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NATURE 
| March 2, 1871 

Dr. WILLIE Kijune, at present Professor of Physiology at 
Amsterdam. has been called to occupy the chair left vacant at 
Heidelberg by the removal of Helmholtz to Berlin, 
Ir is with great pleasure that we hear from the Abbé Moigno 
that the publication of Zes A/ondes will have recommenced before 
this, on March 1. Though the Abbé has escaped uninjured from 
the bombardment, a portion of his fine library was destroyed by 
a Prussian shell, We are still without files of any of the Paris 
papers. 
IN reply to a question in the House of Commons on Friday 
night last, Mr. Ayrton said that considerable progress had been 
made in the preparation of the plans for the erection of the 
Natural History Museum at South Kensington, but until they 
had been completed it would be impossible for them to receive 
the sanction of the Government. 
Tue lectures of the present year for the Royal College of 
Physicians will be delivered at the College, Pall Mall East, at 
five o’clock on each of the following Wednesdays and Fridays 
Gulstonian lectures—Dr. Gee, March 3, 8, 10, ‘‘On the Heat of 
the Body ;” Croonian lectures—Dr. Parkes, March 15, 17, 22, 
«©On some points connected with the Elimination of Nitrogen 
from the Human Body ;” Lumleian lectures—Dr. West, March 
24, 29, 31, ‘‘On some disorders of the Nervous System in 
Childhood.” 
Tue third course of Cantor Lectures for the Session of the 
Society of Arts will be delivered by Dr. T. S. Cobbold, F.R.S., 
and will treat of ‘Our Food-producing Ruminants, and on the 
Parasites which reside in them.” The course will commence on 
Monday, the 17th of April, and will be continued on subsequent 
Monday evenings till completed. These lectures are open to 
members, who have also the privilege of admitting two friends 
to each lecture. 
Mr. ANDREW Murray will, during the following season, de- 
liver a short course of lectures for the Royal Horticultural So- 
ciety on Economic Entomology, especially in its relations to Hor- 
ticulture and Forestry. Mr. Murray has been mainly instrumental 
in forming the Society’s collection of Economic Entomology ex- 
hibited inthe South Kensington Museum. 
ForipA has, this winter, its usual complement of scientific 
visitors, who are engaged in prosecuting investigations upon its 
natural history. Mr. E. J. Maynard, of Massachusetts, is ex- 
ploring the ornithology of the keys and the southern portion of 
the State; Mr. N. H. Bishop, of New Jersey, and Mr. George 
A. Boardman, of Maine, are at work with a similar object about 
Jacksonville. Professor Wyman, of Cambridge, is also making 
use of the opportunities of his third or fourth visit to the State 
in the critical examination of the ancient mounds and shell heaps 
which abound everywhere. 
Dr. PACKARD has lately announced the discovery, by Prof, 
Verrill, of a dipterous larva of the genus Chironomus, at a depth 
of 120 feet, in the vicinity of Eastport, Maine. He also describes. 
a mite, or Acarus, as occurring ata similar depth. He has not yet 
ascertained whether, like other species of the genus, the latter 
lives, in any of its stages, in the gills of the lamellibranchiate 
mollusca, 
A RECENT communication to the State Department from the 
United States consul at St. Helena, states the fact that the white 
ants, which have effected a lodgment in the island, are rapidly 
destroying everything upon it. No wood but teak, and some- 
times not even that, escapes their fangs ; and numbers of houses 
in Jamestown have been fairly gutted by them—doors, window- 
sashes, floors, and roofs, all being eaten up, leaving nothing but 
the bare walls. 
THE following is a list of the German learned men connected 
with the French Académie des Sciences, copied from the Comptes 



Rendus, although some of them have died since the investment of 
the city, but their names were not erased from the list for want 
of official notification :—Four Associates, MM. Ehrenberg, 
Liebig, Wohler, Kummer: three mathematicians, Neumann, 
Weierstrass, Kronecker; one mechanician, Clausius; three 
astronomers, Hansen, Argelander, Peters; three physicists, 
Weber, Mayer, Kirchhoff; two chemists, Bunsen, Hofmann ; 
three mineralogists, Naumann, Rose, Haidinger ; four botanists, 
Mohl, Braun, Hofmeister, Pringsheim; one anatomist, Siebold ; 
three surgeons, Virchow, Rokitansky, Sebert. 
THE special correspondent of the Zimes gives the following 
account of the effects of the bombardment on the Jardin des 
Plantes :—No fewer than eighty-three shells had fallen within 
this comparatively limited area, On the night of January 8 and 
9 four shells fell into the glass houses and shattered the greater 
part of them to atoms. A heap of glass fragments lying hard 
by testified to the destruction, but the effect of the shells was 
actually to pulverise the glass, so that it fell almost like dust over 
the gardens. The consequence was that nearly the whole of this 
most rare and valuable collection was exposed to one of the 
coldest nights of the year, and whole families of plants were 
killed by the frost. Some of the plants suffered the most singular 
effects from the concussion ; the fibres were stripped bare, and 
the bark peeled offin many instances. All the Orchids, all the Clu- 
siacez, the Cyclanthez, the Pandanez were completely destroyed, 
either by the shells themselves or by the effects of the cold. The 
large palm-house was destroyed, and the tender tropical contents 
were exposed to that bitterly cold night ; yet, singularly enough, 
although they have suffered severely, not one has yet died. 
All through the whole of the fortnight during which these 
gardens were subjected to this rain of shells, MM. Decaisne, 
Chevreuil, and Milne-Edwards, remained at their posts, unable 
to rest, and have since, at their own expense, repaired the damage 
done, trusting that whatever form of government France may 
choose, it will not repudiate its debts of honour, M. Decaisne 
is making out a list of his losses, a large proportion of which 
might possibly be supplied from Kew, while owners of private 
collections might also be glad to testify their sympathy and in- 
terest in the cause of science by contributing whatever they may 
be able to spare as soon as the amount and nature of the loss is 
ascertained. The animals fared better than the plants— 
not only have none of them been eaten by the population 
of Paris, as the latter fondly suppose, but although several 
shells burst among them, they have escaped uninjured. 
OF course, when food was so scarce for human beings, the 
monkeys and their companions were put upon short allowance, 
This fact, coupled with the extreme rigour of the season, increased 
the rate of mortality among them, and one elephant died, but 
was not eaten. The two elephants and the camel that were 
eaten belonged to the Jardin d’ Acclimatation, and had been re~ 
moved in the early stage of the siege from their ordinary home 
in the Bois de Boulogne, for safety, to the Jardin des Plantes, 
where, however, it would appear, it was not to be found. The 
birds screamed and the animals cowered, as the shells came 
rushing overhead and bursting near them, as they do when some 
terrific storm frightens them ; latterly they seemed to become 
used to it. 
WE have great pleasure in announcing that the Museum of 
Natural History at Strasburg has escaped the bombardment of 
the town, One shell entered one of the corridors and destroyed 
a small collection of chalk fossils, and a few fragments of a shell 
decapitated two or three birds. The concussion caused nearly 
all the glass in the cases to be broken. But the fine collections 
of mammals, of birds, and of fossils, the result of many years of 
labour of Prof. Schimper, are perfectly untouched. This has 
not been the case with some of the private collections in the 
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