248 
NATURE 
[| NOVEMBER 30, 1916 
of the volume, are two complete 35-year tables of 
sunshine and wind, and 26-year continuations 
(1890 to 1915) of eight other tables. It is rather 
unsatisfactory to find upon investigation that the 
monthly maximum and minimum temperatures 
thus tabulated do not, as might be reasonably ex- 
pected, come from the eye-readings of the maxi- 
mum and minimum thermometers, but from the 
thermograph: registers. Discordances ranging 
up to rather more than five degrees suggest that 
the Radcliffe thermograph is no more free from 
error than others, and no shadow of excuse is 
made for thus regarding it as a standard instru- 
ment. 
But the main interest of the volume is, like that 
of the sandwich, in the middle section, which is 
devoted to a complete series of twelve years’ daily 
readings of a set of five platinum resistance ther- 
mometers sunk in the ground at depths ranging 
from 6 in. to ro ft. Dr. Rambaut has success- 
fully resisted the temptation to extend the 
series indefinitely, and twelve years is very likely 
quite long enough for this particular purpose. 
Full accounts are given of the difficulties 
encountered and the precautions adopted, and a 
comparison is made of the resulting permeation 
coefficient with those obtained at Edinburgh and 
Greenwich. W, W. B. 
The Involuntary Nervous System. By Dr. 
W. H. Gaskell. Pp. ix+178. (London: 
Longmans, Green and Co., 1916.) Price 6s. net. 
Ir would be difficult to find anything in the litera- 
ture of physiology quite comparable to this work 
of Gaskell’s. The book is of great scientific 
value, and at the same time an unintended record 
of the distinctive qualities of a valuable section 
of English life and thought. 
Nowhere in this volume is there the slightest 
chance of contact with either ‘superman’ or 
“missionary,” but everywhere a gentle man is 
busy quietly recounting the important business of 
a valuable lifetime, and setting his intellectual 
affairs in order so that they may be found clearly 
expressed and arranged for the advantage of 
knowledge. His sustained effort has been com- 
pletely successful, and his son’s valuable aid, 
which in places he takes quict pains to put clearly 
on record, has enabled this posthumous publica- 
tion of a small volume of outstanding value. 
No student of physiology will neglect to possess 
a work in which the meaning of the outlying 
streamers of the central nervous system is de- 
fined every whit as clearly as it was undoubtedly 
understood by this master of the subject. Nor, 
probably, will many morphologists afford to be 
without this rare testament to the value of their 
science written by one whom time may well reveal 
to them as also “master.” 
The opening chapter has in an odd way—pity 
that this was not seen and corrected—absorbed 
for itself the title that should more properly have 
been given to the book as a whole, “History of 
the Involuntary Nervous System.” The work is, 
in fact, such a history, viewed clearly most per- 
sistently elucidated, and deftly explained. 
NO. 2457, VOL. 98] 
LETTERS TO THE. EDITOR, 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 
opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neithe 
can he undertake to relurn, or to correspond wit 
the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for | 
this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 
taken of anonymous communications.] ’ 
A Further Probable Gase of Sex-Limited Transmission 
in the Lepidoptera. s 
IN pursuit of my investigations of the past few 
years in hybridising Lepidoptera, two of the species 
chosen for experiments were Oporabia dilutata and 
O. autumnata. Both possible crosses between these 
two forms were made and fertile ova secured, These 
ova, as in the pure species, remained as such over the 
winter, and hatched in the spring of the following 
year. The larvae fed up rapidly and well, with but 
little loss, and pupated in May and June. 
Here, however, an abnormality stepped in; the 
females of the autumnata 9 X dilutatag cross 
emerged a few days after pupation. Dissection re- 
vealed that they lacked ovaries or possessed rudi- 
mentary ones. This, nevertheless, was not the most 
important feature. Instead of being distinctly inter- 
mediate between the original species, as were the 
males which emerged later, they were of the paternal 
type—i.e. they displayed the specific characters of 
dilutata 2 only. : ; 
In October, accompanied by the males of the former 
hybrid, both sexes of the reciprocal cross dilwtata 2 X 
autumnata 3 made their appearance; again the males 
were clearly intermediate, but the females displayed 
paternal characters only, being exactly of the 
autumnata type. ; 
I had some suspicion that the matter was a case 
of sex-limited inheritance, but would not form any 
definite opinion as the result was seriously complicated 
by abnormal behaviour in the inheritance of the 
melanism which characterises all Middlesbrough races 
of dilutata and that race of autumnata used in the 
experiment. Preparations were therefore made for 
further trials; to nullify any possible interaction of 
the melanism a stock of pupz from a local, non- 
melanic, birch-feeding microgene of autummata was 
amassed. Local material of a similar form of dilutata 
not being available, ova of white dilutata from Ennis- 
Ixillen, Ireland, were obtained and reared. ‘ 
Utilising these stocks, once more I made the crosses 
and secured precisely the same results. In both cases 
the hybrid females were manifestly of paternal type only. 
To confirm and analyse these facts a further set of 
crosses, both of the hybrids (when possible) inter se, 
and back with the parents, has been made, the out- 
come of which will be detailed later. 
Still, there can be but little doubt that these observa- 
tions show that, in these two species, as in Abraxas 
grossulariata, the female passes on the typical charae- 
ters of her species to her male offspring only. 
J. W. H. Harrison. 
181 Abingdon Road, Middlesbrough, November 3. 
_ Scarcity of Wasps. ¥ 
Tue distribution of wasps this summer would seem 
to have been rather local, for this village is less than 
two miles from Christon, where Mr. St. George Gra 
was plagued with wasps (see Nature, November 16, 
p. 209), yet here they have been very scarce, small, 
and apparently starvelings, though a few full-sized 
queens have been caught recently. Christon lies on a 
sunny slope, and this village is at the foot of the 
north side of a hill, vet that could not account for 
all. the difference, for we have had more wasps than 
enough in recent years: C..S. Tayior: 
Banwell Vicarage, Somerset, November 17. Vex) 
