564 



NA TURE 



[April 16, 1908 



The annual conversazione of the Selborne Society will 

 be held at Burlington Gardens, New Bond Street, W., on 

 Friday, May i, from 7.30 to 11 p.m. 



TiiK death is announced, in his eighty-seventh year, of 

 Prof. Franz von Leydig, of the University of Bonn, dis- 

 tinguished by his studies in comparative histology and 

 various works upon anatomical subjects. 



Mr. J. P. Johnson, of Johannesburg, has been com- 

 missioned by the Government of Orange River Colony to 

 investigate and report on the Biislimen sculptures and 

 paintings in that territory. 



At Issy les Moulineaux on March 11, M. Delagrange, 

 mounted upon an aeroplane, traversed the marked circuit 

 seven times, the total distance being about 10 kilometres, 

 in qm. 15s. The motor with which M. Delagrange's 

 machine is provided is a forty horse-power light cylinder 

 .Antoinette. 



The Town Council of West Ham has resolved lo confei' 

 the freedom of the borough on Lord Lister, " who was 

 born in the county borough, and has rendered such 

 illustrious service to the human race by his famous dis- 

 covery of the antiseptic system of treatment in surgery 

 and in a variety of other ways connected with science and 

 the alleviation of pain and suffering." 



Reuter's Agency learns that the British Government 

 has decided to take independent action regarding sleeping 

 sickness by establishing a National Sleeping Sickness 

 Bureau with headquarters in London. It will be remem- 

 bered that the recent international conference in London 

 collapsed mainly owing to the opposition offered to the 

 proposal to establish any international bureau in London. 

 Alternative recommendations in favour of Paris and 

 Brussels were put forward at the time, but no agreement 

 was come to on the question. The British N.ational 

 Bureau will be managed by a strong committee. Annual 

 grants will be made bv the Imperial and Sudanese Govern- 

 ments. To combat sleeping sickness. Great Britain and 

 Germany are concluding a convention on the subject of 

 joint measures for the prevention of the malady in Uganda 

 and German East .Africa. This is expected to be signed 

 at an early date. 



The Naples Table Association for Promoting Labora- 

 tory Research by Women announces the offer of a fourth 

 prize of one thousand dollars for the best thesis written 

 by a woman, on a scientific subject, embodying new 

 observations and new conclusions based on an independent 

 laboratory research in biological, chemical, or physical 

 science. The theses offered in competition are to be pre- 

 sented to the executive committee of the association, and 

 must be in the hands of the chairman of the committee on 

 the prize, Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology, Boston, Mass., before February 25, 1909. 

 The prize will be awarded at the annual meeting in April, 

 1909. The papers presented will be judged by a board of 

 examiners, or by such specialists as they may choose. The 

 board of examiners is constituted as follows : — Biological 

 sciences, Dr. W. H. Howell, Johns Hopkins Medical 

 School ; chemical sciences, Dr. T. W. Richards, Harvard 

 University; physical sciences, Dr. A. A. .Michclson, Uni- 

 versity of Chicago. 



We have received a somewhat belated copy (published in 

 iqo6) of No. 26 of the North American Fauna — U.S. 

 Department of .Agricultun— in which Mr. A. H. Howell 

 classifies the little skunks of the genus Spilogale. 

 NO. 2007, VOL. 77] 



To Nos. 3 and 4 of vol. xxix. of Notes from the Leyden 

 .Museum, Dr. E. D. van Oort contributes two papers on 

 Papuan birds, in the second of which he describes, under 

 the name of Casiiarius casuarius bistriatus, an apparently 

 new race of cassowary from the north coast of New 

 Guinea. It is remarkable that this bird appears to be 

 related to an .\ru Island species, and thus quite different 

 from those inhabiting the interior of New Guinea. .A 

 coloured plate of the head and neck is given. 



To British Birds for April Messrs. Witherby and Tice- 

 hurst contribute an article on the spread of the little owl 

 in England. This owl cannot now be regarded otherwise 

 than as an introduced species in England, owing to th' 

 fact that so many have been turned loose in various parts 

 of the country. The process began in 1843 at \N'aIton 

 Park, Yorkshire, but the chief centres of spread have in 

 recent years been Hampshire, Tring, Edenbridge in Kent, 

 and Oundle. From Oundle the birds appear to have 

 reached Woburn, where they breed freely. They also breed 

 near Watford and other parts of Hertfordshire, while from 

 the Kent centre these owls have colonised a considerable 

 portion of the south-east of England. 



In an article on the seasonal colour-change in Ini'ds, pub- 

 lished in the January number of the .-liiicnVnii Naturalist, 

 .Mr. C. W. Beebe states that certain tanagers and bobo- 

 links, which had been prevented from breeding, were kept 

 during autumn in a darkened chamber with a sotnewhat 

 increased supply of food. The consequence was that the 

 brilliant breeding-plumage was retained throughout the 

 winter. Early in the following spring the birds were re- 

 turned to normal conditions, and speedily moulted. The 

 new plumage was, however, the nuptial dress, and not 

 the dull winter livery, which was skipped. The sequence 

 of plumage-change is not, therefore, invariable, but 

 evidently in some degree dependent on external factors in 

 the environment. 



The faculty of orientating their position, or the sense 

 of direction, is considered by Mr. Benjamin Kidd. in the 

 .April number of the Century Illustrated Magazine, to be 

 the most remarkable phenomenon in animal instinct. 

 " This facidty of judging direction seems to bear no rela- 

 tion to the place of the animal in the general scale of 

 intelligence. It is possessed to a considerable degree by 

 dogs and cats, but in a very high degree by seals, which 

 find their way back year after year to their rookeries from 

 enormous distances in the open sea. It reaches a high 

 degree of perfection in migratory birds not otherwise noted 

 for intelligence. . . . The turtles which annually visit 

 Ascension Island to deposit their eggs afford another 

 example of the perfection of this instinct. How these 

 reptiles can find this comparatively small speck of land in 

 the midst of a vast ocean is, with our present knowledge, 

 unaccountable. " 



Two pamphlets dealing with the food of American 

 birds have just come to hand. In the first of these (from 

 the Year-book of the U.S. Agricultural Department for 

 1906), Mr. AV. L. McAfee gives a list of species feeding 

 upon scale-insects, among which those included in the 

 States under the name of grosbeaks occupy a prominent 

 position. According to the second paper, which is by the 

 same author, and forms Bulletin No. 32 of the Bureau of 

 the Biological Survey, the birds last-named are valuable 

 in other respects to the agriculturist and horticulturist. 

 It should be mentioned that in America the scarlet cardinal 

 .ind other members of the genus Cardinalis are commonly 

 Irrmed grosbeaks, and it is to this group that the remarks 



