March 23, 1899] 



NA TURE 



501 



from »he ovary and base of the style. When the yellow pollen 

 is shed, the style is either quite erect, or retains its original 

 bend sufficiently above the anthers to make self-fertilisation 

 probable. Owing to the lowly habit of the plant and its 

 customary crowding in with sea-sedge and grasses, it is not 

 an easy one to watch. Doubtless it is often fertilised with its 

 own pollen by the agency of flies and other insects ; but from 

 the po.sition and precocity of the stigma, Mr. Step considered 

 that cross-fertilisation is quite as frequent. He was conse- 

 quently unable to agree with Mr. Henslow (Trans. Linn. Soc, 

 n. s. Bot. i. 18S0. p. 377, pi. 44 , fig. 35) as to self-fertilisation 

 in this plant, believing his conclusion to have been drawn from 

 the examination of an abnormal specimen. 



Zoological Society, March 7. — Prof. G. B. Howes, 

 F.RS., Vice-President, in the chair. — Mr. J-. E. S. Moore 

 exhibited and made remarks upon specimens of the Medusa 

 (Limnooiida tanganjicae) of Lake Tanganyika, which he had 

 obtained during his recent expedition to that lake. — Mr. R. E. 

 Holding exhibited and made remarks upon a large pair of horns 

 belonging to a species of Muntjac (Cerviihis) received from 

 Singapore. — Mr. W. E. de Winton exhibited and made remarks 

 upon the tail of a Common Fox [Cam's vulpis), showing the 

 gland on the upper surface covered with straight coar.se hair, 

 the existence of which appeared to be little known. — Dr. 

 Arthur Keith read a paper on the relationship of the chim- 

 panzees to the gorilla. He referred to the ape "Johanna," 

 which is on exhibition, under the name of a gorilla, at Messrs. 

 Barnum and Bailey's menagerie, but which was undoubtedly 

 a chimpanzee. "Johanna" showed all the characters of 

 *' Mafuka," an ape which, when exhibited in the Zoological 

 Gardens at Dresden, gave rise to a prolonged discussion as to 

 her nature. Both evidently belonged to the variety or species 

 of chimpanzee to which Du Chaillu had given the name of 

 " Kooloo-kamba." "Johanna" was the first chimpanzee, so 

 far as Dr. Keith was aware, that had lived long enough in 

 captivity to complete her dentition, which apparently finished, 

 by the appearance of the canine teeth and last molars, about 

 the twelfth or thirteenth year. She was the second chimpanzee 

 in which the phenomena of menstruation had been observed. 

 In her it occurred every twenty-third or twenty-fourth day, and 

 lasted for three days ; the discharge was profuse, and first 

 appeared in about the ninth or tenth year. All the chimpanzees, 

 with the characters of "Johanna," appeared to come from the 

 West Coast of Africa, .south of the equator. "Johanna" had 

 the habits and mental temperament of the chimpanzee ; her 

 teeth, hands, nose, and ears were also characteristic of that 

 species. Evidence was produced to show that the gorilla, in 

 many of its characters, was the most primitive of the three 

 great Anthropoid apes, and probably retained more of the 

 features of the common anthropoid parent than either the 

 chimpanzee or orang-utan. The chimpanzee was to be looked 

 on as a Gorilline derivative in which the teeth had undergone 

 very marked retrograde changes, accompanied by corresponding 

 changes in the skull and muscles. The various races or species 

 of chimpanzee described differed in the degree to which they 

 had lost their Gorilline characters. Most of the characters 

 which had been ascribed to these species were really only 

 characters of individuals, or were due to age or sex. The 

 skulls of the Central-African chimpanzee certainly showed 

 distinctive features. It was probably a well-marked race. 

 There was not enough material collected as yet to allow a 

 definite statement to be made as to the distinctive features of 

 other races. Du Chaillu was the best guide up to the present 

 time, and the Central-African form might be added to the 

 three species described by him. It was possible, however, 

 that it might be found of the chimpanzees, what Selenka has 

 shown to be true of the orang-utans, that these species were of 

 the nature of local forms. — Mr. W. L. H. Duckworth read 

 a note on the specific differences in the Anthropoid apes, dealing 

 in the first place with a specimen in the Zoological Museum at 

 Jena. The specimen in question was labelled " young female 

 gorilla," but Mr. Duckworth had come to the conclusion that it 

 was not a young animal, and that it was a chimpanzee and not 

 a gorilla. In the second place, the work of Profs. Kukenthal 

 and Ziehen on the "Cerebral Hemispheres of the Primates" 

 was dealt with, and the failure of these authors to recognise the 

 identity of Gorilla engena and Troglodytes savagii was com- 

 mented on. Lastly, the reported occurrence of a gorilla at 

 Stanley Falls on the Congo was mentioned, though the specimen 

 in question seemed to be rather a chimpanzee than a gorilla. — 



NO. 1534, VOL. 59] 



