September 21, 191 1] 



NATURE 



395 



(now destroyed) at Chiswick. J. Piatt Barrett, " The 

 Butterflies of Sicily." Includes "sixty-five Sicilian butter- 

 flies out of the ninety-seven given by Ragusa." Dr. T. A. 

 Chapman, " On insect teratology " (remarks to introduce 

 discussion on teratological specimens). W. J. Kaye, "An 

 entomological trip to South Brazil " (Lepidoptera). W. J. 

 Lucas, "The natural order of insects Neuroptera." A 

 general sketch of the families, with illustrations of 

 examples. R. A. S. Priske and H. Main, " Notes on the 

 glow-worm, Lampyris noctihtca." W. J. Kaye, annual 

 address, read June 26, 191 1. The address is chiefly devoted 

 to the neuration of Lepidoptera, but also contains obituary 

 notices, &c, that of J. W. Tutt being specially noteworthy. 

 The volume also includes a list of members at the 

 beginning, and an abstract of proceedings at the end. 



TRANSMISSION OF TRYPANOSOMES. 



TT will be most unwelcome news to many that, according 

 to a recent number of the Bulletin of the Sleeping 

 Sickness Bureau (No. 29, August 17), Dr. Taute, at 

 Tanganyika, has succeeded in transmitting a human 

 trypanosome to monkeys by means of Glossina morsitans. 

 So long as it was believed that G. palpalis alone was cap- 

 able of transmitting the trypanosomes of human beings, it 

 was hoped that the range of sleeping sickness would be 

 coterminous with the distribution of this species of fly ; but 

 if other tsetses also can transmit the disease, there seems 

 to be no reason why it should not spread over practically 

 the whole African continent. Too much weight must not 

 be laid, however, on laboratory experiments, the success of 

 which, as the editor of the bulletin remarks, does not prove 

 that the like is of common occurrence in nature. 



Quite recently, however, a disease of human beings has 

 been found to occur in northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland 

 in regions where only G. morsitans, and no G. palpalis, is 

 stated to occur, caused by a trypanosome which has been 

 named Trypanosoma rhodesiense, since it shows certain 

 peculiarities distinguishing it from the typical T. gambiense 

 of sleeping sickness. 



In the same number of the bulletin a summary is given 

 of further researches by Chagas on the human trypanosome 

 of Brazil, of which an account was published in Nature 

 (August 4, 1910, p. 142). Chagas has found that the para- 

 site multiplies in other tissues besides the lungs, namely, 

 the cardiac muscle, the central nervous system, and the 

 striated muscles more especially ; he believes that in the 

 lungs a multiplication of sexual forms takes place, and 

 that the multiplication in the tissues is asexual. The infec- 

 tion caused by this trypanosome, transmitted by a bug 

 (Conorhinus sp.), attacks the whole population in the 

 districts in which it occurs, so that children probably all 

 sicken in their first year, and either die or pass over to 

 the chronic stage. The chronic disease shows various 

 forms, but two more especially, those in which heart- 

 symptoms occur and others in which nervous symptoms 

 preponderate. The goitre frequently seen in the province 

 of Minas Geraes is believed to be attributable to the same 

 infection. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATIOX 

 PORTSMOUTH. 

 SECTION K. 



AT 



BOTANY. 



Opening Address by Prof. F. E. Weiss, D.Sc, 

 President of the Section. 



Greatly as I prize the honour done me by the Council 

 of the British Association in electing me to the office of I 

 President of the Botanical Section, my gratification has 

 been heightened by the knowledge that the meetings "1 

 this section would be graced by the presence of the dis- 

 tinguished group of Continental and American botanists 

 who have just taken part in the International Phvtogeo- 

 graphical Excursion to the British Isles. 



I am sure that I am voicing the unanimous feeling of 



the section in offering them a hearty welcome to our 



deliberations, and, in conveying to them our sense of the 



honour they have done us by their acceptance of the 



NO. 2l86, VOL. 87] 



invitation of this Association, I should like to express our 

 hope that by their participation in our proceedings they 

 will help us to promote the advancement of botanical 

 science, for which purpose we are met together. 



