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NATURE 



[July 24, 19 13 



cinnamic ester with acetone, acetophenone, methyl- 

 ethyl-ketone, and isopropyl-methyl-ketone, the un- 

 saturated /3-diketones, cinnamoyl-acetyl-methane, 

 cinnamoyl - benzoyl - methane, cinnamoyl'- propionyl- 

 methane, and cinnamoyl-iiobutyryl-methane were syn- 

 thesised, and their structural properties examined. — 

 H. Ryan and J. Algar : Unsaturated diketones. II. 

 Although benzylidene-acetone does not condense to a 

 6-diketone with benzoic ester in the presence of 

 sodium it reacts readily with dimethyl oxalate. Simi- 

 larly anisylidene-acetone condenses to a (3-diketone 

 with dimethyl oxalate. The diketones formed isox- 

 azols with hydroxy lamine hydrochloride, and behaved 

 as weak mordant dyes. — G. H. Carpenter ; Aptera, in 

 connection with the Clare Island Survey. Eighteen 

 species of Collembola and two of Thysanura are re- 

 corded from Clare Island, and the apt'erygotan fauna 

 is found to present, on the whole, an Arctic and 

 American facies. One of the commonest insects on 

 the island and neighbouring mainland is Petrobius 

 maritimus, Leach. Some details of the external 

 anatomy of this species are given, and it is shown 

 that the Dutch shore-haunting bristle-tail described by 

 Oudemans, and called Machilis maritima, is entirely 

 distinct from the British and Irish insect named by- 

 Leach. — W. M. Tattersall : Amphipoda, in connection 

 with the Clare Island Survey. The number of species 

 recorded in this paper from the Clare Island marine 

 area is ninety-five. No new species are described, but 

 nineteen species are added to the Irish list for the 

 first time, and fifty-four species are new to the area 

 under review. The Amphipoda of Clare Island in- 

 clude thirty-three Arctic species and sixty-two non- 

 Arctic. Of the former, fourteen extend to' the Medi- 

 terranean and twelve to the coasts of America. Of 

 the non-Arctic forms, twenty-five are found in the 

 Mediterranean, a further twenty-one are confined to 

 the Atlantic coasts of Europe from Norway to France. 

 Six species are common to the British area and the 

 Mediterranean, but do not extend to Norway. A 

 further ten species are confined to the waters of the 

 British area and neighbourhood, and are unknown 

 from both Norway and the Mediterranean. — R. 

 Southern : Nemertinea, in connection with the Clare 

 Island Survey. The total number of species found in 

 the Clare Island area was thirtv-one. Of these, two 

 species, Lineus acutifrons and Prostoma beaumonti, 

 were described as new. Tubulanns banyulensis, 

 Joubin, was added to the British fauna, and seven 

 other species were obtained which had not previously 

 been recorded from Ireland. The Nemertean fauna 

 as a whole closely resembles that found in the south- 

 west of England. 



Royal Dublin Society, June 24.— Prof. H. H. Dixon, 

 F.R.S., in the chair. — Miss M. C. Knowles : Maritime 

 and marine lichens of Howth (Dublin Bay). Alto- 

 gether 180 species are recorded from the Howth 

 coasts in this paper, of which three are now described 

 for the first time, and twenty-three are new 

 to Ireland. An attempt has been made to give an 

 account of the lichen vegetation from an ecological 

 as well as from a systematic point of view, and the 

 various species are described as growing in the fol- 

 lowing succession of belts from the top of the cliffs 

 to low-water mark: — (1) The Ramalina belt; (2) the 

 belt of orange lichens; (^) the Lichina vegetation; 

