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May 22, 1843) 
NATURE 
79 
cat. But what I mention him to you foris to tell you the 
curious account which the doctor, a man of gee veracity, 
gives of his habits—he is as afraid of rain as his foster mother, 
will never, if possible to avoid it, set his paw ina wet place; 
licks his feet two or three times a day, for the purpose of washing 
his face, which operation he performs in the true cattish position, 
sitting upon his tail ; will watch a mouse-hole for hours together ; 
and has in short all the ways, manners, habits, and dispositions 
of his wet nurse, the cat. “Is not this very singular? But it’s 
puzzling as well as amusing, and opens a new and strange view 
into that mysterious subject, the instincts of animals. Mrs. 
Routh, and Mrs. Blagrove (the mistress of the cat, who was 
resent at dinner to-day), confirmed all the facts of the case. 
They say that one can hardly imagine how like a cat Romulus 
(the dog’s name) is, unless one lived with him.” : 
The following is from a letter of October 29, 1835 :— 
* Another characteristic of this hot dry summer (1835) has 
been the manner in which the large humble bees have forced 
open, torn apart the buds of my geraniums; an operation I 
never saw them perfi rm before. Z 
* Another novelty of this season has been that the splendid 
new annual, the Sa/piglossis picta, has, after the first crop of 
blossoms, produced perfect seed without flower petals, a proof 
(ifany were needed), that the p.tils which constitute the beauty 
of a flower, are not necessary to its propagation.” 
_ We may mention that Mr. C. H. Jeens has a cat anda 
dog, the litter now twenty months old, which, from the 
time the dog was a month old, have been in a relation 
similar to the cat and the pups in Miss Mitford’s story, 
with a result somewhat similar. When the dog catches 
a mouse he treats it after the well-known manner of cats, 
pawing it, allowing it to run a distance, then pouncing 
upon it, and so on for many minutes. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Tue Monthly Microscopical Fournal commences with the 
paper on ‘‘a new Callidina ; with the results of experiments on 
the Desiccation of Rotifera,” by Mr. H. Davis, which was read 
before the Royal Microscopical Society in April, and in which 
the author, by means of several carefully performed experiments, 
proves that Rotifera, which survive after being exposed to a 
temperature of 200° F., orin a vacuum for some time, do not get 
desiccated, but only covered with an impervious gelatinous cover- 
ing which retains a certain amount of moisture in them. This 
Mr. Slack shows to have been previously proved. Mr. Parfitt 
describes a new form apparently related to the Rotifera and the 
Annelida, named by him Agehisteus plumosus, with the oral 
aperture lateral and inferior. Dr. Braithwaite describes Sphagnum 
papillosum and S. austini in his paper on Bog Mosses ; and Mr. F. 
Wenham has another valuable paper on ‘Binoculars for the 
highest powers.” A new slide for the microscope, designed 
by Mr.’ D. S. Holman; is described. It is a current cel 
or moist chamber for studying the blood and other organic 
fluids. The accompanying illustration will assist in explaining it. 
Two shallow circular cavities are excavated in a very flat thick 
glass slide, not far from one another. They are united by two 
orthree grooves, which are cut as triangles in order that they 
may be of unequal depth in different parts. When the apparatus 
is to be used, each of the shallow cavities and the intermediate 
grooves are partly filled with the fluid to be examined, after the 
slide has been warmed by the hand, and a glass cover is laid over 
the whole, which soon becomes fixed from the cooling of the slide 
and the consequent rarification of the enclosed air. ‘The grooves 
between the cavities form the field for inspection, and any degree 
of movement may be produced in the fluid which they contain 
by approaching the warm finger to the top of one of the cavities, 
as the air inside is thus made to expand and drive some of the 
fluid into the other which is not heated. There is scarcely any limit 
to the degree of delicacy of movement which may be attained 
with this instrument ; the slightest movement, not sufficient to 
remove a body from the field of vision, being produced without 
difficulty after some practice, 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LoNnDON 
Chemical Society, May 15.—Dr. Odling; F.R.S., president, 
in the chair.—Dr. H. S. Armstrong delivered a most able and 
comprehensive lecture on ‘‘Isomerism,” pointing out that the 
generally received position theory was incompetent to explain 
many reactions which took place in the formation of metameric 
and isomeric substances. He suggested that the investigation 
of the thermal properties of compounds would establish facts 
which might ultimately enable us to obtain some insight into the 
matter, 
Anthropological Institute, May 20.—Prof. Busk, F.R.S., 
in the chair.—A paper was read by Mr. Hyde Clarke on the 
Egyptian Colony and Language in the Caucasus. This was de- 
voted to a part of a series of investigations to ascertain the com- 
parative chronology of prehistoric races by the correlation of 
comparative philology with the study of physical features, monu- 
ments, weapons, &c. It identified the Ude language of the 
Caucasus, that of an expiring population, with the Coptic, and 
still more closely with the Hieroglyphic in minute and numerous 
details of roo!s, grammar, and structure. The resemblance of 
the Bzyb dialect of Ude with the Bashmurie Coptic illustrated 
the differences between Hieroglyphic and Coptic. The paper 
then proceeded to point out the conformity of strata in the 
linguistic topography of Caucasia and the Nile regions, particu- 
larly in the earlier epochs of Agaw and Abkhas, and of Furian 
and Akush. Hence the conclusion was drawn that the sources 
of Egyptian grammar were not in the late Semitic, but in the 
prior epochs, and that Egyptian grammar and civilisation belong 
to a remote period in the annals of civilisation, but still to a re- 
latively modern period in the history of man. The author, ac- 
cepting the history of Herodotus as to the conformity between 
the Colchians of Caucasia and the Egyptians, did not accept his 
theory that the Colchians were a colony of Lesodites. In the 
time of Herodotus and Pindar, the Colchians, now light, were as 
dark as the Egyptians, 
GLASGOW 
Geological Society, April 24—Mr. John Young, vice- 
president, in the chair—Mr. David Robertson, F.G.S., read 
a note on the ‘“‘ Precipitation of Clay in Fresh and Sea 
Water.” He stated that in making some observations on 
the gradual deposition of particles of clay held in solution 
by water, he found that in fresh water these were held 
suspended for a long time before wholly subsiding, while 
salt water, or a mixture of salt and fresh, became comparatively 
clear in the course of a few hours, The results showed that 
water only slightly brackish had a great power in precipitating 
the clay, and from this he concluded that the great bulk of the 
clay carried down in solution by rivers must be deposited before 
it could reach any great distance from the sea shore. This 
might throw some light on the formation of deltas, and on the 
silting up of river courses within the influence of the tides, It 
might also assist in determining how far the glacial mud, for 
example, could be carried into the sea by tides and currents.— 
The chairman read a paper which he had prepared in conjuncticn 
with Mr. Robertson, ‘‘On the Composition of the Boulder and 
Laminated Brick Clays of the West of Scotland.” The authois 
stated that their object was to ascertain, if possible, the con- 
ditions under which these clays had been deposited, and how far 
any of them were fossiliferous. For this purpose they had col- 
lected samples of clays from upwards of fifty localities. These, 
after being dried, were weighed, and then carefully wasled. 
The results led them to regard as most probable the cn- 
clusion that the till or unstratified boulder clay was a deposit 
that had been laid down in water and formed from materials 
which land ice had carried seawards, the ice extending over 
the submerged tracts now covered by the boulder clay. This 
seemed to be borne out by the large percentage of fine glacier 
