=> 
de 
eee Ta a ah abe" 
Eire : a ON, yi : * 
34 
cludes modifications the result of disuse and alterations which 
bear a prospective relation to the future wants of the altered 
insect form, 
It appears at first sight that this separation into different stages 
of life is necessary for the insect, and that it must have a time 
devoted to eating, digesting, and assimilating, a quiet condition 
devoted to internal changes, and a stage where reproduction can 
be carried on. But this generalisation fails when it is remem- 
bered that some larvze eat and reproduce, and some imagos repro- 
duce and lead bloodthirsty lives also. It is important to recog- 
nise the distinction already hinted at. The growth of the young 
embryo larva within the egg, and that of the escaped and skin- 
shedding larva, is progressive, but the descriptions given of the 
changes in the shape and in the anatomy of the digestive organs 
of the pupa and imago, prove that they do not depend upon 
simple progression from elementary condition to complexity. The 
changes of structure belong to a different order of things to the 
<p growth of the larva’s tissues ; they appear to be super- 
a . 
(Zo be continued.) 
NOTES 
THE Medals in the gift of the Royal Society have this year 
been awarded as follows :—The Copley Medal has been awarded 
to Professor Friedrich Wahler, of Gottingen, For. Memb. R.S., 
for his numerous contributions to the Science of Chemistry, and 
more especially for his researches on the products of the decom- 
position of Cyanogen by Ammonia ; on the Derivatives of Uric 
Acid ; on the Benzoyl Series; on Boron, Silicon, and their 
compounds ; on Titanium, and on Meteoric Stones. A Royal 
Medal has been awarded to Professor Thomas Anderson, M.D., 
for his investigations on the Organic Bases of Dippell’s Animal 
Oil ; on Codeine; on the Crystallised Constituents of Opium ; 
on Piverin and on Papaverin; and for his researches in Physio- 
logical andl Agricultural Chemistry. A Royal Medal has been 
awarded to Mr. Henry John Carter, F.R.S., for his long-con- 
tinued and valuable researches in Zoology, and more especially 
for his inquiries into the Natural History of the Spongiada. 
‘tne Rumford Medal, awarded every two years, has been 
awarded ‘to Anders} Jonas Angstrém, For. Memb. R.S., for 
his Researches on Spectral Analysis. 
THE annual meeting of the Fellows of the Royal Society, for 
the election of officers and Council for the ensuing year, will be 
held, as usual, on the 30th inst. As we have before announced, 
Dr. Sharpey, after a long period of service as secretary, resigns 
his functions, which have been of such great advantage to the 
Society, and by the performance of which he has earned the 
thanks and respect of ail men of science, Prof, Huxley being 
nominated by the council as his successor. 
In the Boston Daily Advertiser for Saturday, Oct. 26, 1872, 
the conclusion of Prof. Tyndall’s last lecture is thus reported :— 
“There are three great theories which enable the human mind to 
open the secrets of nature—the theory of gravitation, the me- 
chanical theory of heat, and the undulatory theory of light. 
These three pillars, as far as the human intellect is concerned, sup- 
port the universe. To whom are we indebted for these dis- 
coveries? To men who had no practical ends in view, and who 
cared only for the truth. To-day, when there are so many 
temptations to young men to leave pure science for practical 
aims, it behoves us to look with sympathetic eyes upon the 
investigator who makes all this knowledge possible. I met on 
the steamship Russia a respected friend who ascribed the electric 
telegraph to fa source to which I certainly should not have 
thought of referring it. It is the direct outcome of men who 
never made a shilling by it. Volta, Faraday, never made a shilling 
by it. All honour to the men who make these discoveries, 
Gauss and Weber, at the University of Gottingen, actually con- 
structed a telegraph line from the physical cabinet to the observa- 
tory. Give all honour to the men who apply discoveries, but do 
not forget the men who make them. Many of you in this country 
have made fortunes, and have shown that you know how to apply : 
them, Look with sympathetic eye upon the investigators. Give 
them opportunities. Do not overload them with other work. 
‘Cast your bread upon the waters,’ and believe me ‘it will 
return to you after many days,’ My course among you is nearly 
over. I began it with some anxiety and end it with regret. 
much to my assistants. I shall long and gratefully remember _ 
my reception on the occasion of my first lecture here. If I am 
treated in the same manner elsewhere, I shall return to the old 
country full of content, During my stay here I have heard ‘the © 
old country’ mentioned again and again. 
your antecedents. Out of England’s loins you have come. Your 
ancestry is stamped upon your faces, your laws, your politics, 
and your characters. De Tocqueville, sympathising with demo- 
cratic institutions, says, regarding England and America: “I~ 
refuse to regard these people as two ; one is the outgrowth of the 
other.” Atrocious ignorance of each other is at the bottom of - 
all our differences, I trust that hereafter each nation will respect 
lis 
has been harder for me at times than"I=had expected, and I owe — 
You cannot abolish — 
the individuality of the other; while thoroughly maintaining its 
own,’ The lecture was listened to with great attention, and 
loudly applauded at the close, Every point made in behalf of 
the investigators, and upon our relations to the mother country, — 
received loud approbation. Our report cannot do justice to Dr, 
Tyndall’s earnestness in the latter portions of his lecture. It is 
to be hoped that some of our so-called ‘practical men’ may 
take to heart the lessons he has tried to teach them.” 
THE late Prof. De Morgan, in a note to his article on Tables 
in the ‘‘ English Cyclopzedia,” strongly expresses his regret that 
the British Museum did not purchase Dr. Hutton’s valuable 
mathematical library, and, consequently, the first set of mathe- 
matical tables ever collected in England was dispersed. With a 
view to avert a similar break-up, we may inform our readers that 
at a very early date the mathematical collections of the late Mr. 
Babbage must be disposed of. It is with reference to these that 
De Morgan, in the above-cited article, acknowledges his indebt- 
edness (‘‘ large and rare collection of Tables’’), Its excellence, 
however, is not confined to this special department only. We 
learn that catalogues will be issued in the course of a few days. 
In reference to the Swiney Lectureship, which we announced 
recently as having become vacant, we venture to hope the post 
will not be thrown away on some one who is already well off, 
and has taken his place in life, but that it will be given to some 
young man who has shown himself well qualified for scientific 
research, and who may thus be enabled to devote his time to 
investigations which may lead to results of enduring value, 
Several eminent men have already held this lectureship, in- 
cluding, we believe, Dr. Carpenter. 
Pror. WEIss, of the Vienna Observatory, has recently passed 
through London, on his return from a tour of inspection through 
the United States, where he has visited all the principal observa- 
tories, in order to collect materials for a report on the instruments 
demanded by modern science in a first-class observatory like that — 
of Vienna, which is about to be removed and extended. It ap- — 
pears that the 26-inch object-glass ordered by the American 
Government, as soon as the completion of Mr. Newall’s magnifi- 
cent instrument has established the feasibility of such an enors.ous 
aperture, is already finished, and the mounting is in a forward 
state. 
Silliman’s Yournal for November mentions the death of the 
Rey. John B. Perry, Professor of Primordial Geology in Harvard 
College, and of Dr. John F, Frazer, Professor of Natural Philo- 
sophy and Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. 
THE death is announced, in the Isle of Wight, on Friday last, _ 
of Dr. H. B. Leeson, F.R.S., for many years lecturer on chemis- 
try at St. Thomas’s Hospital, 
