October io, 1912] 



NATURE 



17: 



iiKiitioned mammals and birds from Lower California 

 and the northern part of South America, invertebrates 

 from the West Indies and British Guiana, fossil mam- 

 malian remains from Cuba, and a glacial pot-hole from 

 St. Lawrence Count)-, New York. The Williston col- 

 lection of tropical Diptera was also purchased. Among 

 new exhibits illustrated in the report, the group of 

 skeletons of extinct ground-sloths from South America 

 is especially important, while a set of restored models 

 of Devonian fishes arranged in the form of an 

 aquarium is at least striking. Probably on account of 

 the intimate association of the museum with ele- 

 mentary education, most of the exhibits seem to be 

 more pictorial in character than those to which we 

 are accustomed in European museums. The American 

 museum is to be congratulated on being able at the 

 same time to occupy a foremost place in the advance- 

 ment of knowledge by its valuable publications. 



Mr. L. L. Woodruff (Proc. Soc. Experimental 

 Biology and Medicine, vol. ix., p. 121) has now con- 

 tinued his pedigreed culture of the common ciliate 

 infusorian, Paramoecium aurelia, for five years. The 

 culture was started in May, 1907, with a wild indi- 

 vidual isolated from a laboratory aquarium. From 

 the progeny of this specimen individuals have been 

 isolated practically daily, and cultivated in sterilised 

 infusions of hay and other vegetable substances. Dur- 

 ing the five years to May, 1912, 3029 generations 

 have been produced without any conjugation having 

 taken place, and the organisms are still in as 

 normal condition, both morphologically and physio- 

 logically, as the original wild ancestor. The author 

 concludes that the original individual cell possessed 

 the potentiality of producing descendants the number 

 of which is represented by at least 2 raised to the 

 3029th power, and that senescence and the need of 

 fertilisation are not primary attributes of living matter. 



In No. 6 of the Kew Bulletin, Mr. W. J. Bean 

 gives an extremely interesting account of various 

 gardens and parks in South Europe, including the 

 famous garden at La Mortola, the acclimatisation 

 garden at Hyeres, the Villa Thuret and Eilen Roc 

 gardens at Cap d'Antibes, and the fine gardens at 

 Milan, Pallanza, Florence, Naples, Bologna, Padua, 

 and various towns on the Adriatic coast. These notes, 

 based on a tour made by the author in early summer 

 of this year, should prove most useful to botanists 

 who may wish to visit Italy and the adjacent parts of 

 .South Europe. The same number contains descrip- 

 tions and plates of two recent additions to the Kew 

 collection — a spurge (Euphorbia meloformis) and a 

 cycad (Cycas Micholitzii). The former is one of the 

 most remarkable South African spurges, and bears 

 such a striking resemblance to Echinocactus that a 

 non-botanist would never suppose that they belonged to 

 two totally different families of plants. 



Dr. R. R. G.\tes, who has contributed so much to 

 the recent literature of mutation by his cytological 

 work on CEnothera, describes in The New Phytologist 

 (vol. xi., No. 2) a peculiar development which occurred 

 in his cultures of evening primroses obtained origin- 

 ally from the Lancashire coast. In some of the 

 NO. 2241, VOL. 90] 



forms the stem internodes remained undeveloped, 

 though growth continued and new cycles of rosette 

 leaves were continually added above while the older 

 ones died away below. In this way a stem was 

 produced which was covered with leaf-bases and bore 

 a crown of leaves at the top, giving a striking re- 

 semblance to a cycad. From these and other forms 

 it is hoped by further work to learn something more 

 regarding the manner of origin of the various 

 CEnotheras, and in particular to analyse the De 

 Vriesian factor of evolution and ascertain in how far 

 it is merely a process of hybrid-splitting and in how- 

 far it is a more deep-seated germinal disturbance — 

 resulting in part from effects of previous crossing, 

 from the direct influence of changed environment, or 

 from some internal and unknown cause. 



Mr. Neil E. Stevens has sent us a reprint of his 

 recent paper (Botanical Gazette, April, 1912) on the 

 cytology of heterostyled plants, containing observa- 

 tions on buckwheat and Houstonia coeridea. 

 Zoologists have shown that in various insects the 

 sperms are of two kinds, equal in number, and differ- 

 ing in respect of one or more of their chromosomes, 

 and it has been shown that fertilisation of the eggs 

 by one kind of sperm produces males, by the other 

 kind females. This remarkable discovery has sug- 

 gested the possibility of a similar condition in other 

 organisms having separate sexes, but so far no 

 evidence of such a " sex determinant " has been ob- 

 tained in dicecious plants. In buckwheat, Stevens 

 finds that in the mitosis of the pollen mother-cells the 

 chromosomes of the short-styled form are much larger 

 than in the long-styled form, also that there is a 

 characteristic and constant difference in the arrange- 

 ment of the chromosomes at one stage (anaphase) 

 of the reducing nuclear division. In Houstonia 

 coeridea the difference in size of the chromosomes 

 is less marked, and there is apparently no difference 

 in arrangement. 



In our issue of July 25 we referred to a useful 

 series of wind charts relating to the monsoon area 

 of the North Indian Ocean, published by the U.S. 

 Weather Bureau. This has been supplemented in its 

 meteorological chart of the Indian Ocean for October 

 by an interesting discussion, "Weather of India and 

 her Seas," by the same writer (Mr. W. E. Hurd). 

 He points out the close connection between the 

 meteorology of India and the adjacent seas. .Apart 

 from the seasonal effects of insolation, the weather is 

 directly associated with the distribution of atmospheric 

 pressure in various regions, the changes in which 

 produce the summer and winter monsoons. The 

 writer traces the effects of these over various districts 

 in a clear and instructive manner, some of the data 

 being naturally drawn from the records of the Indian 

 Meteorological Department. In the October charts 

 of the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans the 

 Weather Bureau directs attention to recent alterations 

 in the Act regulating wireless telegraphy, one 

 provision of which enacts that no vessel licensed 

 to carry fifty or more persons shall leave the shores 

 of the United States from October i unless equipped 

 with efficient apparatus for radio-communication, to 



