November 7, 1907] 



NATURE 



^5 



The fourth International Fishery Congress will be held 

 at Washington on September 22-26, 1908, on the invitation 

 of the United States Bureau of Fisheries. The first 

 congress was held at Paris in September, 1900, the second 

 was held at St. Petersburg in 1902, and the third at 

 Vienna in 1905. Persons who expect to attend the 

 congress or to submit papers are asked to communicate 

 with the secretary-general as soon as practicable, and the 

 secretaries of institutions and organisations interested in 

 the work of the congress are requested to register their 

 official designation and address so that they may receive 

 further announcements, programmes, invitations, &c. The 

 congress will deliberate on all important affairs concerning 

 fishing and fish culture, and will submit propositions and 

 memorials to Governments and to provincial and local 

 authorities. The subjects to be brought before the con- 

 gress may be grouped as follows : — (i) commercial 

 fisheries ; (2) matters affecting the fishermen and the 

 fishing population ; (3) legislation and regulation ; 



(4) international matters affecting the fisheries ; (5) aqui- 

 culture ; (6) acclimatisation ; (7) fish-ways and fish-ladders ; 



(5) biological investigation of the waters and their in- 

 habitants ; (9) diseases and parasites of fishes, crustaceans, 

 molluscs, and other water animals ; (10) angling and sport 

 fishing. In connection with the congress there have been 

 arranged a number of competitive aw^ards for the best or 

 most important investigations, discoveries, inventions, &c., 

 relative to fisheries, aquiculture, ichthyology, fish path- 

 ology, and related subjects during the years 1906, 1907, 

 and 1908. The awards will be in the form of money, and 

 aggregate about 440!. ; and, although the individual 

 amounts are not large, it is hoped that the conferring of 

 the awards by so representative a body as the International 

 Fishery Congress will induce many persons to compete, 

 and will result in much benefit to the fisheries and fish 

 culture. Communications regarding the congress should 

 be addressed to the .Secretary-General, International 

 Fishery Congress, Washington, D.C., U.S. .A. 



\ REM.ARK.iBLE hailstorm occurred in Cairo on the even- 

 ing of October 21, preceded by lightning from 6 p.m. to 

 7.30 p.m. The hailstones measured on an average about 

 25 mm. in diameter, the largest stones measuring up to 

 35 mm. The storm was very violent, but only lasted a 

 quarter of an hour. Had it been of longer duration con- 

 siderable damage would have been" inevitable. Such storms 

 are very rare in Egypt. Coming after many hot, rainless 

 months, the sudden downpour of hail caused great excite- 

 ment amongst the natives. The hailstones fell on the flat- 

 roofed houses with a loud crackling sound resembling that 

 of burning wood-work. Newspapers spread out to catch the 

 falling hail were simply riddled through by the larger 

 stones. Most of the hailstones were spheroidal in shape 

 with white nuclei. After striking the ground they quickly 

 became hemispherical. The temperature in Cairo at the 

 time w'as 25° C. The weather report issued by the 

 Egyptian Survey Department does not indicate anything 

 exceptional in the general weather conditions before or 

 after the storm. The barometer was nearly normal, with 

 short periodic disturbances between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. 

 The atmosphere was slightly clouded, and a light wind 

 blowing. The hailstorm was very limited in extent, and 

 apparently the path was N.W. to S.E. The temperature 

 at various altitudes is variable, depending upon meteor- 

 ological changes, but in ordinary circumstances the rate 

 of change of temperature with altitude amounts to 1° C. 

 for each 100 metres for the first 1500 metres. This would 

 give about 2500 metres as the minimum height for the 

 formation of ice. A systematic exploration of the atmo- 



NO. 1984, VOL. 1']'\ 



sphere by means of kites and captive balloons with self- 

 recording instruments is now being undertaken by the 

 energetic director of the Helwan Observatory which will 

 greatly extend our knowledge of the upper air over north- 

 east Africa. 



We have received a copy of a paper by Mr. J. F. 

 Bovard, issued as No. 14 of the third volume of the Uni- 

 versity of California Zoological Publications, on the struc- 

 ture and movements of Condylostoma patens, one of the 

 largest of unicellular organisms. 



A WRITER in the October number of the Zoologist 

 figures a specimen of the " false scorpion," Chelifer 

 cancroides, taken last year in a bake-house at Manchester. 

 Up to the year 1892 only four British examples of this 

 creature were known, but since that time the species has 

 been discovered in stables, stores, &c., in various parts of 

 England and Scotland. 



" A Monograph of the Petrels " is the title of ;i 

 quarto work, by Mr. du Cane Godman, to be published 

 in parts by Messrs. Witherby and Co., of High Holborn. 

 It is to include all the known species of petrels, shear- 

 waters, and albatrosses, and will be illustrated by more 

 than one hundred hand-coloured plates. Mr. Godman 's 

 former colleague, the late Mr. Osbert Salvin, contemplated 

 issuing a work of this nature, for which a number of 

 plates were prepared; these will be used in Mr. Godman 's 

 volume. 



We have received a copy of a paper, by Mr. H. B. 

 Greene, on the influence of heredity on the diseases and 

 deformities of poultry, issued in connection with the second 

 National Poultry Conference held in July last. From the 

 fact of the isolation of the germ-cells, diseases are not, in 

 the author's opinion, transmissible through the egg, and 

 they must accordingly be regarded as the effects of 

 environment rather than of inheritance. This is distinctly 

 encouraging to the poultry-breeder, as it indicates that 

 much may be done in the way of preventing disease by 

 careful attention to food and sanitation. 



.Among the contents of Verhandlungen deutsch. zool. 

 Gcs. for 1907, we may refer to a paper bv Dr. Steche, of 

 Leipzig, on two luminous fishes, Photohlepharon falhe- 

 bratus and Heterophthalmus caloplron, from the Malay 

 •Archipelago. Both species are of small size, and belong 

 to the family of horse-mackerels (CarangidiE) ; they are 

 remarkable among luminiferous fishes in being shallow- 

 water forms, the first-named dwelling among stones at 

 the bottom, while the second is a free-swimmer. Their 

 light-organs, which are situated in the cutis, resemble 

 generally those of deep-water luminous fishes, though they 

 have certain structural peculiarities of their own. The 

 whole upper surface of these fishes appears to be 

 luminiferous. 



A LARGE portion of vol. xlix. of the Smithsonian 

 Miscellaneous Collections is occupied by an account of 

 the crabs collected by the North Pacific exploring expedi- 

 tion of 1853-6. Dr. W. Stimpson, it appears, accom- 

 panied the expedition as naturalist, and after his return 

 transferred the invertebrate collections to Chicago, where, 

 together with notes and drawings, they were burnt in 

 1871. After his death in the following year an illustrated 

 report on the crustaceans was discovered, and it is this 

 report which has just been published by the Smithsonian 

 Institute. The only additions to the original MS. are 

 references to Stimpson 's preliminary descriptions of species 

 and certain emendations in nomenclature. Among the 



