December 26, 1907J 



NA TURE 



179 



installation in the museum of a section devoted to economic 

 biology, galls and gall-flies, together with the various 

 animal and vegetable pests infesting orchards and forests, 

 funning the main exhibits at present before the public. 



The luminiferous properties of the brittle-star, Amphiuta 

 sqttainata, and other echinoderras form the subject of an 

 article by Irene Sterzinger in vol. Ixxxviii., part iii., of 

 Zcitschrift filr ivisscnschaftUche Zoologic. The light is dis- 

 played at the summits, and not, as hitherto supposed, at 

 the bases, of the " feet," where it emanates from slime 

 secreted by the epithelium. There is, however, a lumini- 

 ferous and a non-luminiferous slime. Similar slime-glands 

 occur in certain other echinoderms. Both kinds of slime 

 .ire soluble in hydrochloric acid. 



We have received a copy of Bulletin No. 72 of the 

 U.S. Entomological Bureau, in which Messrs. W. D. 

 Hunter and W. A. Hooker record the results of investi- 

 gations into the life-history of the North ."Vmerican fever- 

 tick {Margaropus aiiiuilatiis), and the best modes of keep- 

 ing the species in check. In parts of Texas and some of 

 the other southern States cattle-breeding is almost 

 impossible owing to this pest, which is estimated to cause 

 an annual loss of one hundred million dollars. 



.\n important addition to the somewhat scanty literature 

 of galvanising is made by Mr. Alfred Sang, who has 

 published in the Proceedings of the Engineers' Society of 

 Western Pennsylvania an elaborate monograph on old and 

 new methods. The hot process of galvanising dates from 

 Crauford's patent of 1839, and the origins of electro- 

 galvanising, or cold galvanising, as it is often called, are 

 also remote, but commercially it is a new process. In 

 1902 Mr. Sherard Cowper-Coles patented his process for 

 galvanising metal goods by packing them in zinc dust in 

 an air-tight retort, and heating the retort to a temperature 

 below the melting point of zinc. This process is known 

 as shcrardising. The first attempt to coat metals by means 

 of zinc vapour was made by Jean Pierre Chambeyron in 

 1864. Mr. Sang's investigations on the volatilisation of 

 zinc from zinc dust at low temperatures have led him to 

 important improvements in the vapour process, and there 

 is every reason to hope that this method will soon take its 

 place in the metal industries as a powerful antidote to 

 corrosion. Undoubtedly the proper place to search for 

 further improvements in protective coverings for iron and 

 steel is in the study of the true causes of corrosion. 



In the Bulletin of the Moscow Imperial Society of 

 Naturalists for the year 1906, Prof. E. Leyst, director of 

 the meteorological observatory of that place, contributes 

 an important article on the estimation of the amount of 

 cloud. The matter at first sight would appear to be one 

 of the simplest of meteorological observations, but very 

 few stations are so placed as to have a clear horizon, 

 especially when situated in towns or in valleys. Prof. 

 Leyst has submitted the Moscow observations for several 

 years to a careful discussion, dividing the whole sky into 

 three zones of 30° each. Taking the zenithal zone 6o°-90° 

 as the unit of comparison, he finds that in the lower zone 

 the yearly mean of cloudiness is twice as great as in the 

 zenithal zone, and that for the whole of the sky the yearly 

 amount of cloud is 43 per cent, greater than in the zenithal 

 zone, the amounts differing according to the season and to 

 the time of observation. All things considered, the results 

 seem to show that observations of amount of cloud in the 

 zenithal zone are to be preferred ; the author also considers 

 that observers should be instructed how to divide the area 

 under observation, so as to estimate cloud in tenths. 



The physiology and habits — the "behaviour," as it is 

 now the fashion to call these factors in the life-history — 



NO. 1 99 1, VOL. 77] 



of a common American starfish, Asterias jorrieri, are dis- 

 cussed at considerable length by Mr. H. S. Jennings in a 

 paper issued as one of the zoological publications of 

 California University. The modes by which the creature 

 manages to hold its own in the struggle for existence, the 

 way in which it obtains its food, and kindred subjects, are 

 in turn discussed, and the results of the investigation of 

 all these factors will, it is hoped, afford an insight into 

 the complex life of the sea-shore generally, and manifold 

 inter-relations of the numerous organisms which make this 

 zone their home. 



In vol. xxi., art. 11, of the Journal of the College of 

 Science of Tokyo University, Mr. S. Hatta concludes his 

 account of the gastrulation of the ovum of the lamprey 

 (Petromyzon). In the neighbourhood of Sapparo the 

 species during the spring spawning season resorts in 

 numbers to the streams, and thus affords abundant work- 

 ing material, which was developed by means of artificial 

 fertilisation. The author considers that the ovum exhibits 

 a kind of belated development, the blastulation and gastru- 

 lation stages overlapping one another, so that what should 

 be the blastula appears to be really an old morula stage. 

 The prime cause of this belated development is indisputably 

 due to delay in segmentation, owing to the accumulation 

 in the ovum of a great amount of yolk. 



The culture of marine fishes and crabs and lobsters in 

 America, by Mr. G. M. Bowers, U.S. Commissioner of 

 Fish and Fisheries, forms the subject of an illustrated 

 article in the November number of the National Geographic 

 Magazine. The United States, according to the author, is 

 a long way ahead of any other nation in the matter of 

 marine fish-culture, the only country coming anywhere 

 near it in this respect being Norway, which was, indeed, 

 the pioneer. This, in the author's opinion, is accounted 

 for by the fact that in many countries it is believed to be 

 an impossibility to make any marked increase in the 

 numbers of sea-fishes by artificial culture, as it is seriously 

 to diminish them by fishing. This, however, is fai 

 from being the view entertained by the Government of 

 the United States, which carries on fish-culture, and crab 

 and lobster propagation, to an enormous extent in species 

 hatcheries and laboratories. The fishes regularly cultivated 

 — by collecting and artificially fertilising the spawn — are 

 cod, flounders, pollak, and, to a less degree, mackerel, 

 bass, &c., while lobsters are reared at several stations, 

 more especially the one recently established at Boothby 

 Harbour. The general plan of operations is described very 

 graphically by the author. 



A MEMOIR by Mr. David Heron on the statistics of 

 insanity and the inheritance of the insane diathesis has 

 been issued by Messrs. Dulau and Co. for the Francis 

 Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, University of 

 London. The material on which the memoir is based was 

 provided by Dr. A. R. Urquhart, physician superintendent 

 of the James Murray's Royal Asylum, Perth, and consisted 

 of 331 family trees of asylum patients, giving very full 

 details of the brothers and sisters, parents, and in some 

 cases grandparents and children of the patient. The 

 general results are very similar to those of the memoir, 

 previously issued, by Prof. Karl Pearson on pulmonary 

 tuberculosis. The inheritance of the insane diathesis is 

 very marked, the correlation-coefficient between parent and 

 offspring fas calculated by Prof. Pearson's method) lying 

 between the values 0-52-0-62. The figures are bound to 

 be somewhat uncertain, for they involve an estimate of 

 the proportion of the inhabitants of Scotland who have 

 been at any time certified as insane ; the census and 

 the Lunacy Commissioners' returns, of course, can only 



