y . 
expressed a doubt as to whether it were possible for insects pos- 
sessed only of a suctorial proboscis to devour such solid bodies as 
pollen-grains ; but Miiller believes that the transverse denticula- 
tions found in the valves atthe end of the proboscis of many 
- Diptera are especially adapted for chewing the pollen-grains, 
_and for dividing the threads by which the grains are often bound 
together. 
Mr. FRANK BUCKLAND, writing to the Zimes, announces the 
birth in London, of a young rhinoceros (2. swmatrensis). The 
eyent took place at the Victoria Docks, on board the ship in which 
the mother had just arrived from Singapore;she, along with a male, 
having been captured by the natives of Malacca ; the latter, how- 
; ever, died during the voyage. The young thing has been removed 
to the house of Mr. Rice, one of the owners of it and its mother, 
and we believe is getting along famously. We hope the “ cockney 
rhinoceros,” as Mr. Buckland calls it, may thrive as well as the 
young hippopotamus in Regent’s Park, and not be permitted to 
_ cross the Atlantic, as, it seems, there is some danger of its doing, 
unless the Zoological Society secure it and its mother for their 
collection. 
THE number of candidates for the ensuing matriculation ex- 
amination of the University of Madras is 1,565, and the numba 
of candidates for the first arts examination, 242. 
JUDGING by the prospectuses which have fallen into our hands 
__ we cannot help concluding that the ladies of Glasgow are being 
well provided for in the way of lectures in the ensuing winter. 
No fewer than four courses are announced for their behoof. 
First, we have Dr. John Young, the Professor of Natural 
History in the University of Glasgow, with a course of sixteen 
lectures on his own special subject, and by means of which he 
proposes to give his auditors a comprehensive account of the 
_ animal kingdom, by selecting and dilating upon special and judi- 
ciously chosen types of animal structure, and their position in 
geological time. Next comes Mr. Edward Caird, the Professor 
of Moral Philosophy, with the same length of course, on the 
History of England, the range to be considered extending from 
the first period of English History to the time of Edward I., when 
the settlement of the principles of the Constitution was effected. 
This course will be open to gentlemen as well as ladies, A third 
University course of sixteen lectures is also announced, and will 
be open to gentlemen only, the lecturer being Mr. John Ferguson, 
_ M.A., Assistant to the Professor of Chemistry. These will be 
evening lectures, and, of course, the subject will be Elementary 
Chemistry. The Professors of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy 
in Anderson’s University, apparently by way of supplementing 
the courses of biological and historical lectures of Profs. Yonng 
and Caird, have each commenced a course of twelve lectures for 
_ ladies, to be delivered in the Corporation Galleries, Dr. Thorpe 
taking Elementary Chemistry, and Prof. Forbes making Heat 
his special subject. These four courses of lectures for ladies will 
all be given at the same hour, but on different days, so that very 
zealous lady students may attend them all, « 
A CERTAIN Dr. A. Wolfert publishes an extraordinary article 
in Petermann’s Mittheilungen, Das Nordlicht eine weder mag- 
netische noch electrische Erscheimung.” The aurora, it appears, 
is neither electrical nor magnetic, but is the result of the re- 
_ flection and refraction through the earth’s atmosphere of the sun’s 
_Yays remaining over from the summer ! 
AT the first ordinary meeting of the Pathological Society of 
Dublin, for the present session, held on Noy. 30, the President, 
Dr. George H. Kidd, announced that the subject chosen by the 
Council for competition for the gold medal, to be awarded to the 
best essayist in 1873, was ‘‘ The Diagnosis and Pathology of 
_ Abdominal Tumours.” 
