April 17, 1902J 



NA TURE 



573 



will be greater than the British in about three years' time. The 

 general conclusion reached is that though as a nation Great 

 Britain has continued to advance, Germany has made more rapid 

 progress. 



The observatory on the summit of Mont Blanc, such a 

 familiar object to all who visit Chamonix, has furnished 

 M. Jean Binot with the means for making bacteriological investi- 

 gations at the highest altitude yet explored. His researches are 

 published in the Coinptes rendits of the Paris Academy of Sciences. 

 As was to be anticipated, the air on the summit away from the 

 observatory contains scarcely any bacteria whatever, only from 4 

 to 1 1 beingdetected in as much asa thousand litres, whilst in some- 

 what smaller volumes of air frequently none at all were discover- 

 able. Asa rule, at lower altitudes, the number of bacteria 

 present increased ; thus at the Plan de I'Aiguille 14, whilst 

 at the Montanvert 49, were found in a thousand litres. 

 Inside the observatory, in which M. Binot tells us he spent five 

 days, from 260 to 540 microbes were found in the same volume 

 of air ; these bacteria were doubtless introduced during the 

 temporary invasion of the building by M. Binot and his com- 

 panions. The investigations were not, however, confined to the 

 air on the top of the mountain, but included also bacterial 

 examinations of freshly fallen snow, old snow, ice on the sur- 

 face and below, glacier water, and mountain streams. Freshly 

 fallen snow, even when sampled in large quantities, frequently 

 contained no bicteria whatever, whilst in snow which had lain 

 for some time usually only from one to two individuals were 

 discoverable per cubic centimetre ; at the foot of the glaciers the 

 surface .snow contained rather more, the number varying from 6 

 to 65 psr c.c. at the iMer de Glace. Glacier water is usually 

 very pure, and, like the glacier-ice from which it is derived, was 

 found to contain a number of yeasts and some streptothri.x ; but 

 whilst high up such water contained but from 3 to 8 bacteria 

 per c.c, a stream at the foot of the Glacier des Bossons con- 

 tained 95, whilst the water of the river Arve at Chamonix was 

 found to have as many as 7550 per c.c. Altogether M. Binot 

 examined 121 samples of air, ice, snow and water, and isolated 

 no less than 300 different varieties of microbes, one-third of 

 which number he was able to identify as having been already 

 studied and described, and the residue are being carefully 

 investigated by him at the present time. Of great interest is 

 the author'sremarkablediscovery of a virulent race of pyocyaneus 

 bacilli in ice on the top of Mont Blanc ; he also isolated 

 from water a vibrio highly pathogenic to animals. Even the 

 alluring and beautifully clear and crystalline spring water on the 

 Montanvert road was condemned by being found to contain a 

 dozen virulent colon bacilli in a cubic centimetre. Doubtless this 

 pollution was due to the herds of cattle which graze on the 

 mountain pastures. 



In the Biologisches Cenlralblall for April, Dr. A. Bethe 

 makes a further contribution to the discussion as to the nature 

 of the " homing " instinct of bees and ants. 



P.-XRT vi. of the second volume of the Annals of the South 

 African Museum is devoted to a revision of the species of 

 cfttain groups of the scorpions of the country, in the course of 

 which several new forms are described. 



In the April number of The Entomologist, Miss Sharpe com- 

 pletes her list of the butterflies and moths collected by Dr. 

 Christy in Nigeria. It is remarkable that a species hitherto 

 believed peculiar to Aden should recur in West Africa. 



The annual report of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, for 

 1 900- 1 901, states that important progress has been made in the 

 improvement of the exhibited series, in the cataloguing of the 

 reserve collections, and in the exchange and distribution of 

 duplicate specimens. The acquisitions have been numerous, 

 NO, 1694, "^O^- ^5] 



and, for the first time, the exhibited specimens have been 

 adequately labelled in large type. The plan of replacing 

 stuffed and spirit specimens of snakes by coloured casts is being 

 carried out as rapidly as possible. A gallery has been reserved 

 for economic zoology. Mr. T. H. Holland, of the Indian 

 Geological Survey, has joined the board of trustees, in place of 

 Mr. R. D. Oldham, retired. 



That acquired characters may be inherited is suggested by 

 Dr. Kidd's investigations into the arrangement of the hair on 

 the human forehead, of which an account is given in the April 

 issue of the fotirnal of Anatomy and Physiology. Certain 

 lines of divisions appear in most cases, which are regarded as 

 derived from the style of "parting" adopted by the parents. 

 In the same publication, Mr. W. L. H. Duckworth, from the 

 study of certain peculiarities in the skulls of a gibbon and an 

 aboriginal Australian, is led to believe that in certain respects 

 the man-like apes have attained a higher platform of special- 

 isation than man himself. 



In the Entomologist' s Monthly Magazine for April, Mr. C. W. 

 Dale gives an account of the occurrence of the " mazarine blue' 

 butterfly {Lycaena acis, or Nomiadcs seiniargiis) in Britain. 

 According to the author, no specimens have been taken in our 

 islands for more than twenty years ; it is suggested that its 

 extermination there may have been due to the attacks of 

 hymenopterous parasites, although there is no evidence that 

 this was the case. Never abundant, the species has been re- 

 corded from twenty-one English and Welsh counties, in several 

 cases only on the evidence of a single specimen. 



A MEMOIR in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 

 describes the results of an investigation into the morphology of 

 the skull of the bony fishes, based on an examination of its 

 development in the three-spined stickleback. In addition to 

 noting many points connected with the details of skull-structure, 

 the author, Mr. H. H. Swinnerton, finds that his study of the 

 anatomy and developmental history of the head-skeleton shows 

 that the sharks and rays on the one hand, and the bony fishes 

 and ganoids on the other, appear to have had a common ancestor, 

 whose chief structural features are briefly indicated. It is added 

 that the term " hyostylic," commonly used to indicate the mode 

 of suspension of the lower jaw to the cranium in the latter group, 

 does not adequately express the true state of the case. In 

 another paper in the same journal dealing with what are commonly 

 called "fishes," Dr. E. Warren discusses the structure of the 

 teeth of the lampreys and hag-fishes. He remarks at the 

 outset that those who regard these creatures as degenerate 

 descendants of ordinary fishes would expect to find in their 

 horny teeth remnants of the calcified structure of those of other 

 vertebrates. He finds, however, no definite evidence of such 

 degeneration, but adds that if they are actually degenerate they 

 have reverted to a condition which probably preceded the 

 development of the " placoid " scales of the sharks and rays. 



An interesting article in the March number of the American 

 Naturalist, by Dr. H. P. Torrey, describes a peculiar phe- 

 nomenon seen on the Californian coast during the past summer. 

 Early in July a red streak was noticeable in the sea ofif San 

 Pedro Harbour, which during the next few days approached 

 the shore and divided into several patches of many acres in 

 extent. On the i6th these patches reached the shore, where they 

 were the cause of a most unusual display of phosphorescence. 

 The discoloration and phosphoresQence of the water were due 

 to the presence of swarms of flagellate animalcules. " On the 

 20th, four days after the red (characteristically a muddy ver- 

 milion) streak had reached the shore, a most sickening odour 

 arose from the water along the beach. During the night, on a 

 beach about 400 feet long, a large number of animals were left 