 (4) the Verrucaria maura belt; (5) the belt of marine 

 Verrucarias. The composition of each belt is given 

 in detail.— Prof. G. H. Carpenter : Injurious insects 

 and other animals observed in Ireland during the 

 year 1912. The very hot, drv summer of 191 1 led to 

 an excessive abundance of insects in the spring of 

 1912, from the depredations of which orchards and 

 fruit-trees suffered heavily. " Greenflv " on apple- 

 NO. 2282. VOL. 0-" 1 



trees were especially abundant, and two distinct kinds 

 of Aphis occurred in many parts of Ireland. Refer- 

 ring to the "woolly aphid," or "American blight," 

 attention was directed to a new mode of wintering 

 I for the insects — inside the cores of apples, several of 

 which, imported from America and sold in Dublin, 

 J were found to be infected in this way. Introduction 

 t of the pest into fresh localities might thus be brought 

 about. — W. R. G. Atkins : Oxydases and their in- 

 hibitors in plant tissues. The distribution of oxydases 

 seems to point to their being concerned in the produc- 

 tion of cork and sclerenchyma. The guard cells of 

 stomata and the cells abutting on them are particu- 

 larly rich in " epidermal " oxydase, while the abutting 

 cells may also contain the bundle oxydase of Keeble 

 and Armstrong. The leaf-saps of Iris germanica and 

 Aspidium Filix-mas contain powerful reducing sub- 

 stances which inhibit oxydase reactions. Precipita- 

 tion of the enzymes by alcohol or removal of the 

 reducing scbstance by dialysis permits of the detection 

 of oxydase. The colours of the perianth of Iris are 

 due to the presence of a yellow plastid pigment cr 

 of a ourple anthocvan chromogen which arises by 

 the action of the epidermal peroxydase on a chromo- 

 gen. The reducing substance may inhibit colour pro- 

 duction.— Dr. W. E. Adeney : The "streaming" of 

 dissolved atmospheric gases in water. Part i. In 

 this communcation there are given the results of an 

 experimental investigation of the rates at which atmo- 

 spheric nitrogen and oxygen are dissolved by the 

 exposed surfaces of quiescent columns of de-aerated 

 fresh- and sea-water, and the rates at which the dis- 

 solved gases are transmitted downwards through the 

 columns under the conditions : (1) when evaporation 

 can freely take place from the exposed surfaces of 

 the columns, and (2) when it cannot, the columns of 

 water being maintained at a uniform temperature. 

 The determinations have been made for temperatures 

 varying between 8° and 20 C. Descriptions of 

 special apparatus for the rapid extraction of the dis- 

 solved gases from water, and for their analysis, are 

 also given. 



Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, June 2.— Sir William Turner, K.C.B., 

 president, in the chair.— Sir William Turner; Con- 

 tributions to the craniology of the people of the Em- 

 pire of India. Part iv. The author described and 

 compared a number of skulls from the Bhils, frontier 

 tribes of Burma and Pakkoku, South Shan tribes, and 

 Tibetans.— Dr. J. H. Harvev Pine : Scottish National 

 Antarctic Expedition, glaciation of the South Orkneys. 

 This was a full account of a careful survey made 'by 

 Dr. Pirie when wintering at the South" Orknevs'. 

 These glaciers are either of the "ice-foot " or of the 

 "Spitsbergen" type, according to Nordenskjold's 

 classification. Their movement and erosive powers 

 are very slight, and thev are at present much less 

 extensive than at former times. 



June 16.— Dr. B. X. Peach, vice-president, in the 

 chair.— Dr. J. G. Gray : New models of gyrostats. 

 When large rotational speeds are employed," the fly- 

 wheels must be perfectly balanced. Some of those 

 exhibited could be run up to 30,000 revolutions per 

 minute. The laigest size, when spun at 15,000 revo- 

 lutions per minute, continued to revolve for forty-five 

 minutes. Among the many curious devices shown 

 was the model of a motor-car running on two wheels 

 placed in tandem. The car was stable, both when 

 at rest or when in motion. When in motion the car 

 derived its stability from the propelling system. The 

 gvrostat detected any tendency to tilt over and imme- 

 diately applied to, and obtained from, the propelling 

 svstem just the forces required to correct the tendencv. 

 This force disappeared precisely when its existence 



