June 22, 1905] 



NA TURE 



19T 



and a minimum about 6 p.m. The variations of nadir 

 are mucii smaller, and do not show any conclusive result 

 except a discordance near 6 p.m. — On the determination 

 of stellar proper motions without reference to meridian 

 places : .A. R. Hinks. — The meteors from Biela's comet : 

 W. F. Denning: and Dr. Downing^. — General scheme for 

 determinations of stellar parallax from photographs taken 

 at the Cambridge Observatory : A. R. Hinks and Dr. 

 H. N. Russell. A brief account was also given of results 

 already obtained for the parallax of Lalande 21185 and 

 7 Virginis. 



Zoological Society, June 6. — Dr. Henry Woodward, 

 F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair. — Specimen of a new 

 bushbuck, which it is proposed to call Tragelaphus 

 haywoodi, sp. n. : O. Thomas. Mr. Thomas also ex- 

 hibited some mammals and birds from Japan obtained by 

 a collector sent out by the society's president, the Duke of 

 Bedford, K.G., who proposed to further zoological science 

 by having systematic collections made in that part of the 

 world. Of the present series Mr. Thomas directed atten- 

 tion to a fine marten, different from the true Mustela 

 melampus, and which he proposed to call Mustela 

 melampus bedfordi, subsp. n. — On the intestinal tract of 

 mammals : Dr. P. C. Mitchell. In the course of the last 

 eight years, the author had taken every possible opportunity 

 of studying the alimentary tract of mammals from speci- 

 mens that had died in the society's gardens, and had 

 obtained additional material elsewhere, with the result that 

 his investigations covered more than two hundred individuals, 

 and included the greater number of the mammalian orders. 

 • — The natural history of western Uganda, deduced from 

 observations and collections made by the author while 

 acting as British Boundary Commissioner on the Uganda 

 frontiers : Lieut. -Colonel C. Delme-Radclitfe. — Distribu- 

 tion of Mexican Amphibia and Reptilia : Dr. H. Gadow. 

 After a critical revision of the species recorded from Mexico, 

 the author stated that he grouped them according to the 

 prevailing physical features of the country. It was found 

 that Mexico had received its present fauna from both the 

 northern and the southern continents. The northern 

 immigrants had spread over high tablelands and moun- 

 tains, whilst not a few species had descended into the hot 

 lowlands, even into Central America and still further south. 

 On the other hand, the southerners were divided by the 

 plateau into an Atlantic and a Pacific mass, each having 

 had time to modify many of its members according to the 

 very different physical features. Scarcely any of these 

 southerners had ascended the plateau, but they were not 

 averse to ascending high outlying mountains. A com- 

 parative list of species confined to high altitudes was given, 

 and the conclusion arrived at, with the help of geological 

 data and the fauna of the Antilles, was that the exchange 

 between the north and south took place during the Miocene 

 epoch, at which period alone the Antilles were connected 

 with Central America. — New species of reptiles discovered 

 in Mexico by Dr. H. Gadow : G. A. Bouleng;er. — 

 Batrachians and reptiles collected in South Africa by 

 Mr. C. H. B. Grant and presented to the British Museum 

 by Mr. C. D. Rudd : G. A. Boulenger. — Notes on the 

 anatomy of the yellow-throated lizard, Gerrhosaurus 

 flavigtdaris : F. E. Beddard. — Notes on the cerebellum 

 in the exanthematic monitor, Varaniis exanthematicus, and 

 on the cerebral hemispheres in the Taraguira lizard, Tropi- 

 durus hispidus : F. E. Beddard. — The foetus and placenta 

 of the spiny mouse, Acomys cahirinus : R, Asshcton. 

 — Some new Coleoptera from South Africa : Rev. H. S. 

 Gorham. The beetles referred to were of the families 

 Malacodermata, Cleridae, and Erotylidas, and had been 

 collected by Dr. H. Brauns, of Willowmore, in Cape 

 Colony, either at Willowmore or at Delagoa Bay in 1900 

 or 1901, and indicated that the fauna of South Africa was 

 rich in species of the two first families, and more so than 

 had been supposed in members of the latter family. One 

 new genus was described. — Remarks on the supposed 

 clavicle of the sauropodous dinosaur Diplodocus : Baron 

 Francis Nopcsa. 



Edinburgh. 



Royal Society, June 5. — Prof. Geikie in the chair. — The 



distribution of the nerve cells in the intermedio-lateral tract 

 of the dorso-lumbar region of the human spinal cord : Dr. 



