384 



NA TURE 



[August i6, 1906 



use of mineral fertilisers in Indian agriculture, Ific sub- 

 committee recommends that experiments should be made 

 to test the results of the use of the principal mineral 

 fertilisers. In particular, it urges that special attention 

 should be given to the trial of sulphate of ammonia in 

 sugar-cane cultivation. Arrangements are being made for 

 prospecting the copper-sulphide deposits of Chota Nagpur, 

 and if the deposits prove as valuable as is asserted by 

 some authorities, it is thought that a large chemical and 

 metallurgical industry may be started, the by-products of 

 which will include sulphuric acid and ammonium sulphate. 



Mr. William Cole, of Buckhurst Hill, the honorary 

 secretary of the Essex Field Club, is endeavouring by the 

 aid of a phonographic apparatus to perpetuate the record 

 of Essex folk-songs and peculiarities of dialect and in- 

 tonation, and solicits the assistance of residents in Essex 

 in discovering and enlisting the services of singers of the 

 ancient folk or cradle-songs or quaint harvest-home 

 ballads who will not fear to face the recording-horn of the 

 phonograph. Mr. Cole will be pleased to correspond with 

 anyone willing to cooperate. 



.\ccoRDiNG to L'Avicultcur, the wholesale destruction, for 

 purposes of millinery, of certain species of birds threatens 

 at no distant date to bring about the extermination of some 

 of the rarer and more beautiful kinds which the world 

 possesses. How real this danger is may be estimated by ^ 

 the fact that in one market alone were sold lately at one 

 time 12,000 humming-birds, 28.000 parrakeets, 15,000 king- 

 fishers, 20,000 aigrettes, and thousands of other gorgeous 

 southern birds of different kinds, as well as doves and even 

 sparrows. France receives every year from America, 

 Tonkin, and India millions of birds, which are exchanged 

 for millions of pounds. The number of small birds 

 annually imported into England and France may be com- 

 puted at 1,500,000. Germany exports yearly twenty million 

 feathers which are worked up in England into hat 

 trimmings. In London there are held every month sales 

 of birds' skins and feathers, India alone supplying some 

 thirtv millions of feathers. The South American Republics 

 have awakened to the danger of the extermination of their 

 most ornamental species of birds, and have passed laws 

 regulating their slaughter. A league has been formed in 

 America the members of which forswear the wearing of 

 feathers ; as the demand creates the supply, it is to be 

 hoped more leagues of this kind will be formed elsewhere, 

 and that it will be some day considered bad form for a 

 woman to adorn her headgear or clothing with the bodies 

 and feathers of wild birds. 



M. Lanx.^ster, director of the Belgian Meteorological 

 Service, states that henceforward the results of the inter- 

 national balloon ascents organised by that service will be 

 published in del et Terre. Tandem " sounding " 

 balloons made of india-rubber are used, one of which 

 bursts at a certain height ; thermometers of two kinds are 

 employed — Teisserenc de Bort's bimetallic instrument and 

 Hergesell's German-silver cylindrical thermometer. In the 

 ascents of April 5 and May 3 altitudes of 15,140 metres 

 and 16,970 metres were attained, temperature — 52°-S C. and 

 — 3S°-o C, respectively. In the first experiment the lowest 

 temperature recorded was — 57°-4, at 13,500 metres, dliring 

 the descent; an inversion occurred at 13,940 metres during 

 the ascent. In the second experiment the lowest tempera- 

 tures were — 62°-6, at 10,160 metres, during the ascent, 

 and — 6i°-9, at 9800 metres, during the descent. A large 

 inversion commenced at 10,160 metres, and increased to 

 16,970 metres, when the upper balloon burst. Both ascents 

 were made in the morning. 



NO. 1920, VOL. 74] 



We have received from the director of the Central 

 Meteorological Observatory at Tokio, Japan, complete 

 observations made every four hours, and results for 1904-5, 

 at the Corean stations at Fusan, Chemulpo, Wonsan, and 

 Yongampo, also for part of the year at Josin. We quote 

 the following statistics for Wonsan (lat. 39° 9' N., long. 

 127° 26' E.), 1905, as the station having the greatest 

 annual range of temperature. The mean of the daily 

 maxima in July was So°. i F., and of the minima in 

 February 17°. 6 F. ; the absolute maximum was 94°-8 F. 

 in August and 2°'i in January. The annual rainfall was 

 73*3 inches, of which 20-0 inches fell in July and about 

 0-2 inch in February. 



Museum curators should study attentively certain state- 

 ments by Mr. F. A. Lucas in the report for 1905 of the 

 Museums of the Brooklyn Institute. On the south side 

 of the building the windows are reported to have been 

 "sand-blasted," with the view of diffusing the light, and 

 thus helping to protect the specimens from its ravages. 

 The results are held to have been worth the heavy expense. 

 The second point relates to descriptive labels, on which 

 the author writes as follows : — " As a rule, the visitor 

 wishes to know first the name of an animal or an object, 

 next where it is to be found, and then what it does or is 

 used for ; and the effort is made to supply this inform- 

 ation and not discourage the visitor with statements re- 

 garding matters of which he knows little and cares less. 

 The technical label is the easiest to prepare, but it is the 

 one that most visitors do not care for, while the student 

 can get such information from text-books." If these views 

 be sound, many of the labels in museums in this country 

 require drastic amendment. 



The contents of Biologischcs Centralilatt for August i 

 emphasise the extent to which the problems of hybridisation 

 and variation are occupying the attention of Continental 

 naturalists at the present time. In the first article Dr. 

 K. Goebel describes a double-flowered wild race of 

 Cardamine pratensis which is to be found in abundance 

 in spring on the mountains of Upper Bavaria, and discusses 

 its bearings on the development and infertility of double 

 flowers in general. The sexual and asexual reproduction 

 of fresh-water polyps (Hydra) forms the subject of the 

 second article, in the course of which the author. Dr. R. 

 Hertwig. records the remarkable circumstance that while 

 in one winter all his specimens — some thousands in number 

 — developed ovaries and eggs, in the following season the 

 whole series produced spermatozoa. Dr. J. Gross, in the 

 third article, continues the discussion of the problems of 

 modification and variation, .\lbinism and melanism in re- 

 lation to the Mendelian theory are first discussed, after 

 which the author takes into consideration the case of the 

 interbreeding of black and grey crows, De Vries's muta- 

 tion theory being subsequently contrasted with the 

 Mendelian doctrine. The fourth article, by Mr. L. Plate, 

 is devoted to a review of Hatschek's new theory of 

 modification. 



A COLLECTION' of fishes — both fresh-water and marine — 

 from Argentina forms the subject of a paper by Messrs. 

 Evermann and Kendall, published as No. 1482 of the 

 Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum. Three species 

 — among them one of the exclusively southern and 

 chiefly fresh-water genus Galaxias — are described as new. 

 The physical features of the fresh-waters of the country 

 are noted. 



We have been favoured by the author, Mr. H. R. 

 Watkin, with copies of two papers published by the 

 Torquay Natural History Society. One, which was read 



