390 
NATURE 
— 
[August 26, 1886 
yet to be collected and discussed, and about which I will 
not now speak. Suffice it to say that such inquiries as I 
have made confirm, so far as they go, the reasonable 
expectation that some more or less regular curve will be 
found to exist in respect to any given quality or group of 
qualities. Each individual would possess his own character- 
istic curve, but the average of the tastes of many individuals 
would, as all statistical experience justifies us in believing, 
afford fairly constant data. These would enable us to argue 
out the hypothesis I have submitted, with mathematical 
precision ; at all events, with much more closeness of 
reasoning than is now possible. But this much may 
even now be averred: (1) That the existence of a law of 
sexual selection such as I have described, is probable ; (2) 
if it exists, it would have a powerful influence in rounding 
off any incipient variety that differed notably in any one 
particular or in any group of particulars from the parent 
stock ; (3) it would be favourable to the vigour of the 
variety, after it was once fairly started, by checking too 
close interbreeding. 
It must be borne in mind that differences overlooked 
by ourselves, who are singularly deficient in the sense of 
smell, and who are hardly able to distinguish without 
scr utiny even the sexes of some animals, may seem very 
considerable to the animals themselves. Also that the 
only differences that we are able to recognise between 
two varieties may connote a host of unseen differences, 
whose aggregate would amply suffice to erect a barrier 
of sexual indifference or even repugnance between their 
members. FRANCIS GALTON 
August 23 
NOTES 
THE Local Committee of the Birmingham meeting of the 
British Association has issued a descriptive programme of the 
excursions which have been arranged for Saturday, September 
4, and Thursday, September 9. The programme coyers 120 
pages, and has been compiled by several specialists with the 
greatest care. There are twenty-seven excursions in all, besides 
a geological excursion to the Lower Palzeozoic district of Shrop- 
shire. This excursion will last six days, from September 9 to 
September 15. Prof. Lapworth will take the leadership. 
THE French Association for the Advancement of Science has 
concluded its annual meeting at Nancy, after having resolved 
that the 1888 session will be held in Oran, Algeria; Col. 
Laussedat has been elected President for that meeting. The 
1887 session will be held in Toulouse, as decided at the last 
meeting. 
Ar the Buffalo meeting of the American Association it was pro- 
posed to devote especial attention to the study and discussion of 
the interesting phenomena of the Niagara Falls and the gorge 
below. On Friday, August 20, one or more preliminary papers 
of an expository and suggestive nature were to be given, in- 
tended to prepare the way fora short field-study of the Falls and 
the gorge, which occupied Saturday. Monday forenoon would 
be deyoted to the discussion of the gorge and the problems to 
which it gives rise. A new survey of the Falls has been 
arranged for, so that a considerable addition to the data for the 
computation of the rate of recession will be at command, and it 
is expected that new observations in other important lines bear- 
ing upon the chronology of the gorge will be presented, and 
will throw fresh light upon the history of the formation and 
recession of the Falls, and upon the utility or untrustworthiness 
of the gorge as a geological measure of time. 
WE learn that the Lick Trustees—after a most thorough dis- 
cussion of the various plans and specifications submitted for the 
mounting of the 36-inch refractor of the Lick Observatory and 
for the steel dome to cover the same, and with a special con- 
butterflies in the Society’s collection, with notes. 
sideration of the element of time, which circumstances now 
make one of vital interest to the work—have let the contract for 
the former to Warner and Swasey of Cleveland, Ohio, for | 
42,000 dols., and the contract for the latter to the Union Iron- 
| 
sean “eet ln, 
Works of San Francisco for 56,850 dols. The Trustees acknow- | 
ledge the very prompt and courteous manner in which Mr. Grubb 
has responded to their invitation, and the very great disadvantage 
to which he has been put by the remote situation of his works 
from California, &c. The President of the Trustees has stated 
that he believes that Mr. Grubb’s idea of an elevating floor in 
principle offers the best solution yet submitted of the very diffi 
cult problem of a convenient chair for the observer with so large 
a telescope. The method of elevating the floor will have to be 
adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the site of the Lick 
Observatory, and the means to be commanded there with its 
very limited water-supply. This subject is now being carefully 
studied, and so far the only apparent obstacle to the adoption of 
Mr. Grubb’s plan is the question of cost. 
WE have to record the death, at Tomsk, of Alexander 
Krapotkin, on August 6, at the age of forty-five years. M. 
Krapotkin had done some good work for science in Russia. He 
had translated into Russian Mr. Herbert Spencer’s ‘* Principles 
of Biology,” and Clerk-Maxwell’s ‘‘ Theory of Heat,” and for 
several years contributed to Russian periodicals reviews of the 
progress of physical astronomy, much valued by Russian astro- 
nomers. In 1874 M. Krapotkin was exiled to Minusinsk in 
East Siberia, and there he helped Dr. Martianoff to organise a 
local museum ; and for several years carried on meteorological 
observations, which were printed by the Kazan Society of Natu- 
ralists. _ His most important work, however, was a critical 
investigation of all our present knowledge of the stellar systems 
and constitution of stellar groups. Every known source in every 
European language was ransacked for data, though the difficulties 
he encountered in his peculiar position prevented him from 
bringing his work down to a later date than 1879. He hoped 
to complete the work, and publish it, after his expected libera- 
tion in September. His untimely death has put an end to this 
hope. 
WE have received the third number of the Yournal of a 
Society recently founded in Bombay, called the Natural History 
Society of Bombay, which, though it is young, appears to have 
abundant vitality. There are already several learned societies 
in India and Ceylon, all of which appear to be very successful ; 
but the field is so vast and varied, and the number of men, 
servants of the.Crown and others, capable of doing good work 
is so great, that it is impossible to have too many of these 
associations, and accordingly we welcome the new Society, and 
are glad to notice the energy it displays. In the number of the 
Fournal before us, Capt. Becher describes the life (mainly the 
bird-life) of a Sind lake, Manchar, near the Indus ; “* A member 
of the Society” similarly compiles some notes on animal/ife in 
the rivers of British Deccan and Kandesh. Mr. Sterndale, one 
of the editors, has a paper, with illustrations, on abnormalities — 
in the horns of ruminants, in which he expresses the opinion 
that there is neither persistence nor transmission in the abnor- 
malities of antlered deer, but that they must be persistent in the ~ 
case of hollow-horned ruminants, and that in the latter case the ~ 
adage is true: ‘‘ As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.” 
Mr. Aitken, the second,editor, publishes a list of the Bombay 
The collec- 
tion appears to be far front complete in any direction, Dr. 
Kirtikar describes a new species of Alga (Conferva thermalis 
Birdwoodit), discovered among the hot-water Algz in the hot 
springs of Vajrabai. There are, in conclusion, various zoological 
and botanical notes, and a list of presentations to the Society, — 
which we notice in order to mention that they appear to be of 
great number and variety. One present is a collection of 105 | 