Prof. B. C. A. Windle and Mr. F. G. Parsons presented a 

 paper on the muscles of the head, and forelimb of the Edentata, 

 The results were obtained by comparing the already existing 

 scattered literature with a series of recent dissections. In some 

 cases five or six records of the same animal were present, and 

 thus the risk of stating individual variations as the normal 

 arrangement was lessened. This paper was a purely technical 

 record, all generalisations and deductions being reserved for a 

 second part. — Mr. Martin Jacoby contributed a second part of 

 a paper entitled " Additions to the knowledge of the Phyto- 

 phagous Coleoptera of Africa." It contained descriptions of 

 s2venty-two new species of the groups Halticinac and Gale- 

 rucinae, six of which had been made the types of new genera. 



Mathematical Society, March 9. — Lieut. -Colonel Cun- 

 ningham, R.E., Vice-President, in the chair. — Dr. Larmor, 

 F.R.S., made some remarks on the phenomenon of Zeeman 

 and its bearing on the problem of the origin of s ectra. Dr. 

 Hobson, F. R.S., and Mr. Hargreaves spoke on Sne suiiject of 

 the communication. — Dr. M.acaulay read a short note by Mr. 

 G. B. Mathews, F. R.S., on involution. — Other papers com- 

 municated were : Note on the expansion of tan (sin fl) - 

 sin (tan 8) in powers of fl, Mr. R. H. Pinkerton ; note on a 

 property of groups of prime degree, by Prof. Burnside, F.R.S. ; 

 and note on the invariant total differential equation in three 

 variables, by Prof. J. M. Page. In the last paper it was pointed 

 out that any number of types of invariant total equations can 

 be established ; and, in a large number of cases, they can be 

 established very simply. When these equations satisfy the 

 condition of integrability, they can be integrated by a 

 quadrature ; and when they do not satisfy that condition, the 

 general solution of any one of them can be found by a 

 quadrature. Moreover, if the condition of integrability is 

 satisfied by a "total differential equation, so that its integral 

 has the form <t> (.r, y, z, c) = o, the envelope of these surfaces 

 (that is, the singular solution of the total equation), if one exists, 

 can be found by algebraic operations ; and the cuspidal edge of 

 the envelope (if one exists) can be found by algebraic operations, 

 and one differention. 



Royal Meteorological Society, March 15. — Mr. F. C. 



Bayard, President, in the chair. — Mr. F. J. Brodie read a 

 paper on the prolonged deficiency of rain in 1S97 and 1S9S. 

 For several years past there has existed over England, and 

 especially over the central and south-eastern parts of the 

 country, a remarkable tendency in favour of dry weather. 

 The dry weather dealt with in this paper consequently came 

 at a most inopportune time, and its eflects, which would in 

 any case have been sufficiently evident, were greatly aggra- 

 vated by the state of things existing so long previously. Mr. 

 Brodie discussed the rainfall records at eighty stations distributed 

 over the British Isles for the eighteen months, April 1897 to 

 September 1 898 ; these were divided into three periods ol six 

 months each. During the period April to September 1897, 

 the rainfall was in excess of the average over practically the 

 whole of Ireland, the greater part of Scotland, and the north- 

 west and south-west of England and Wales ; while in the north 

 of Scotland, and the central and the whole of the eastern part 

 of England there was a deficiency of rain, in some parts 

 amounting to between 60 and 70 per cent. During the period 

 October 1897 to March 1S9S, with the exception of the north- 

 west of Scotland and England, the rainfall was below the 

 average all over the British Isles, the deficiency over the mid- 

 land and south-eastern parts of England being from 50 to 60 

 per cent, below the average. During the period April to 

 September 1S98, two of the six months were excessively dry, 

 and in the southern parts of England at least two others had 

 a deficiency of rainfall, Taking the period as a whole, the 

 rainfall over the eastern, midland and southern counties 

 amounted to less than So per cent, of the average, and in 

 the south-eastern counties to less than 60 per cent., the smallest 

 proportion of all being 51 per cent., in London. From an 

 exaimination of the Greenwich rainfall records since 1841, it 

 appears evident that for length and severity combined, the 

 recent spell of dry weather was the most remarkable experienced 

 there during that period.— A paper on the climate of Jersey, by 

 the Rev. H. W. Yorke, was read by the Secretary. The situ- 

 ation and geological formation of the island, together with the 

 action of the tides, have a great local effect upon the general 

 chai-acter of the weather. 'The climate as a whole is bright, 

 genial and sunny. 



