598 



NA rURE 



[February 27, 1908 



Government to combat the disease by scientific investigation 

 under the direction of the Royal Society, by local adminis- 

 trative measures, and by international cooperation with 

 the other Powers wliose possessions in Africa arc similarly 

 afflicted." 



The council of the Royal Society of Arts has awarded 

 the gold medal offered by the society, under the Shaw 

 trust for industrial hygiene, to Prof. W. Galloway, " in 

 recognition of his valuable researches into the action of 

 coal dust in colliery explosions, the outcome of which 

 researches has been the provision of means by which the 

 risk of such accidents is materially diminislied, and a 

 consequent great saving of human life effected." 



In connection with the International Congress on 

 Tuberculosis, which will be held in Washington on 

 September 21 to October 12, a prize of 300Z. is offered 

 for the best treatise that may be submitted to the congress 

 on the relation of atmospheric air to tuberculosis. The 

 prize is offered by the Smithsonian Institution out of the 

 Hodgkins fund. The treatises may be written in English, 

 French, German, Spanish, or Italian. They will be 

 examined, and the prize awarded, by a committee 

 appointed by the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 

 in conjunction with the officers of the International 

 Congress on Tuberculosis. 



We learn from the Berlin correspondent of the Times 

 that on February 20 the Reichstag passed the second read- 

 ing of the Bill for the regulation of wireless telegraphy, in 

 accordance with the decisions of the International Congress 

 in Berlin in 1906, and conferring a monopoly of wireless 

 telegraphy upon the Government. The German Govern- 

 ment desires to maintain an attitude of neutrality towards 

 all systems of wireless telegraphy, and in particular to 

 secure intercommunication on the part of ships and land 

 stations without regard to the system employed. Germany 

 has accordingly declined to bind herself to any one system, 

 upon the ground that the efficiency of the system adopted 

 is of far greater importance than its technical character. 

 The special committee of the Reichstag to which the Bill 

 was referred was informed that messages by the Marconi 

 system would be accepted by German ships and stations 

 if the company conformed to the obligation to exchange 

 communications with other systems. 



Last year some opposition was shown in the American 

 Congress to the usual vote of funds to the Biological 

 Survey, certain members of the committee on agriculture 

 suggesting that this branch of the agricultural depart- 

 ment was more ornamental than useful. Accordingly, a 

 paragraph was inserted in the Appropriation Bill directing 

 the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the work of 

 the survey, and particularly to inquire into the value of 

 the work done by the Government ornithologists. A report 

 of this investigation has now been issued, and a whole 

 column of the New York Evening Post is occupied by a 

 summary of the services which Secretary Wilson finds 

 that the Biological Survey has rendered to American 

 farmers and horticulturists. Not only has this bureau 

 issued valuable bulletins and other publications, but it has 

 prepared the way for important legislation for protecting 

 useful birds and for preventing the importation of such 

 as would be injurious. A typical example is the success 

 of the bureau in preventing the importation of the 

 kohlmeise, the introduction of which was advocated 

 througli misapprehension in the apple-growing districts of 

 the Pacific Coast and the North-West, where it might have 

 done enormous damage. 



NO. 2000, VOL. 77] 



Two striking examples of the best style of modern 

 taxidermic art are displayed in the central hall of the 

 natural history branch of the British Museum in the shape 

 of a male and female Californian sea-elephant from 

 Guadalupe Island. The specimens are the gift of the Hon. 

 Walter Rothschild, and probably represent some of the last 

 survivors of their species. They have been mounted by 

 Rowland Ward, of Piccadilly, in whose establishment may 

 now be seen a walrus set up for the Edinburgh Museum, 

 which is likewise practically a revelation in the matter 

 of mounting as compared with the bloated mummies by 

 which the species has hitherto been represented in our 

 exhibition i^^alleries. 



A DISCOVERY of exceptional interest is announced in 

 vol. vi., part iii., of Annotationes Zoologicae Japonenses 

 (December, 1907), namely, the occurrence of a fresh-water 

 medusa, referred to the genus Limnocodium, in the Yang- 

 tsi-kiang about 1000 nautical miles from its mouth. 

 Limnocodium, it will be remembered, has hitherto been 

 known solely by L. sowerbyi, discovered in 1880 in the 

 Victoria water-lily tanks at the London Botanical Gardens, 

 and subsequently observed in similar tanks at Lyons, but 

 never yet found in its native home. According to its 

 describer, Dr. Asajiro Oka, the new Chinese species, for 

 which the name L. hawaii is proposed, differs from 

 /,. sou'crbyi in certain points, which are, however, in- 

 sufficient to admit of its generic separation, although 

 rendering necessary some slight modifications in the defini- 

 tion of the genus. The home of the typical species is 

 generally supposed to be .Amazonia (not the West Indies, 

 as Dr. Oka states), and it is hence possible that the genus 

 may have a distribution analogous to that of tapirs, 

 alligators, or spoonbill-sturgeons. It may, however, be 

 found that Limnocodium is widely spread in the rivers 

 and lakes of Asia. The Yang-tsi species was discovered in 

 April last by Captain Kawai, of the steamboat service, 

 near Ichang, in the province of Hupi, ten specimens having 

 been obtained. The muddv condition of the waters of the 

 river accounts for the medusa having previously escaped 

 observation. 



Mr. John Brogden, of 28 Colville Square, London, has 

 sent us a copy of a catalogue of natural history specimens, 

 in which is included biological material of almost all kinds 

 other than skins of vertebrates. .'\mong the specimens 

 catalogued we notice a series of models of whales and 

 dolphins, on a scale of i inch to the foot. 



Lancei.kts and lampreys form the subject of a paper by 

 Mr. H. W. Fowler in the issue of the Proceedings of the 

 .•Xcademy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for December, 

 1907. Of lampreys, the author describes, under the name 

 of Occanoniyzon wihoni, a new genus and species on the 

 evidence of a specimen a foot in length from the Atlantic. 

 It is regarded as connecting the true lampreys, Petro- 

 myzon, with the deep-water Bathymyzon ; it may occur at 

 some depth. 



The first part of Siloungsberichte Natiir. Vcrcin der 

 prcuss. Rheiniandc und Wcstfalens for 1907 contains an 

 account of the scientific results of a journey recently under- 

 taken by Dr. Borgett to East Africa and the Nyanza. 

 Although the expedition was mainly undertaken for the 

 purpose of studying the plankton (of which certain new 

 forms are described), the author furnishes some interesting 

 information with regard to the big-game fauna of the 

 .\thi Plains and Nairobi, where he is of opinion that the 

 protective laws enforced by the British Government are 

 working satisfactorilv. Giraffe, kudu, and eland were seen 



