; : May 12, 1923] 

In 1875 the Institute of Marine Biology was 
established by the Austrian Government, and many 
famous naturalists have worked in its laboratories, 
e.g. Metschnikoff, on intracellular digestion and 
phagocytosis ; Kowalevsky, on medusz ; Driesch, on 
the development of isolated blastomeres ; the brothers 
Hertwig, F. E. Schultze, K. Grobben, and Hatschek. 
In 1900 the zoological station was enlarged and 
ganised under the new director, Prof. C. I. Cori. 
A list of the more important investigations carried 
on at the laboratory from that time until 1915 is 
given by Dr. Stenta, but it is too long to quote here. 
Mention may, however, be made of Friedlander’s 
investigation of the constitution of the purple secre- 
tion of Murex, for which 14,000 specimens were 
collected ; Heider’s work on the development of 
Balanoglossus ; and Przibram’s researches on re- 
eneration in Crustacea. There were also several 
investigations in applied zoology: the culture of 
SpOnees, the coral fishery, and parasitic protozoa of 
shes. 
We gather from the concluding part of the address 
that the Italian Royal Committee for Marine Investi- 
gation, which took over the zoological stations at 
Trieste and Rovigno, proposes to suppress the 
former, and Dr. Stenta puts forward a plea for its 
retention. 


Animal Nutrition.! 
aie series of Research Bulletins which have 
recently reached this country from America 
provide remarkable examples of the laborious—one 
may almost say meticulous—methods which dis- 
tinguish much of the work now being conducted 
at the Agricultural Experiment Stations in the 
United States. The bulletins in question come from 
the stations attached to the Universities of Missouri 
and Minnesota respectively. In both cases the aim 
was to find out by actual chemical analysis the 
constitution of the bodies of cattle at various ages. 
In the case of the Minnesota investigations, sixty- 
three bullocks, at all ages from three months to two 
years and over, were slaughtered and analyses made 
of the bodies, not merely as a whole, but under 
such divisions as flesh, offal, skin, blood, etc. In 
the case of the Missouri investigations, thirty animals 
were slaughtered and analysed in much greater 
detail. Separate figures for all descriptions of 
edible joints and for each organ of the body are 
given. It does not require much acquaintance 
with chemical routine to realise the extraordinary 
labour involved in reducing the separate parts of 
the body of an animal to a fine pulp from which 
uniform samples of every description of tissue can 
be drawn. So far as this country is concerned, the 
attempt has been made only once—by Lawes and 
Gilbert many years ago—and then with difficulty 
three animals in all were completely analysed. 
The object of these investigations may be stated 
very simply. The animal food consumed by man 
represents vegetable food converted by stock into 
“meat.” It is desirable to know the extent of 
the waste involved in this process of conversion. 
Incidentally, we also wish to know the relation 
between the amount of this waste and the age of 
the animal, progressively. The older and larger 
the animal, the greater the waste, and consequently 
the more costly the product. Above all, it is desirable 
to ascertain the relation between protein consumed 
1 Studies in Animal Nutrition ; University of Missouri, Research Bulletins, 
53 ‘i seq. Investigations in Beef Production, University of Minnesota, 
Bull. 193. 
NO. 2793, VOL. 111] 
OEE Ee 
NATURE 
651 

and protein stored, for the most costly food of all is 
vegetable protein, supplied in the form of costly 
oil-cakes; furthermore, as the raw material is 
generally imported from abroad, the economic loss 
in Great Britain is very great. There can be no 
doubt that, as matters stand, millions of money 
are being wasted by farmers in bringing beasts to 
a state of fatness required neither by the taste of 
the modern consumer nor by the human body’s 
need for fat. The supplies of cheap vegetable 
carbohydrates, from which animal fat can be manu- 
factured, are now greater than they were in our 
grandfathers’ time, but the farmer still goes on 
producing from imported feeding-stuffs rich in 
protein, animal fat in wasteful quantity. More than 
30 per cent. of the body weight of a “fat beast” 
is merely fat. Thanks to the labours of these 
American workers, this point can now be driven 
home. We can trace at every stage of an animal’s 
growth what happens to the food it consumes, and 
how as it grows older its conversion factor grows 
smaller, until, ultimately, it stores only one-twentieth 
of what it consumes: how again it turns a larger 
proportion of costly protein into fat, rejecting more 
and more of nitrogenous matter. 
In these days when, we are told, British agri- 
culture is faced with ruin, it is unfortunate that 
agriculturists apparently cannot be persuaded to give 
up one of the most costly and wasteful processes 
of their industry. It is not the farmer alone who 
is to blame. Both the butcher and the housewife 
conspire to maintain the demand for excessively fat 
meat, and while the market demand is for fat stock, it 
is only to be expected that the present extravagant 
system of ‘‘ fatting ’’ beasts will continue. 

University and Educational Intelligence. 
BrrMINGHAM.—Announcement is made of the 
Walter Myers studentship (value 300/. for one year) 
for research in any branch of medicine or pathology 
approved by the selection committee. The student- 
ship is tenable at any approved university, laboratory, 
or other institution in the United Kingdom. Candi- 
dates may be of either sex, and must be graduates 
in medicine of the University of Birmingham of not 
more than five years’ standing. The holder of the 
studentship will be required to devote his whole time 
to research. Further information may be obtained 
from the Dean of the Medical Faculty of the 
University. 
CAMBRIDGE.—As announced in our issue of May 5, 
p. 621, a fund has been established by the family 
of the late Henry P. Davison, of New York, for the 
purpose of giving English University men a year’s 
residence and study in the American Universities of 
Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Three of these 
scholarships will be available for next year for 
Cambridge. The scholars will be selected from 
undergraduates or bachelors of arts now in residence, 
the election being on the basis of character, scholar- 
ship, and fitness to represent the University. There 
is to be no examination. 
LreEeps.—In memory of the 326 members of the 
University who fell in the War, a piece of sculpture 
by Mr. Eric Gill, which will be fixed to the outer 
wall of the University Library, will be dedicated at 
the University on Friday, June 1, The University 
owes this impressive memorial to the generosity 
of the late Miss Frances Cross of Coney Garths, 
Ripon. 
