AUGUST 21, 1902] 
further advantage of this plan is that the apes can receive no 
germs of disease from the visitors, and can be kept behind the 
screen in a higher temperature than is maintained in the portion 
of the building allotted to the spectators, 
The new ape-house, for which there was much difficulty in 
finding a convenient site in the already crowded Gardens in the 
Regent’s Park, is nearly square in shape, being about 70 
feet in length and breadth. The principal floor is raised some 
5 or 6 feet above the level of the ground, in order to secure 
the animals from the damp of the stiff clay soil upon which the 
house is built ; and the chambers below the principal floor are 
devoted to the keeper’s apartments and to feeding and heating 
purposes. On entering the spectators’ portion, which occupies 
the north side of the building, by one of the flights of steps 
which ascend to the outside platform, the apes will be found 
occupying four large and roomy chambers on the south side. 
They are entirely separated from the spectators by the glass 
screen which runs across the building and corresponds to the 
windows of a fashionable shop in Regent Street. The specta- 
tors are on the outside of the screen and the objects to be 
inspected on the inside. They are in a good light because the 
interior is made bright and clear by skylights and by four large 
windows which occupy the south aspect of the building, while the 
spectators stand in a darker light. The screen has the further 
advantage that the animals cannot be improperly fed or unneces- 
sarily stirred up with sticks and umbrellas, as is too often the case 
in the ordinary monkey-house. The apes themselves can hardly 
be said to be in cages, but live in large rooms some 16 feet 
square, which are fitted up with tree-branches, swings, and 
other contrivances for their amusement and exercise. All 
round these four rooms runs a narrow passage by which the 
keepers can gain access to any part of them. The temperature 
of the rooms for the animals is kept at from 80° to 85° F., while 
that of the portion of the house devoted to the spectators is 
usually from 10° to 15° less. 
The apes that at present tenant the new ape-house are some 
seven or eight in number, and consist of chimpanzees, orangs 
and gibbons, representing all the three usually distinguished 
genera of the anthropoid apes. Besides these, one of the com- 
partments is occupied by a small individual of the very curious 
proboscis monkey of Borneo (/Vasa/zs /arvata), one of the most 
peculiar forms of Old-World monkeys. This has always been 
found to be a most delicate animal in captivity, and very few 
specimens of it have ever reached Europe alive. When adult 
the proboscis monkeyis rather a large animal, measuring, perhaps, 
some 30 inches in the length of its body, while the tail is nearly as 
long. It is remarkable for its large and elongated nose, of which, 
however, there is comparatively little appearance in the present 
young specimen. The young animal is also much more simple 
in coloration, being of a nearly uniform: pale rufous above 
and grey below, while the adult is brightly and mostly distinctly 
coloured with yellow and chestnut. The proboscis monkey is 
an inhabitant of Borneo, and was made known to European 
science by Wurmb, the Dutch Governor of Batavia about 1780. 
Preserved specimens of it were first brought to Europe by Sir 
Stamford Raffles. Captain Stanley Flower received some living 
examples of it at the Ghizeh Gardens, Cairo, in 1899 (see 
P.Z.S., 1899, p. 785), but they did not last long even in the 
favourable climate of Egypt. 
THE HABITS OF THE LARVZ AND ADULTS 
OF STREX AND THALESSA. 
E have received from Mr. E. P. Stebbing, of Dehra Dun, 
India, an account of the habits of the larva of a Himalayan 
species of sawfly (Sirex) and its parasite, an ichneumon allied to 
Thalessa, of which the following is an epitome. The adult 
sawfly deposits its eggs in the wood of dead spruce-trees (Picea 
morinda). When hatched, the grubs bore horizontally into the 
wood for a short distance and then drive a tunnel vertically 
upwards or downwards after the mannerof the European S.azgur. 
The debris, after passing through the body of the grub, is so 
closely jammed in the tunnel that no holes are visible in the 
wood when sawn through. The pupa is formed at the end of 
the tunnel, where it lies naked at an angle to the axis of the 
stem at a variable distance from the exterior. In place of 
following the old, tortuous track of the grub—for several reasons 
a matter of difficulty—the adult insect cuts its way to the ex- 
terior by the nearest route, which, unlike that of the European 
species, is not, as a rule, at right angles to the larval tunnel. 
