February 6, 1913] 



NATURE 



b2- 



With the current number, the second volume of the 

 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America is 

 completed. The notes, which we have given from 

 time to time, are some indication of the useful work 

 carried on by the society, which now includes 375 

 members. The recent number contains a portrait 

 and short memoir of Comte de Montessus de Ballore, 

 the director of the Chilean earthquake service. 



The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries announces 

 that, in conjunction with the economic ornithological 

 committee of the British Association, it is engaged 

 on an inquiry into the food of birds, especially those 

 believed to be injurious to farmers and fruit-growers. 

 Investigations are at present confined to the rook, 

 the starling, and the chaffinch. The Board would 

 be glad to receive the names of correspondents who 

 are willing to send to an address which will be sup- 

 plied them, specimens of one or more of these birds 

 at regular intervals during the year. Correspondents 

 are wanted from all counties in England and Wales. 



The death is announced of Dr. J. F. J. Sykes 

 (medical officer of health of St. Pancras, London) in 

 his sixtieth year. From an obituary notice in The 

 Times we learn that for some years Dr. Sykes was 

 an assistant examiner in hygiene to the Science and 

 Art Department, and did a great deal for the im- 

 provement of public health in London. The Roval 

 Statistical Society awarded him the Howard medal 

 in 1900 ; he was Milroy lecturer of the Royal College 

 of Physicians in 1901, member of the council of the 

 Royal Sanitary Institute, president of the Society 

 of Medical Ofificers of Health, and a member of 

 various foreign societies of hygiene. 



A CIRCULAR has reached us referring to an exhibi- 

 tion of interesting scientific objects and apparatus to 

 be held at the Assembly Rooms, Surbiton, on February 

 i(i-22. In the list of exhibits we notice stellar photo- 

 graphs, photomicrographs, wireless telegraphy and 

 telephony, the microphone, liquid air, the spectro- 

 scope, Lissajous's figures, Chladni's plates, singing 

 flames, the spinthariscope, flint implements, many 

 microscopes, with objects in the fields of view, and 

 other things of scientific interest. Fifty years ago or 

 more — in the days of Prof. Pepper and his optical 

 illusions — such exhibitions as that to be held at 

 Surbiton were common, and it is to be regretted that 

 they are not now held more frequently. We hope 

 the success of this exhibition will be sufficient to 

 encourage the promoters to continue the exhibition at 

 other places. 



By the death of Prof. Robert Collett, of Christiania, 

 Europe has lost one of its leading vertebrate zoologists 

 of the older school. His work on the mammals and 

 birds of Norway was always sound and accurate, and 

 its value is little, if at all, impaired by the fact that 

 he seems never to have quite reconciled himself to 

 the rules of nomenclature as evolved bv the modern 

 systematist. He had just completed his magnum 

 opus, his " Mammals of Norway," wherein are sum- 

 marised the study and observations of a long life 

 devoted to the zoology of the mammals of his country. 

 Europe, and the whole zoological world, are to be con- 

 NO. 2258, VOL. 90] 



gratulated that he was spared to complete the above 

 work, which must remain for a very long time the 

 chief authority on the mammals of Norway, and is 

 besides indispensable to students of the order in other 

 countries. 



The friends of the late Mr. H. O. Jones, F.R.S., 

 who with his wife met his death in such tragic cir- 

 cumstances last summer in the Alps, are of opinion 

 that some permanent memorial to him should be 

 established in the University of Cambridge. There 

 is at present no teaching post especially associated 

 with physical chemistry in the University, and as the 

 laboratory now affords opportunity for study and re- 

 search in this modern branch of chemistry, the com- 

 mittee appointed for the purpose of the memorial 

 recommends that the endowment of such a post in 

 connection with physical chemistry would form an 

 appropriate and a lasting memorial to Mr. Jones, and 

 one calculated to further a cause in which he was 

 peculiarly interested. Subscriptions towards this ap- 

 propriate form of memorial to Mr. Jones may be 

 paid to either of the hon. treasurers, Mr. W. L. Mollison, 

 Clare College, Mr. R. Waley Cohen, 11 Sussex 

 Square, London, W., or to the Humphrey Owen 

 Jones Memorial Fund, c/o Messrs. Barclay and Co., 

 Cambridge Branch. Subscriptions to the extent of 

 more than 2750?. have already been received. 



The present winter is proving exceptionally mild 

 over the whole of the British Isles, and the midland 

 and eastern districts of England have as yet experi- 

 enced the greatest excess of temperature, whilst they 

 have had a rainfall about half as much again as the 

 normal. The mean temperature at Greenwich for 

 January is 41-3°, which is nearly 3° in excess of the 

 average, whilst in January last year the mean was 

 40-4°. The higher temperature this year is almost 

 ! wholly due to an excess in the maximum or day 

 readings. January this year had nine frosts against 

 eight in the corresponding month last year ; open to 

 the sky there were twenty-one frosts this year and 

 nineteen last year. The rainfall in January this year 

 at Greenwich is 2-67 in., which is 074 in. more than 

 the average, but 0-36 in. less than in January last 

 year. In the London districts there was an excess 

 of sunshine in January this year, the duration at 

 Greenwich being fifty-six hours, which is ten hours 

 more than the average of the last ten years, and 

 twenty-two hours more than the average of the last 

 thirty years. In January, 1912, the duration of sun- 

 shine at Greenwich was only twentj'-eight hours. At 

 Kew the duration of sunshine this January is forty, 

 one hours, against 205 hours last year, and in the 

 City, at Bunhill Row, the duration of sunshine this 

 January is 13-5 hours, and was only eight hours in 

 January last year. The rainfall for January is in 

 excess of the average in all parts of the British Isles 

 except in the north of Scotland; the greatest excess 

 is in Ireland and in the southern and midland dis- 

 tricts of England. The duration of bright sunshine 

 for the past month is below the average in all dis- 

 tricts of the United Kingdom except in the south-east 

 of England, but the deficiency is only 02 hour per day 