A. Bruce. The region was found to extend from the end of 

 the upper third of the eighth cervical to the lower extremity 

 of the second or, perhaps, the upper part of the third lumbar 

 segment, and to occur, not as a continuous tract, but as 

 clusters or groups of cells, separated in some of the upper 

 and lower segments by distinct intervals in which there 

 were no cells, but in the greater part of the dorsal region 

 by incomplete intervals in which there were present a 

 small number of cells. The clusters appeared to be 

 arranged in a manner characteristic more or less of each 

 segment, attaining their maximum number in the third 

 dorsal. The cells lay in the white matter behind the 

 lateral portion of the anterior cornua in the eighth cervical 

 and first dorsal segments ; below that point they occupied 

 the apex of the lateral horn, and from the lower part of 

 the second dorsal region they occupied also the grey matter 

 subjacent to the formatio reticularis, and occasionally ex- 

 tending into the formatio reticularis itself. The clusters 

 of cells in this, the reticular group, were frequently con- 

 tinuous with those at the apex of the horn, and belonged 

 undoubtedly to the same system. It was found that the 

 symmetry between the two sides of the cord was not quite 

 complete. — The Tardigrada of the Scottish lochs : J. 

 Murray. Twenty-one species were identified, of which 

 six were considered new. It has been usual to distinguish 

 species of Echiniscus by the number and arrangement of 

 the spines and other processes, but in some of the species 

 it was found that spines continue to increase in size at 

 the moult, and that new ones may appear. Also one or 

 two species lay eggs when hardly larger than larvae, and 

 at successive moults thereafter lay more and larger eggs. 

 In the study of the order there is, in fact, great need for 

 careful tracing of life-histories. — Report on the Medusae 

 found in the Firth of Clyde (1901-2), and notes on the 

 pelagic fauna : E. T. Browne. The report deals with 

 thirty species of HydromedusiE and five species of 

 Scyphomedus^e, most of which had not previously been 

 found in the Clyde. The fauna is distinctly littoral. 

 Important information as to the seasonal changes in the 

 fauna was obtained. Meduss are very scarce in winter, 

 and begin to appear about the middle of March. Most 

 of the forms appear during summer, and begin to die off 

 in September and October. The notes on the pelagic fauna 

 contain an account of a number of miscellaneous animals 

 found in the tow-net at different times of year. — Report on 

 the free-swimming Crustacea found in the Firth of Clyde 

 (1901-2) ; Dr. T. Scott. The summer months were the 

 best and richest for plankton in the Clyde, a characteristic 

 feature of the summer being the vast quantities of diatoms. 

 During the winter months the plankton consists almost 

 entirely of five species of copepods. — On a new method of 

 preparing esters : Dr. W. W. Taylor. The water formed 

 by the interaction of the acid and alcohol was removed by 

 the addition of benzene, and distillation of the ternary 

 mixture of alcohol, benzene, and water. — Vanishing 

 aggregates of determinant minors : Prof. W. H. Metzler. 



P.^RIS. 



^Academy of Sciences, June 13. — M. Troost in the chair. 

 — The action of fluorine on the oxygen compounds of 

 nitrogen : Henri Moissan and Paul Lebeau (see 

 p. 183). — The moving shadows of the total eclipse of the 

 sun of May 12, 1706 : G. Rayet. Reference to some re- 

 marks of De Joly concerning the phenomena of moving 

 shadows observed by him during the total eclipse of the 

 sun. May, 1706. — On a solution of Monge's problem re- 

 lating to the equation /(rf-v,, rf.v,, . . . dx„) = o with 

 variable coefficients : M. Bottasso. — The measurement of 

 the capacity of long submarine cables : M. Devaux- 

 Charbonnel. The principle of the method consists of 

 charging the cable and a condenser of known capacity 

 placed in cascade, the capacity of the cable being deduced 

 from the charge taken up by the condenser. The method 

 has several advantages over those in current use, and has 

 been applied with success to the cable recently laid between 

 Brest and Dakar. — Thermoelectric power and the Thomson 

 effect : M. Ponsot. — Pyrrhotine, ferromagnetic in the 

 magnetic plane and paramagnetic perpendicularly to that 

 plane : Pierre Weiss. The atomic susceptibility of iron in 

 pyrrhotine, measured perpendicularly to the magnetic 

 plane, is very near the atomic susceptibility of iron in 

 paramagnetic bodies. — On the true atomic weight of 



NO. i860, VOL. 72] 



