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NATURE 



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. ' The May number of Museum Neivs (Brooklyn Institute) 

 contains an interesting notice of specimens in the collec- 

 tion illustrating the now obsolete manufacture of tapa 

 cloth in Hawaii and other Polynesian islands. 



A PRELIMINARY report, by Dr. H. W. Conn, on the fresh- 

 water protozoans of Connecticut, issued as Bulletin No. 2 

 of the Connecticut Geological and Natural History Survey, 

 is illustrated by no less than thirty-four beautifully executed 

 plates. Hitherto the American fresh-water representatives 

 of these lowly organisms have been but little studied, and 

 the present research is merely a prelude to a fuller account 

 of their distribution and their relation to the purity of 

 drinking water. Descriptions of species are altogether 

 omitted in this report, and even the generic position of 

 some of the forms mentioned is left more or less undecided. 



In connection . with the preceding paragraph may be 

 appropriately noticed Mr. D. J. Scourfield's address (de- 

 livered in December last) on fresh-water biological stations, 

 which is published in the April issue of the Journal of the 

 Ouekett Microscopical Club, since this also deals with the 

 effects of organisms on the purity of water used for 

 domestic purposes. The gradual awakening of interest in 

 the subject of the detailed study of fresh waters and their 

 organisms is sketched, and the history of the establishment 

 of stations for the purpose briefly described, special refer- 

 ence being made to the one founded by Mr. E. Gurney 

 on Sutton Broad, Norfolk, in 1902. The lecturer concludes 

 with remarks about what fresh-water biological stations 

 should be, whenever the requisite financial means are 

 obtainable. 



Among other monographs on American invertebrates 

 recently received is a revision of the beetles of the family 

 StaphylinidcE included in the section Psederini. In this 

 article, forming No. 2 of vol. xv. of the Transactions of the 

 St. Louis Academy, the author, Mr. T. L. Casey, points out 

 that the taxonomic problem presented by these beetles is 

 one of great interest in reference to the comparative 

 morphology of the tribe. Genera from all parts of the 

 world are included in the revision, but with the exception 

 of the types of new generic forms, the only species cata- 

 logued are those inhabiting America to the northward of 

 Mexico. 



In an article on the affinities of Equisetum in the May 

 number of the American Naturalist Prof. D. H. Campbell 

 comes to the conclusion that these archaic plants are re- 

 lated to ferns rather than to lycopods, and that both ferns 

 and equisetums are probably divergent branches from a 

 common ancestral stock. In the same issue Mr. D. D. 

 Jackson discusses the movements of diatoms, many of 

 which appear to be due to the evolution of oxygen gas 

 produced by the activity of the chlorophyll in these 

 organisms. Attention may likewise be directed to Mr. 

 A. H. Clark's paper on the habits of the important West 

 Indian food-fish known locally as " whitebait " or " tri- 

 tri " {Sicydium plumieri). 



In the report of the delegates of the University Museum 

 for 1904, published on May 16 as a supplement to the 

 Oxford University Gazette, special attention is directed by 

 the Hope professor of zoology (Prof. Poulton) to the in- 

 crease in the insect collection and the work that has been 

 accomplished, or is in progress, in connection with the 

 insect collection, which is rapidly becoming one of the 

 finest in the world. The most recent addition is the collec- 

 tion of 7000 British Microlepidoptera presented by Mrs. 

 Bazett, of Reading, another splendid acquisition being the 

 NO. 1857, VOL. 72] 



collection of Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera bequeathed by 

 Mr. G. A. J. Rothney. The report also alludes to the 

 recent decisive confirmation of the existence of three dis- 

 tinct mimetic types of female in a South African Papilio, 

 and to the remarkable features presented by certain 

 southern butterfly faunas, which are almost wholly of a 

 northern type. The editing of the Burchell manuscript, and 

 the identification of the specimens in the collection of the 

 great traveller referred to therein, are also mentioned. 



Among the more important articles in the issues of the 

 Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy for the current 

 year, the following may be specially mentioned. To the 

 January issue Mr. C. W. Johnson contributes an annotated 

 list of the type-specimens of Cretaceous invertebrates in the 

 collection of the academy, while Mr. H. W. Fowler gives the 

 second instalment of a paper on new or little-known scom.- 

 broid fishes. Later on Mr. H. Crawley discusses the move- 

 ments of gregarines ; and in the February issue Mr. H. A. 

 Pilsbry describes a number of new Japanese marine molluscs. 

 Both entomologists and morphologists will find much to 

 interest them in an article by Dr. E. F. Phillips on ' the 

 structure and development of the compound eye of the 

 bee, while IVIr. Crawley's preliminary notice of a new 

 sporozoon (Coelosporidium blattellae) found in the crotop- 

 bug (Blattella germanica), and Mr. T. H. Montgomery's 

 contribution to our knowledge of the spermatogenesis of 

 certain spiders and remarks on chromosome reduction, will 

 appeal to specialists in such matters. 



A RECENT issue of the Jenaische Zeitschrift contains the 

 report of an address, delivered in June last before the 

 Medical and Scientific Society of Jena by Prof. E. Haeckel 

 on the progress of biology in that city during the nine- 

 teenth century. Confining himself chiefly to morphology, 

 and dwelling specially on the various theories which have 

 been advanced in regard to that of the vertebrate skull, 

 the professor pointed out that in Jena the " science cen- 

 tury " may be divided into three periods. The first of these, 

 during which Schleiden advanced the cell-theory, extended 

 to 1838 ; then followed an interval of twenty years, after 

 which, in 1859, came Darwin's epoch-making theory of 

 the evolution of species. After referring to the work of 

 Blatt on embryology . and development, the lecturer 

 emphasised the morphological importance of the " vertebral 

 theory of the skull " enunciated by Goethe and Oken in 

 the first third of the century, and of Huschke's labours in 

 connection with the development of the skull and the 

 sense organs in the second third. A whole paragraph is 

 devoted to Goethe's discovery of the premaxilla in man. 

 Oscar Schmidt, Johannes Miiller, Carl Gegenbaur, and the 

 other great names associated for longer or shorter periods 

 with Jena and its teaching, receive in turn their share of 

 praise in this admirable historical address. 



MM. Calmette and Breton have repeated the experi- 

 ments of Loos and others on the transference of infection 

 in ankylostomiasis through the skin. They find that the 

 larvje of both the human and the canine Ankylostoma 

 pass with the greatest facility through the skin of the 

 dog, causing infection of the animal (Acad, de Mid., Paris, 

 March 24). 



The Bulletin of the College of Agriculture of the Imperial 

 University, Tokyo (vol. vi.. No. 4), contains several papers 

 of interest on the value and use of artificial manures for 

 various crops, and others on the flowering of the bamboo, 

 on oxidases, on the determination of fusel oil, on a bacillus 

 observed in flacherie, &c. With regard to flacherie (a 

 destructive disease affecting silkworms), the conclusion is 



