OcTOBER 30, 1902] 
NATURE 
67.1 
Berkeley Hunt Society, a competitive examination in agriculture, 
and especially in the arts of hedging, thatching, judging stock, 
&c.,is held. The examination is open to young farmers and 
labourers ofthe district, is partly written, partly practical and oral. 
Three valuable prizes are offered and certificates are awarded for 
satisfactory work. ‘The fall in prices and the scarcity of labour 
have made farmers less careful in details than formerly, and as a 
consequence their labourers are less skilled. Any kind of 
competition which revives the interest of masters and men in 
arts so necessary to good farming is much tobe commended. If 
country districts held more competitions of this sort, if skill in 
rural arts were fostered with a tenth of the energy bestowed on 
foxes or football, we would hear less of rural depopulation and of 
agricultural depression. 
THE last annual report of the Glasgow and West of Scotland 
Technical College shows that the high standard of the work 
accomplished in the institution is fully maintained. During the 
session I901—2, the number of students in the various departments 
of the College reached 5651, of whom 596 were students studying 
in the day technological courses. Although the evening classes 
were attended by 4174 men and 220 women, the governors were 
unable to find room for some hundreds of students, who were per- 
force refused admission, In view of this serious want of accommo- 
dation, we are glad to learn that contracts, amounting to about 
130,000/., have been entered into for the erection of the first 
section of the proposed new buildings. The section will com- 
prise about seventy-two per cent. of the whole structure, and 
fully three years will be occupied in its erection. Itis anticipated 
that the new buildings, as planned, exclusive of equipment, will 
cost about 180,000/., to which amount must be added 30,000/. 
for the site. The building fund, as shown by the list of donations 
given in an appendix to the report, now stands at 175,000/., to 
which the Scottish Association of Master Bakers has contributed 
nearly 2500/., the Glasgow Building Trades’ Exchange about 
650/. and the Trades’ House and Incorporations of Glasgow an 
amount approaching 2000/7. Nor is this the only evidence of the 
keen interest taken in higher education by Scottish manufacturers 
and merchants, for the report contains long lists of firms who 
have either given facilities for parties of students to visit works 
or have supplied the College with gifts of apparatus, specimens 
or laboratory material. That the claims of pure science have 
not been overshadowed by the pressing needs of the technological 
studies is shown by the gift of 5000/. from Mrs. John Elder for 
the provision of lectures on descriptive astronomy. There is 
evidently a great future in store for this deserving Glasgow 
institution. : 
SCIENTIFIC SERIAL. 
Journal of Botany, October.—From the collection of plants 
made by Mr. T. Kassner chiefly along the railway from 
Mombasa, in British East Africa, Mr. Spencer Moore selects for 
description the more interesting species of the Composit and 
Acanthacez, and proposes seven new species.—Mr. W. E. 
Nicholson refers some miniature mosses gathered near Crow- 
borough, Sussex, to EAphemerum stellatum, a species first 
recorded by Monsieur Philibert for specimens collected at 
Bruailles, in France.—A note on the genus Sematophyllum 
signifies Mrs. E. G. Britton’s approval of the revival of, that 
genus of mosses by Dr. Braithwaite.—Mr. G. C. Druce gives 
a brief account of the plant establishments on the shingle near 
Dungeness, and a list of Kentish plants which adds a few new 
localities to those recorded in Hanbury and Marshall’s ‘‘ Flora 
of Kent.”—Mr. S. T. Dunn, by an inductive method of argument, 
deduces that only one species of the British representatives of 
the deadnettles, Zamzzum Galeobdolon, has maintained its original 
habitat and may be considered naturally indigenous.—A list 
of West Lancashire plants, by Messrs. J. A. Wheldon and 
A. Wilson, provides new county records and localities. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LONDON. 
Entomological Society, October 1.—The Rev. Canon 
Fowler, president, in the chair.—Mr. H. St. J. Donisthorpe 
exhibited specimens of Débolia cynogloss?, taken by him near 
Pevensey on August 11 last. He said that the beetle, which 
was figured by Curtis, had not been recorded as British since 
1866.—Mr. O. E. Janson exhibited a fine hermaphrodite speci- 
NO. 1722, VOL. 66] 
men of Dryas paphza, taken in the New Forest by Mr. Herbert 
Charles on July 28 and recorded in the Zy/omologist, also a 
melanic specimen of Pufzlio demo/eus from Ceylon, in which all 
the usual marginal and submarginal yellow markings were absent 
and the discal markings much obscured ; on the underside the 
yellow markings were entirely wanting.—Mr. C. P. Pickett 
exhibited a 6 Callimorpha dominula with the hind-wings suf- 
fused.with black and an extra black spot in the centre, the white 
spot on the fore-wings being absent, and a very large ? of the 
same species, both bred from larvee found at Walmer at the end 
of March ; also three aberrant specimens of 77zphaena fimbria 
bred from larvz taken at Wood Street during the same month. 
