3o8 



NATURE 



[_Jan. 31, li 



of a splendid folio volume, with 30 plates, in which from 

 1 to 26 contain figures of all the remarkable horns from the 

 Banqueting Hall, and from 27 to 29 represent some of 

 the more interesting of the monstrous horns, while on 

 Plate 30 we have a most extraordinary instance of a pair 

 of horns — one of ten, the other of twelve, points — which 

 had during life got inextricably interlocked with one 

 another. The finest and most characteristic pairs of horns 

 were selected for these photographs, which are by a new 

 process most excellently reproduced on the plates. As a 

 frontispiece to the text we have a photograph of a quaint 

 sketch of the Castle. 



About 1861, Dr. Meyer informs us, acting under the 

 direction of Grand Marshall H. von Freisen, a catalogue 

 of the seventy-one horns in the Banqueting Hall, with 

 measurements in inches, was compiled, but unfortunately 

 some of the identifications cannot be regarded as certain. 

 It is strange that, in spite of the great care with which 

 this collection of horns has been kept, there seems to be 

 no record of when and whence the very ancient ones 

 canie to Moritzburg. Even the Archives of the place 

 are nearly silent about them. Dr. Meyer has in this 

 quite luxurious catalogue done what he could to rescue 

 all that is known about the collection from oblivion, and 

 he promises at some future time to give the history of the 

 remaining two-thirds as a continuation of this work. 



^' ■ OUR BOOK SHELF 



Guide to Methods of Insect Life, and Prevention and 

 ' Remedy of Insect Ravage. By Eleanor A. Ormerod. 

 Pp. 1-167, Svo. (London : Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 

 -1S84.) 



The text contains the substance of ten lectures delivered 

 for the Institute of .Agriculture. At p. 7 there is an 

 Italicised remark to the eft'ect that " insects always begin 

 fife by being produced ly a femaie." This may be re- 

 garded as an indication of the presumably ultra-ignorant 

 class for whose benefit the lectures were prepared. But 

 v,-e prefer to think that far too low an estimate of the 

 knowledge possessed by our agriculturists has been made, 

 and doubt not that, by a majority of them, the remark 

 will be taken as the reverse of complimentary. The book 

 is exceedingly well got up, and in a very attractive style, 

 and will no doubt become popular (on account of the 

 multitude of illustrations. For the agriculturist purely, it 

 seems to us that it goes either not far enough or too far ; 

 it is too ''showy" for practical purposes, and often, un- 

 wittingly, too abstruse. The copious illustrations are 

 mostly excellent, and many of them are original (among 

 the very few very indiiTerent figures, that of the " Bee- 

 parasite " may be cited). But the necessity for many of 

 the figures in a book apparently intended for the agricul- 

 tural class may be doubted, and some have evidently 

 been introduced for effect. That American bogey (or 

 ■'fraud") the"Colorado Beetle," is honoured by the repro- 

 duction of his portrait, and the Phylloxera is dismissed 

 with only dishonourable mention. The general informa- 

 tion is sound, but occasionally vague, as in the definitions 

 of the terms "larva" and "pupa," and in the apparent 

 assumption that respiration is exclusively effected by the 

 external air being conveyed to the trachea; by means of 

 spiracles. The " Glossary " will no doubt be found very 

 useful to the majority of the readers of the book, but some 

 terms (e.g. " Telum") appear wonderfully abstruse, as 

 used in a work in which it was necessary to explain that 

 ■ ' insects always begin life by being produced by a 

 female." 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[The Editor does not hold himself res fonsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications . 



[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible otherwise to insure the appearance even 

 of comiininications containing interesting and novel facts.'] 



The Remarkable Sunsets 



On Friday, the nth inst., the weather was very remarkable ; 

 it recalled to our minds, though on a smaller scale, the storm of 

 December 12, 1S83. In the afternoon, about three o'clock, the 

 wind arose with violence, and great squalls alternated with rela- 

 tive calms. The movements of the clouds were also very curious. 

 Layers of air of different elevation floated in various directions, 

 and the lower very lo"-hanging clouds which moved at the 

 same level had, at different points of the sky, an unequal and 

 changing rapidity. The wind beneath was, at 6 p.m., west- 

 south-west ; the lower clouds came from the west, the more 

 elevated, on the contrary, from the north-north-west, so there is 

 no doubt that whirlwinds blew that day in the upper air. The 

 sun had set with a very fine after-glow, and in the ensuing night 

 and morning there fell, now and then, showers of rain occasion- 

 ally accompanied by snow and hail. Besides, the night before 

 a macrnificent halo had been observed around the moon, so 



Fig.i. 



L 





i::{3) (^Vvt 



:. I. — Sediment and residue of an evaporated drop of rain, fallen January 

 12, 1S84, on a window-pane, rt a a, particles of the ash; ^i, drops of 

 hygroscopic matter: c c c, crystals of^ common saltj and andesitous 

 al ; (/(/, drops with salt crystals. 



that the presence of ice crystals on January II, in the higher 

 regions of the atmosphere, is certain. In consequence of the 

 low temperature, the air in those regions must have had a great 

 density, and so, apparently, there must have been a great chance 

 that the whirlwinds on Friday had moved the heavy, cold air 

 from above downwards. 



That this was really the case seems to proceed from the fact 

 that during the night of January II and 12 the rain had brought 

 down on my windows the same sediment as that of December 12, 

 though in smaller quantity. The identity of this sediment \vith 

 the ashes of Krakatoa will now be beyond doubt to any one who 

 has read the numerous communications in N.\TURE on the re- 

 markable sunsets. Why I wish to refer to this affair once more 

 is that at the microscopic examination of the dust of January 12 

 I found in it a relatively great quantity of complete individual 

 crystals, partly soluble, partly insoluble, in water, which had 

 remained unobserved by me in December. 



After having scraped the dust off the window-panes and put 

 it on the slide in a drop of oil, I made a drawing of the crystals 



