blood. The researches are to be continued. 



Persian and Sardinian Opiliones.— A memoir by 

 Dr. Thorell, professor of Zoology at Upsala, has been 

 published at Genoa containing descriptions of certain 

 species of Opiliones from Persia and Sardinia preserved 

 in the museum at Genoa, together with diagnoses of 

 additional forms in the collection of the author, which 

 are interesting, either as being new to science, or as 

 having hitherto been imperfectly known. In order to 

 advance the study of the PJialangidca Dr. Thorell has 

 incorporated in this treatise a revision of the European 

 genera, thus rendering it invaluable to every arachnologist 

 who is desirous of studying the group. 



The Daphniad.e.— Inthe Berichtc dcr Vcrliandlun(;cn 

 of the Freiburg Society of Naturalists Prof. Dr. Au^just 