—Mr. C. O. Waterhouse exhibited specimens of a wasp, Zethus 
chalybeus, and a neuropteron, MJantzspa semthyalina, received 
with a collection of Hymenoptera from Rio Janeiro, suggesting a 
curious case of mimicry —Mr. F. B, Jennings exhibited speci- 
mens of Aster merdarius, from Broxbourne, Herts, part of a 
large colony of this usually scarce species found with Hester 12- 
striabus and other beetles inhabiting a heap of a chemical sub- 
stance, probably gas-lime, in which also many larvae, presumably 
of Hister merdartus, and burrows were observed. The soil 
was warm and moist, and this, and the presence of a quantity 
of vegetable refuse thrown on the heap, was no doubt the attrac- 
tion to the Histers to settle there. —Mr. A. J. Chitty exhibiteda 
specimen of Aetoecus paradoxus with a part of the cells of a 
nest of Vespa vulgarés, in which place the beetle is invariably 
found. The beetle in the cell tucks in his head, only displaying 
on the surface the thorax, which is coloured similarly to the face 
of the wasp. This peculiarity suggests a case of mimicry, and 
Prof. Poulton said that it fitted\in with the case of some other 
bees and wasps.—Mr. H. Rowland-Brown exhibited on behalf 
of Mr. G. F, Leigh, of Durban, a ? and ¢ specimen of a rare 
noctuid, AMusgravia Leight, Hampson, discovered by him in 
Natal, and read remarks upon the life-history of the species, 
communicated by the captor.—Mr. Stanley W. Kemp exhibited 
two additions to the British list of Coleoptera, Bemdbidzume 
argentiolum, from Lough Neagh, Armagh, and Laemostenus 
complanatus, from the neighbourhood of Dublin, taken in June. 
—Mr. W. J. Kaye exhibited examples of Heliconius Lindigziz, 
Heliconius antiochus and Morpho achilles from British Guiana 
with notches taken out of the hind-wings, presumably by birds, 
to illustrate that these distasteful or warning-coloured species 
are subject to attack, this helping to show that experimental 
tasting as propounded by the Miillerian theory of mimicry does 
exist and go on.—Prof. L. C. Miall, F.R.S., communicated a 
paper by Mr. T. H. Taylor entitled ‘‘ The Tracheal System 
of Simulium.”’—Prof. Auguste Forel communicated a paper 
entitled ‘* Descriptions of some Ants from the Rocky Moun- 
tains of Canada (Alberta and British Columbia) collected 
by Edward Whymper.”—Dr. T. A. Chapman read a paper 
entitled *‘ On Heterogynis paradoxa.” 
Royal Microscopical Society, October 15.—Dr. H. 
Woodward, F.R.S., in the chair.—Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., 
gave a demonstration on rock changes in nature’s laboratory. 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, October 20.—M. Bouquet de la 
Grye in the chair.—Studies on earth, by M. Th Schloesing. 
In a previous paper the author has shown that the distribution 
of the ferric oxide varies with the size of the earth particles. In 
the present paper a similar result is obtained for the organic 
matter. The earth was separated into particles of varying fine- 
ness by levigation and the amount of organic matter determined 
in each, the percentage varying from O°I15 in the coarsest 
particles to 7°8 inthe finest. A hypothesis is developed to 
explain these results, which it is proposed to submit to experi- 
mental verification. —On the mode of action of carbonic acid in 
experimental parthenogenesis, by M. Yves Delage. It has been 
shown that the addition of carbonic acid communicates to sea 
water the property of developing parthenogenetically the eggs of 
Asterias. Its effect is now considered from the points of view of 
its acidity, anzesthetic action, asphyxiating power and effect on 
osmotic pressure, and the conclusion is drawn that partheno- 
genetic agents act as temporary poisons. Carbonic acid isa perfect 
agent because it completely poisons the eggs, but its action is 
absolutely temporary, and after its elimination the protoplasm 
is unchanged. —On some parasitic protozoa in Damonza Reevesiz. 
by MM. A. Laveran and F. Mesnil.—On the problem of the 
brachistochrone, by M. Haton de la Goupilliére.—Remarks by 
M. R. Zeiller on his note in Palaeontologia Indica entitled 
i? 
