February 27, 1902J 



NA TUBE 



405 



a stopped organ pipe giving its first overtone. The cups used 

 varied in size from 7 '5 mm, to 4^5 mm., and the lengths of the 

 arms from 20 mm. to 8 mm. The curves found correspond 

 closely to the sine curves near the middle of the loop where the 

 amplitudes of vibration have considerable magnitude. — The 

 occurrence of fossil remains of mammals in the interior of the 

 states of I'ernambuco and Al.agoas, Brazil, by J. C. Branner. — 

 The estimation of copper as cuprous sulphocyanide in the 

 presence of tin, antimony, arsenic and bismuth, by R. G. 

 van Name. The accurate estimation of copper in the presence 

 of the above-named metals was found to be practicable pro- 

 vided that certain precautions were taken as to the amount of 

 free acid, ammonium bisulphite and sulphocyanide used. — The 

 composition of yttrialite, with a criticism of the formula assigned 

 to thalenite, by \V. F. Hillebrand. The empirical formula of 

 Hidden and Mackintosh for yttrialite is confirmed. The 

 formula proposed by Benedicks for thalenite is to be regarded 

 as doubtful. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Astronomical Society, February 14. — Anniversary 

 Meeting. — Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher, F.R.S., president, in the 

 chair. — The secretaries read the annual report of the council, 

 containing obituary notices of deceased fellows and associates, 

 reports of the work of observatories in Great Britain and 

 Ireland and the Colonies, and notes on the progress of astronomy 

 during the past year. — The president announced that the 

 council had awarded the Society's gold medal to Prof. J. C. 

 Kapteyn, of Groningen, Holland, for his work in connection 

 with the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung and his researches 

 on stellar distribution and parallax. The president delivered an 

 address, setting forth the grounds upon which the award had 

 been made. The address dealt chiefly with Prof. Kapteyn's 

 great work in measuring and reducing the stellar photographs 

 taken at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, and in 

 preparing the catalogue, which had been completed and published, 

 forming three volumes of the. -/«;?(iA of the Cape Observatory. The 

 aciual photographing of the plates was begun by Dr. (now Sir David) 

 Gill in 1886 and finished in 1S90. Prof. Kapteyn spontaneou'^ly 

 undertook the great work of measurement and reduction and 

 the formation of the catalogue — a labour which occupied him 

 more than twelve years. The catalogue contained 454,875 

 stars down to about the 9'5 nugnitude, from - 18° to the South 

 Pole. — The president presented the gold medal to Prof. 

 Kapteyn. — He also presented the Jackson-Gwilt bronze medal 

 to the Rev. Thos. D. Anderson, for his discoveries of Nova 

 Aurigffi and Nova Persei. 



Entomological Society, February 5.— The Rev. Canon 

 Fowler, president, in the chair. — The president announced the 

 appointment of Mr, F. D. Godman, F.R.S., Prof. E. B. 

 Poulton, F.R.S., and Dr. D. Sharp, F.R.S., as vice-presidents 

 for the session. — Prof. Poulton exhibited with lantern a series 

 of slides belonging to Prof. Meldola, made from actual specimens 

 by the three-colour process, illustrative of mimicry in British 

 and exotic Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. He also exhibited the 

 several specimens from which the lantern slides had been 

 prepared. — Mr. C. G. Barrett exhibited a series of the perfect 

 insect of Glollttla fiisca, Hpsn., together with ears of maize 

 (locally called mealies), showing the damage done by the well- 

 grown larva of the species, which lives in the first place in the 

 stem, eating the pith from the ground, and afterwards attacking 

 the cobs, and eating from the inside into the bases ot the unripe 

 grains, which then change colour and shrivel up. He also 

 exhibited specimens and figures to illustrate the life histories of 

 South African Heterocera, received from Miss Frances Barrett, 

 Buntingville, Transkei, South Africa. — Mr. W. L. Distant 

 exhibited two specimens of Coleoptera which he received alive 

 from the Transvaal — one Attthia thoracica^ Thunb. , now dead, 

 the other Brachycertis graiioms, Gyll., still living. These 

 insects had been sent him by Mr. Robert Service, of Dumfries, 

 who received them from .Sergt. Peter Dunn, of the volunteer 

 company of the Scottish Borderers. The genus .\nthia extends 

 to the southern Palxarctic region, and'there .seems little doubt 

 that these species could be easily acclimatised there. All they 

 require at home is the run of a good palm or orchid house. — 

 Mr. R. Adkin exhibited a series of Acidalia aversala. The 



NO. 1687, VOL. 65] 



parent moth (a banded female, the male parent not being known) 

 was taken at Lewisham in June, 1900. Of the resulting larva;, 

 about one-half fed-up rapidly and produced imagines in the 

 autumn of the same year — a very unusual circumstance ; the 

 remainder hibernated and produced imagines in June of the 

 following year, thus occupying the normal time in completing 

 their metamorphoses. The proportion of individuals following 

 the female parent in the two portions of the brood was almost 

 equal. — Mr. G. C. Champion exhibited long series of Leptura 

 straj^nlata. Germ., and Stiangaha piibeaens, Vabt., from the 

 pine-forests of Aragon and Castile, showing the great variation 

 in colour of the two species in these districts, whereas the allied 

 forms occurring in the same places, viz. L. rubra^ Linn., L. 