a 
NATURE 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
THE Geological Magazine for November (No. 101) com- 
mences with a note on the forms of valleys and lake-basins 
in Norway by Mr. J. M. Wilson, in which the author draws at- 
tention to a connection which he has observed between the con- 
figuration of the surface of the country and the disposition of the 
principal planes of division of the rocks, this disposition apps- 
rently altering with the windings of the valleys. His notion 
appears to be that masses of rock have been torn away by glacier 
action until a divisional plane offering a minimum resistance to 
the passage of the ice was exposed.—The second article is the 
conclusion ef Mr, Alfred Tylor’s paper on the formation of 
deltas and on the evidence and cause of great changes in the sea- 
level during the glacial period, in which the author describes at 
considerable length the structure of the Delta of the Po (which 
is illustrated by sections of numerous artesian borings in Venice), 
and refers also to those of the Mississippi, Ganges, and Volga, 
in support of his views as to the peculiar curves formed by the 
surface of these deposits, his hypothesis of the former occurrence 
of a general ‘‘ Pluvial” period, and his belief that during the 
glacial period there was an actual subsidence of the sea, due 
partly to its contraction by cold and partly to the abstraction of 
large quantities of water to form the enormous deposits of ice 
and snow in the colder regions. He also indicates the curves 
produced generally by denudation and deposition—Mr. John 
Hopkinson describes some new species of Graptolites from the 
South of Scotland, including representatives of the genera Den- 
drograptus, Graptolithus, Diplograptus, and Dicranograptus 
from the Llandeilo rocks of Lanarkshire and Dumfriesshire ; 
and a species of the anomalous genus Corynoides from the 
latter district. This paper is illustrated with a plate—From 
Prof. Hall, of Albany, we have a note on the relations of the 
Middle and Upper Silurian (Clinton, Niagara, and Helderberg) 
rocks of the United States, written in opposition to Mr. A. H. 
Worthen, and in support of the generally received opinions upon 
this subject. The paper, although toa certain extent controver- 
sial, furnishes a useful summary of this department of American 
geology.—Mr. H, B. Woodward publishes a note on the Midford 
Sands, which he seems inclined to regard as truly transitional 
between the Upper Lias and the Inferior Oolite, and from this 
takes occasion to hint that the Keuper, Lias, and Oolites 
may be Icoked upon as one conformable series, the divisions or 
stages of which are to a certain extent arbitrary. The number 
concludes with the completion of Prof. Nordenskidld’s account 
of his expedition to Greenland in 1870. 
Poggendorff’s Annalen der Physik und Chemiz, No. 9, 
1872, contains two mineralogical papers, one by Vom Rath, 
on Anorthite, being a crystallographic study of the Naples 
collection ; and the other by Dr. Lasaulx on Micromineralugy 
(second of a series), and treating of the metamorphic phenomena 
in protogine, granite, &c.—W. Stille discusses mat! matically 
the theory of the boomerang’s moticn ; and a paper by F. Braun 
treats of the influence of rigidity, fixture, and amplitude on the 
vibrations of strings ; figures being given, showing the traces 
made by a feather (attached to the string), on a smoke-blackened 
cylinder, under varying conditions of the kind mentioned. F. B. 
Hofmann describes the spectral phenomena of phosphuretted 
hydrogen and of ammonia, and his paper is connected with one 
by F. Hoppe-Seyler on the production of light by atomic 
motions. Two of the Royal Society’s papers, and one or two 
articles on chemical subjects make up the rest of this number. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LonpdoN 
Royal Society, Dec, 12.—‘“On the Structural Composition 
of Urinary Calculi.” By H. Vandyke Carter, M.D. 
“A Contribution to the Knowledge of Hemoglobin.” By E. 
Ray Lankester. According to the author the distribution of 
hzemoglobin may be summarised as follows ;— 
1. In special corpuscles. 
a, In the blood of all vertebrates, excepting Zeptocephalus 
and Amphioxus (?). 
6. In the perivisceral fluid of some species of Glycera, of 
Capitella, and Phoronis. 
c. In the blood of Solen legumen. 
2. Diffused in a vascular or ambient liquid. 
a. Inthe peculiar vascular system of. the Chzetopodous 