In view of these special circumstances in which we 

 forgather, it may seem inappropriate if 1 deal, as I shall 

 be doing, _ in my Presidential Address mainly with fossil 

 plant,, with the study of which I have been for some 

 time occupied ; but I need hardly assure our visitors that, 

 while we entertain some feelings of satisfaction at the 

 contributions made during the past half-century towards 

 our knowledge of extinct flora of Britain, yet, as the later 

 sittings of this section will show, and as they have no 

 doubt realised during their peregrinations through this 

 country, our botanical sympathies and energies are by no 

 means limited to this branch of botanical study. More- 

 over, I hope during the course of my address to "point out 

 the ecological interest which is afforded by certain aspects 

 of Palaeobotany. 



On the sure foundations laid by my revered predecessor, 

 the late Prof. Williamson, so vast 'a superstructure has 

 been erected by the active work of numerous investigators 

 that 1 must limit myself in this address to exploring only 

 certain of its recesses, and I shall consequently confine 

 myself to some aspects of Palaeobotany which have either 

 not been dealt with in those able expositions of the subject 

 given to this section by previous occupants of this presi- 

 dential chair, or which may be said to have passed since 

 then into a period of mutation. 



The great attractiveness of Paleobotany, and the very 

 general interest which has been evinced in "botanical circle's 

 in the progress of recent investigations into the structure 

 of fossil plants, are due to the light they have thrown 

 upon the relationship and the evolution of various groups 

 of existing plants. It was the lasting achievement of 

 Williamson to have shown, with the active cooperation of 

 many working-men naturalists from the Lancashire and 

 Yorkshire coalfields, that the structure of the coal-measure 

 plants from these districts can be studied in microscopic 

 preparations as effectively as has been the case with recent 

 plants since the days of Grew and Malpighi. Indeed, had 

 Sachs lived to continue his marvellous historical account 

 of the rise of botanical knowledge up to the Year 1880 or 

 1890, he would undoubtedly have directed attention to the 

 remarkable growth of our knowledge of extinct plants 

 gained by Binney and Williamson from the plant remains 

 in the calcareous nodules of English coal-seams, and by 

 Renault from the siliceous pebbles of Autun. We are not 

 likely to forget the pioneer work of these veterans, though 

 sini - then investigations of similar concretions from the 

 coal deposits of this and other countries have been under- 

 taken by numerous workers, and have revealed further 

 secrets from that vast store of information which lies buried 

 at our feet. 



The possibilities of impression material had indeed been 

 practically exhausted in 1.870, and further advance could 

 only come from new methods of attacking the problems 

 that still remained to be solved. The most striking recent 

 instance of the insufficiency of the evidence of external 

 features alone was Prof. Oliver's demonstration of the 

 seed-bearing nature of certain fern-like plants, based on 

 microscopical comparison of the structure of the cupule 

 of Lagenostoma, with the fronds of Lyginodendron, after 

 which discovery confirmatory evidence speedily came to 

 hand from numerous plant impressions examined by 

 Kidston, Zeiller, and other observers. 



_ Undoubtedly in the hands of a less competent and far- 

 sighted observer than Williamson the new means of 

 investigation might have proved as misleading as the old 

 method had been in many instances. Indeed, as is well 

 known, the recognition in the sections of Calamites and 

 Sigillarias of the presence of secondary wood had caused 

 Brongniart to place these plants among conifers, owing to 

 his belief that no Vascular Cryptogams exhibited exogenous 

 growth in thickness. It required all Williamson's 

 eloquence and pugnacity to convert both British and French 

 Pala?obotanists to his views, ultimately accepted with such 

 handsome acknowledgment by Grand' Eury, one of his 

 antagonists, in his " Geologie et Pateontologie d'J Bassin 

 Houiller du Gard." 



It is curious that Grand' Eurv refers in his introduction 



