September 13, 1906] 



NA TURE 



497 



has done more than Fritz Schaudinn, whose premature 

 death this summer has been lamented by the whole world 

 of biologists. He not only made many discoveries of 

 importance, he opened up new lines of investigation which 

 are full of promise. His work has made it safe to pro- 

 phesy that protozoology will surely develop into a depart- 

 ment not less important than bacteriology. Doubtless in- 

 fluenced by his master, F. E. Schuize, Fritz Schaudinn 

 began about ten years ago to study protozoa, and he soon 

 attained the rank of a discoverer. His researches on 

 multiple nuclear division, the central corpuscle of heliozoa, 

 and the dimorphism of foraminifera (at the same time eluci- 

 dated by Mr. J. J. Lister) were of much interest, but it 

 was his working out (along with Siedlecki) of the life- 

 history of Coccidia (1897) that first indicated his character- 

 istic ability. During the last few years he published 

 memoir after memoir on the life-histories of parasitic 

 protozoa, such as Trypanosoma and Spirochsete, and made 

 excursions into the field of bacteriology, e.g. in the dis- 

 covery of the spirillum of syphilis. He founded the Archiv 

 fiir Protistenkunde, now in its seventh volume, and he 

 had time to indulge in some purely zoological work, e.g. 

 the study of Tardigrada. He was cut oft in June last in 

 the midst of his labours, at the early age of thirty-five — 

 an irreparable loss to science. Nor does the sadness end 

 here, for Schaudinn has left a widow and young family 

 very inadequately provided for. As he has left the world 

 his debtor, it is to be hoped that success will attend a 

 proposed international memorial, in which many prominent 

 biologists and physicians in this country have already 

 interested themselves. Subscriptions should be sent to the 

 treasurer, Mr. Adam Sedgwick, F.R.S., New Museums, 

 Cambridge. 



The May issue of the Proceedings of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia contains a paper by Mr. 

 J. A. G. Rehn on non-saltatorial orthopterous insects 

 (inclusive of Mantidae and Phasmid:e) from British Guiana, 

 in which several new species are named and described, 

 and a second, by the same author, on five new species of 

 Orthoptera from Tonkin. 



The whole of the second part of vol. Ixxxiv. of the 

 Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie is taken up by 

 a paper of 155 pages on the terminal nerve apparatus in 

 the mouth-parts of birds, and the general mode of nerve 

 termination in vertebrates as a whole. The author. Dr. E. 

 Botezat, concludes that the terminations of peripheral 

 nerves conform to a common fundamental plan, and have 

 a definite structure of their own, which is unlike that of 

 the nerve terminations of the higher sensory organs. 



The habits and reactions of the American pond-snail 

 Lymnaeus elodfs (probably only a local phase of the 

 European L. palustris) form the subject of No. 6 of Cold 

 Spring Harbour Monographs, the author in this instance 

 being Mr. H. E. Walter. Although the creature ordinarily 

 breathes by coming at intervals to the surface and filling 

 its lung-chamber with air, in exceptional circumstances it 

 is able to breathe without rising to the surface at all, the 

 lung-chamber being then filled with water. This secondary 

 adaptation is, however, at once relinquished when the 

 inducing circumstances disappear. 



Science Bulletin No. 8 (vol. i.) of the Brooklyn Insti- 

 tute of Arts and Sciences contains notes on birds from 

 Trinidad, by Mr. G. K. Cherrie ; descriptions of various 

 North American moths and their larvEe, by Mr. H. G. 

 Dyar ; and a list of geometrid moths from Utah, Texas, 

 and Arizona, with descriptions of new species, by Mr. 

 NO 1924, VOL. 74] 



R. T. Pearsall. A number of star-fishes from the Pacific 

 coast of North America are described as new by Mr. W. K. 

 Fisher in vol. viii., pp. 111-139, of the Proceedings of 

 the Washington .Vcadcmy of Sciences. .\ detailed mono- 

 graph, with illustrations, is promised later. 



The contents of the September number of the Entom- 

 ologists' Monthly Magazine include a continuation of the 

 nomenclature of the Microlepidoptera by Lord Walsing- 

 ham and Mr. J. H. Durrant, a further instalment of Dr. 

 i J. H. Wood's synopsis of the British flies of the genus 

 Phora, and a paper by Mr. N. H. Joy on beetles infesting 

 the nests of birds and mammals. Having taken the beetle 

 Cholera colonoides, as well as other supposed rare species, 

 in birds' nests last year, the author of the paper just 

 mentioned came to the conclusion that if such " stations " 

 were carefully searched the rarity of the beetles in question 

 would prove a myth. Put to the test of experiment, the 

 theory has turned out to be true, while the nests of the 

 smaller mammals have proved an even more productive 

 source of interesting Coleoptera. 



The fourth part of vol. xxxv. of Gegenbaur's Morph- 

 ologisches ]ahrbuch opens with a eulogy of the founder 

 delivered by Prof. C. Seffner at the unveiling at Heidel- 

 berg on May 12 of a bust of the great anatomist. A 

 photograph of the bust accompanies this brief resume of 

 Carl Gegenbaur's life and work. A large part of the rest 

 of the issue is occupied by a long and elaborate descrip- 

 tion and discussion, by Mr. H. Braus, of Heidelberg, on 

 the fore-limb and operculum of the larva of the frog 

 Bombinator. Attention is directed to a certain correlation 

 between the fore-limb and the operculum, more especially 

 with regard to the perforation in the latter. Dr. Charlotte 

 Miiller discusses the development of the human thoracic 

 cavity, while Messrs. G. Kolossoff and E. Paukul formu- 

 late a mathematical theory to explain the papillary ridges 

 and grooves on the palm and sole of the human hand and 

 foot. 



During last year's visit of the British Association to 

 South Africa, Mr. C. F. Rousselet occupied himself, so 

 far as circumstances would permit, with collecting the 

 rotiferous animalcules of the country. Despite very un- 

 favourable conditions for collecting, the result of his labours 

 has been enormously to increase the South African list, 

 especially if Natal (where more work on the group had 

 been done than elsewhere) be excluded. Mr. Rousselet's 

 paper on this fauna is published, with illustrations, in the 

 .August number of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical 

 Society. At the conclusion of his paper the author com- 

 ments on the extraordinarily wide geographical distribution 

 of many of these minute organisms. " The best explan- 

 ation is that the Rotifera, in addition to thin-shelled summer 

 eggs which hatch at once, produce resting eggs with thick 

 tough shells capable of withstanding any amount of desic- 

 cation, and which may be wafted up with the dust of 

 dried-up pools, and carried very long distances by the wind 

 and air-currents, and thus scattered over the whole surface 

 of the earth, and then come to life and produce their 

 kind." 



An account in Naturwissenschaftlichc Wochenschrift 

 (July 8) of the Sigillarieje, by Dr. W. Koehne, indicates 

 how the impressions or casts, known as incrustations, of 

 these fossil Lycopods are produced, and contrasts them 

 with petrifactions in which cell structure is preserved. 



For several years the application of electricity to agri- 

 culture has been increasing in Germany, where the owners 

 of large farms have been brought »o see the advantages 

 I 



