582 



NA TURE 



[April 20, 1899 



learn that she proposes to commence a new series with 

 the next volume, with a slight alteration of plan, and to 

 continue the work as long as her health will permit, 

 which all entomologists will hope may be for many years 

 yet. She is also about to issue a general index to the 

 contents of the twenty-two parts of the first series. 



Thirty-seven insects of various orders are mentioned 

 in the present report, among the most interesting being 

 fleas, which have been met with in some places in extra- 

 ordinary abundance ; the forest fly, which has latterly 

 been very troublesome in various parts of Wales ; and 

 the "murrain worm," or the larva of the elephant hawk 

 moth {C/ioeroiiiiitpa elpcnor), which is said to be the 

 cause of disease among cattle in various parts of Ireland. 

 As this larva is frequently found in plants growing near 

 water, Miss Ormerod suggests that the mischief may 

 perhaps be caused by some poisonous plant, such as 

 water dropwort or water hemlock {Oenaiithe crocala), 

 growing in the neighbourhood of the plants on which the 

 caterpillars feed. 



Notes from a Diary : kept citieflv in Southern India, 

 1881-1886. By the Right Hon. Sir M. E. Grant Duff, 

 G.C.S.I. In Two Volumes. Vol. i., pp. xii -f 373 ; 

 vol. ii., pp. 373. (London : John Murray, 1899.) 



These books are the fifth and sixth volumes of notes 

 from the diary kept during the half-century now almost 

 complete, by Sir M. E. Grant Uufi". These pages, deal- 

 ing with the years during which the author was Governor 

 of Madras, are largely filled with extracts from the letters 

 received from friends in Europe and elsewhere, inter- 

 spersed with interesting information concerning the flora 

 of Southern India. 



Many of the items afford evidence of the interest 

 which the author has always taken in botany. 



Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer and Prof. .-\sa Gray, amongst 

 others, reaped some of the fruits of this enthusiasm. On 

 February 23, 1884, it is recorded that the former wrote : 

 " Seeds have descended upon us in a perennial shower. 

 The fountain was mostly sealed to us till your vigorous 

 wand smote the rock of seclusion. We have distributed 

 the residue punctually, as you wished." On July 19 of 

 the same year was entered : " By last mail came several 

 pamphlets from .'Vsa Gray, to whom I have been sending 

 Nilgiri and other seeds." Not the least interesting 

 feature of these pleasantly-written experiences are the 

 references to several men of science with whom .Sir M. 

 E. Grant Duff has come into contact. One of the most 

 marked characteristics of both volumes is the collection 

 of good stories ; some arc old friends, it is true, but many 

 are new. 



Fertilisers : the Source, Character and Composition of 

 Natural, Home-made, and Manufactured Fertilisers j 

 and Suggestions as to their use for different Crops and 

 Conditions. By E. B. X'oorhees. Pp. xiv + 335. (New 

 York : The Macmillan Company. London : Mac- 

 millan and Co., Ltd., 1898.) 



Proh.mu.v more popular text-books have been issued on 

 the use of manures than on any other part of the subject 

 of agriculture. The present book is carefully written. 

 It gives the reader a good general view of the reasons 

 which make it advisable to apply artificial manures to 

 the land, it describes the principal American fertilisers, 

 and offers prescriptions for .ill American crops. The 

 recommendations have the appearance of being generally 

 theoretical. There is a great lack of examples showing 

 the actual effects under known conditions of different 

 applications of manure. The important subject of the 

 effectiveness of the residues of previous manuring is 

 scarcely touched. R. \v. 



NO. 1538, VOL. 59] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



^The Editor does tiol hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertal r 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejecli I 

 niantiscripts intended for this or any other part of NATtJRK 

 Xo notice is taken of anonymous communications.'] 



Further Notes on Recent Volcanic Islands in the 

 Pacific. 



In NAirKF. (vol. xli. p. 276, and in vol. xlvi. p. 611; I gave 

 note? on an island in the Tonga Group, called Falcon Island, 

 which had risen from the sea as the result of an eruption in 

 18S5, when it was about two miles long and 250 feet high, an<i 

 which had in 1S92 been greatly diminished in size by the wash 

 of the sea. 



The site was again examined in 1898 by Captain P'ield in 

 II. M.S. Penguin, and the island has now wholly disappeared, 

 leaving a breaking shoal in its place. 



It will be very interesting to watch this shoal in the future ■ 

 and observe to what depth the sea is able to cut it down, if ;i 

 fresh eruption does not again reinstate it as an island. I have 

 slated my belief that the sea in this part of the ocean is able 

 to cut such a protuberance down to over twenty fathoms. 

 This island will afford an opportunity of testing the facts. 



Metis Island, 75 miles N.N.E. from Falcon Island, also n 

 volcanic product, first seen in 1875, has likewise been reduceil 

 to a shallow bank, under water, and will furnish another illus- 

 tration of the erosive powers of the sea. 



Metis Island was reported as a rock 29 feet high in 1S75, 

 subsequent eruptions raising it to 150 feet ; but, from the fact 

 of its total disappearance in twenty-four years, it would seen> 

 that it was, like Falcon Island, all ash, with no solid plug or 

 lava. W. T. I-. Wharton. 



April 15. 



Mosquitoes and Malaria. — The Manner in which Mos- 

 quitoes intended for Determination should be Col- 

 lected and Preserved. 



Thk wide.spread interest now being t.iken by English 

 medical men and others in all parts of the world, in the 

 dissemination of malaria parasites by means of mosquitoes, 

 which would seem to have been placed beyond dispute by the 

 recent researches of Major Ross, I. M.S., in India, and of the 

 Italian school represented by Drs. Grassi, Bignami, and Bas- 

 tianelli at Rome — an interest due to the fact that, as a price of 

 world-wide empire, *lie English race suffers more than any 

 other from the malaria scourge — renders it highly desirable 

 that there should be in the British Museum in London a col- 

 lection of carefully preserved and accurately determine'? 

 Culicidx of the world. Such a collection, when once worked 

 out, would be invaluable for settling the identity of any species 

 that might become an object of su,spicion, and the specimens 

 composing it would be at all times available for comp-irison. 

 Most of the existing descriptions of Culicid;e leave much to he 

 desired (having been based too often upon insufficient material), 

 and are but rarely accompanied by figures of any kind. A col- 

 lection such as is suggested would, however, enable us to ameniJ 

 or amplify existing de,scriplions : or, if these should be founil 

 altogether umecognis.ible, to prepare new ones based upon 

 types in satisfactory prs^rvation : it would also be possible to 

 publish coloureil or other plates of the more important species 

 For all these purposes it ^ absolutely necessary to have speci- 

 mens in the best possible condition. Like a large number of other 

 Diptera, mosquitoes from various quarters of the globe differ but 

 little in outward appearance, and even to the eye of a Diplerist 

 a Culex or Anopheles from Calcutta may look remarkably like 

 a specimen from Chelsea. But when it is found that the 

 ha'matozoa of malaria, while capable of development in one or 

 more species of a genus, are not so in others, although closely 

 allied — in view of the hoped-for practical outcome of the present 

 investigations, the necessity for the accurate and trustworthy 

 determination of the species of mosquitoes becomes doubly mani- 

 fest. Unforlunatcly (from the present point of view, which is 

 scientific as well as practical), a mosquito is among the most 

 delicate of Dipicra, with its iring-veins and legs clothed with 

 .scales, which inevitably come off if rubbed, while the legs 

 themselves (lart company with the body on the slightest pro- 

 vocation. Since it is upon the scaly covering of the mosquito 



