December 30, 1909J 



NA TURE 



257 



dependent entirely upon the annual subscriptions of its 

 members. We welcome the new directory as likely to 

 direct prominent attention to the excellent work the society 

 is doing. 



Dr. Francis Ward, who has been very successful in 

 the photography of marine animals, described his methods, 

 and showed the apparatus that he uses, at a recent lecture 

 before the Royal Photographic Society. In a general 

 sense, the apparatus is similar to the usual type of hori- 

 zontal photomicrographic camera, but it is so hinged that 

 the camera proper, including that portion of the base- 

 board that carries the microscope, can be raised into a 

 vertical position. The microscope can be easily undamped 

 and removed, an ordinary photographic lens screwed into 

 the flange of the camera, and the apparatus is then ready 

 for photographing objects in horizontal or vertical tanks, 

 6 inches or 8 inches square. To facilitate manipulation 

 the camera has an internal mirror and a hood, as in 

 ordinary " reflex " cameras, so that focussing and adjust- 

 ment may be done on either the horizontal or the vertical 

 focussing screen.. It is thus possible to work rapidly, and 

 to adjust the apparatus in a very short time to the photo- 

 graphy of specimens natural size or smaller, up to a 

 magnification of about two thousand diameters. These 

 high magnifications are obtained with a high-power pro- 

 jecting eye-piece and the longest camera extension — about 

 30 inches. For low magnifications, up to about twenty-five 

 diameters, Dr. Ward prefers Zeiss's micro-planar lenses. 

 By the use of a small arc-lamp as made for microscopic 

 illumination, " instantaneous " work is possible, and Dr. 

 Ward showed, by way of illustration, a photograph of living 

 and moving oyster spat, magnified sixty diameters, taken 

 in the tenth of a second. One special advantage of colour 

 photographs, as on autochrome plates, was mentioned, 

 'namely, that specimens which will only take a quickly 

 fugitive stain can be photographed while at their best, and 

 so a permanent record obtained. 



Alcyonarian and madreporarian corals from the Irish 

 coast are discussed by Miss J. Stephens, of the Dublin 

 Museum, in " Fisheries, Ireland, Sci. Invest., 1907, No. 5 

 (1909)," the paper including the description by Prof. Hick- 

 son of a new species of the genus Stachyodes. 



Pictures of Arctic and Antarctic scenery, by Mr. F. W. 

 Stokes, form some of the latest additions to the museums 

 of the Brooklyn Institute. According to the December 

 number of the Museum News, Mr. Stokes is absolutely the 

 first to represent the scenery of the Antarctic in painting, 

 while he has had but one predecessor in depicting that of 

 the Arctic. 



Among the additions to the Bristol Museum and Art 

 Gallery recorded in the report for the year ending in 

 September last are living specimens of Polypterus and 

 Protopterus collected by the late Mr. J. S. Budgett, which 

 have proved a source of interest to visitors. Numerous 

 misprints of names, such as Myopotomus, Procyon lator, 

 and Spizoetus, are apparent in the list of additions. 



Naturen for December opens with a memoir and portrait 

 of Mikal Heggelund Foslie, for many years conservator of 

 the botanical collection at Trondhjem, who died on Novem- 

 ber 9, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. Prof. Foslie, who 

 was well known in this country, devoted special attention 

 to the calcareous algs, of which he described the collection 

 brought home by the Percy Sladen expedition to the Indian 

 Ocean. In 1892 he paid a visit to the Isle of Wight for 

 the purpose of collecting these organisms, and he also 

 made a trip to Ireland seven years later with the same 

 object. 



NO. 2096, VOL. 82] 



We have hitherto omitted to mention that in the October 

 number of the American Naturalist Miss Dederer comes to 

 the conclusion, from a careful study of the skull and denti- 

 tion, that the South American marsupials of the genus 

 Ccenolestes appear to be more nearly related to the poly- 

 protodonts than to the diprotodonts, among which they 

 have hitherto been placed. In fact, the large pair of lower 

 incisors, which may well be an adaptive feature, forms 

 practically the only diprotodont character, the dentition in 

 other respects being essentially polyprotodont. 



To the Field of December iS Mr. Douglas Carruthers 

 communicates an article on the big game of Syria, Pales- 

 tine, and the Sinaitic Peninsula, in regard to which our 

 information has hitherto been defective. He adds the wild 

 goat to the fauna of the district, and confirms Mr. Lydek- 

 ker's statement as to the absence of the bubal hartebeest, 

 the white oryx, and the addax. Particulars are given with 

 regard to the horn-characters of Gazella merrilli, whicln 

 is shown to be allied to G. cuvieri of the Atlas. 



A CORRESPONDENT of the Yorkshire Weekly Post of 

 December 11 directs attention to the scheduling by the 

 Westmorland County Council of the hawfinch as a pro- 

 tected bird. This he regards as a grave mistake, seeing 

 that the hawfinch is one of the most mischievous birds 

 against which the gardener has to contend. Reference is 

 also made to the northern extension of the British range 

 of this species, which was formerly unknown in York- 

 shire. The writer also directs attention to the danger to 

 birds caused by the ringing system, as it seems that 

 specimens of various species are shot in order to ascertain 

 whether or no their legs are ringed. 



In the second and concluding part of his account of the 

 life-history of the American toad, published in the Decem- 

 ber number of the American Naturalist, Mr. N. Miller asks 

 the question why, in spite of the great fertility of the 

 female, the numbers of the species remain practically 

 stationary. Taking the low figure of 8000 eggs as the 

 number in one spawn, it appears that with the exception of 

 two, all these, as well as the whole of the eggs in the 

 other spawns of the same female, must perish if the species 

 remain, as appears to be the case, at the same numerical 

 level. Various water animals, such as dragon-flies, 

 water-beetles and water-bugs, together with their larvje, 

 newts, and crayfish, appear to be the chief agents in 

 carrying on the work of destruction. 



Great interest attaches to the description by Dr. E. L. 

 Trouessart, in the October number of the Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History, of a new representative of 

 the gymnuras, from Sze-chuen, for which the name Neo- 

 tetracus sinensis is proposed. It will be remembered that 

 until recently these remarkable Insectivora were known only 

 by the Burmo-Malay genera Gymnura and Hylomys. A 

 few years ago, however, a third genus, Podogymnura, was 

 described on the evidence of a single specimen from Mount 

 Abou, in the Philippines, and now comes the new Sze- 

 chuen form, which is the smallest of all, and serves to 

 connect the other Gymnurinje with the Erenaceinse. It 

 has, in fact, the general appearance of Podogymnura 

 coupled with the dentition of a hedgehog. The genus has 

 been named from the apparent resemblance of the lower 

 jaw to the one from the French Miocene on which was 

 founded the genus Tetracus. 



In the Journal of Hygiene for November (ix.. No. 3) 

 Prof. Hewlett, Mr. Villar, and Mr. Revis discuss the 

 nature of the cellular elements present in milk. They con- 

 clude that the majority are not leucocytes, as has generally 