 distigma, Charp. , L. nnipiiiictata, Fabr. and L. sai:giiiiiolen/a, 

 Linn., were perfectly constant ; also Dennesles aurichalceus, 

 Kiist., which he and Dr. Chapman had found everywhere in 

 abundance in the old nests of the processionary-molh {Cnetho- 

 campa proceisiouea, Linn. ) on the pines in these forests. — Dr. 

 T. A. Chapman exhibited in illustration of his paper, on a 

 new subfamily of Pyralidi^, living larvL"e of Hypolia coriicalzs^ 

 Schifr, as well as preserved laivje, pupa-cases, imagines, and 

 prepared wings to show the neuration of that species — Mr. 

 Edward Meyrick communicated descriptions of new Australasian 

 Lepidoptera. — Mr. VV. F. Kirby communicated a Report on 

 a collection of African Locustida;, chiefly from the Transvaal, 

 made by Mr. \V. L. Distant. 



Geological Society, February 5. — Mr. J. J. U. Teall, 

 V. P. R.S., president, in the chair. — -The matrix of the Sufi'olk 

 Chalky Boulder-Clay, by the Rev. Edwin Hill. The author 

 has been examining with the microscope washed residues 

 from Boulder-Clays. He is able to group together the 

 specimens from localities along a belt of country from 

 Lowestoft to Bury St. EdmiAids, as containing granules 

 of Secondary clays and limestones. Other specimens contain 

 granules which may be the same kind decomposed, others 

 granules of other kinds; all these lie outside the belt occu- 

 pied by the group, though some are very near it. The results 

 lead to the conclu>ion that the materials of the inalrix in 

 the Sufl'olk Chalky Boulder-Clay were not brought from the east 

 or north, but from inland, and not from so far inland as the 

 Coalfields. Their sources therefore lie on a limited belt, border- 

 ing the Boulder-Clay area. — On the relation of certain breccias 

 to the physical geography of their age, by Prof. T. G. Bunney, 

 F.R.S. The author has endeavoured in this paper to collect 

 from published accounts and his own observations the evidence 

 which certain well-known and important beds of breccia afford 

 as to the physical conditions prevalent when they were formed. 

 Reasons are given for concluding that the Rothliegende (and 

 probably the Triassic) breccias are indicative ol a continental 

 climate, due to a great extension of land or more probably the 

 existence of a mountain-region on the west — winters with severe 

 cold and snow, but rather hot and arid summers. The Caithness 

 breccias are perhaps more analogous to the stone-rivers of the 

 Falkland Islands, but they also indicate a rather low tempera- 

 ture ; while the Flysch-breccias land us in the following dilemma, 

 namely, that either similar temperatures existed in Swiizerland, 

 and that there was also an important highland district, of which 

 no remnant can be found, within a short distance of the breccia- 

 beds, or they must be the product of a range not inferior to 

 the present Alps, which also has completely disappeared, and 

 would be (for reasons given) very difficult to locate. But, even 

 in the latter case, it must be admitted that a temperature if not 

 lower, at any rate not higher than the present, prevailed in 

 central Europe late in the Eocene period. 



Zoological Society, February 4. — Prof. G. B. Howes, 

 F.R.S. , vice-president, in the chair. — Dr. Chalmers Mitchell 

 read, on behalf of Mr. E. Degen, a paper entitled " Ecdysis, as 

 Morphological Evidence of the original Tetradactyle Feathering 

 of the Bird's Fore-limb, based specially on the Perennial Moult 

 ol Gyinnorhina tibiceii." The material on which the paper was 

 based consisted of a large series of specimens of the Gymnorhina 

 obtained at regular intervals throughout the moulting-period, 

 and the author had thus been able to give a very complete 

 account of the perennial replacement of the feathers, avoiding 

 the errors due to observations on the altered habits as produced 

 by captivity. The author showed that the moulting of the wing- 

 feathers took place in definite groups, and indicated a composite 

 origin of the modern feathering. — A communication from Prof. 

 W. Blaxland Benham contained some notes on the osteology of 