NO. 1712, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
407 
The mature insect never seems to have the slightest hesitation 
in determining the direct route to the outer world. It may be 
added that the larval state seems to last for several years, as 
grubs of different ages occur in the same trunk. 
With regard to the parasitic ichneumon-fly allied to or 
identical with Thalessa, Mr. Stebbing is of opinion that it never 
makes the mistake of attacking wood in which pupz of the 
sawfly Sirex are not entombed. As to the statement that the 
ichneumon-fly frequently dies from its ovipositor becoming 
inextricably fixed in the wood, he suggests that the insect, after 
depositing its last egg, dies in the position then assumed, as is 
certainly the case with many of the bark-boring beetles of the 
family Scolytidee. As the ovipositor of the ichneumon does not 
exceed an inch and a half in length, while the spruce-bark may 
be fully an inch thick, it is considered that the Thalessa must 
have some means of fixing the position of the Sirex eggs and 
of the tunnels of the young grubs in the wood underlying the 
bark, Without such knowledge it would seem an impossibility for 
the parasite, the ovipositor of which appears of inadequate length 
for its task, to reach the larval tunnels. Numbers of dead 
ichneumons were observed in partially bored galleries, this 
being apparently due to the circumstance that the Sirex larvee 
often travel with their parasites to such a depth in the trunk 
that the adults of the latter are unable to cut their way out. 
The numbers of the ichneumon are thus, involuntarily, kept 
down by the sawfly larvee. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Mr. J. GRAHAM Kerk, of Christ’s College, Cambridge, has 
been appointed professor of natural history in the University 
of Glasgow, in succession to Prof. John Young, who has 
resigned. 
THE Martell scholarship in naval architecture, offered for 
competition for the first time this year, has been awarded by 
the council of the Institution of Naval Architects to Mr. L. 
Woollard, of the Thames Ironworks, Blackwall. The scholar- 
ship is of the annual value of 50/. and is tenable for three 
years. 
AN exhibit to illustrate the state of education in the British 
Empire will be sent by the Government to the Universal 
Exposition to be held in St. Louis in 1904. The official 
exhibits will be limited to education and the fine arts, but 
facilities will be afforded to trade and individual exhibitors to 
show products representing British industries. 
Tue last annual report of the Technical Instruction Com- 
mittee recently presented to the Oxfordshire County Council 
supplies further evidence of the serious deficiency in the supply 
of secondary education in many parts of the country, which it is 
hoped the passing of the Education Bill, now before Parliament, 
will do much to remedy. The Committee again directs attention 
to the lack of secondary schools for girls throughout Oxford- 
shire, and for boys in the district between Chipping Norton and 
Bicester. In other directions favourable conditions mark the 
educational activity of the Committee ; there has been a general 
improvement in the agricultural instruction in the rural centres, 
and good work has been done in supplementing the training of 
elementary school teachers. 
In accordance with the action of the Board of Trustees and 
the provisions of the will of the late Jonas G. Clark, the founder, 
the collegiate department of the Clark University, Worcester, 
Massachusetts, will be opened on October 1. There is to be no 
charge for tuition for the year ending 1903 ; for the next year 
the charge is to be twenty-five, and for the third year fifty dollars. 
After the third year, the charge per student in all classes will be 
at a rate to be fixed by the Board of Trustees. The preliminary 
announcement issued by the president of the college, Dr. Carroll 
D. Wright, shows, amongst other provisions, that mathematics 
will be taught as the groundwork of the college education and 
that sports will be permitted solely ‘‘ for the development of 
physical and moral conditions.” Special attention is in the 
future to be given to the ‘‘new” psychology, to economics and 
to sociology. 
THE Volta Bureau of Washington, U.S.A., for the increase 
and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf, has issued its 
second international report of schools for the deaf. The data 
brought together from all parts of the world give a gratifying 
assurance that a marked improvement has taken place since 
