326 



NA rURE 



[August 3, 1905 



culosis. The work of the society is to be purely scientific. 

 The membership is restricted to thirty members, who are 

 to be chosen irrespective of school or opinion, and there 

 is to be no president. The members are in turn to preside 

 at the meetings. 



At the opening meeting of the council of the Liverpool 

 Institute of Tropical Research, held on Monday, Sir 

 Alfred Jones, the chairman, remarked that in many 

 respects countries such as Germany, France, and Belgium 

 are applying scientific methods to their commercial enter- 

 prises, especially to those conducted in the tropics, with 

 greater success than Great Britain ; and that it is necessary 

 for the British merchant to bestir himself and take 

 advantage of every assistance that science can offer. He 

 guaranteed the institute looo/. a year for four years ; and 

 among other guarantees were : — Mr. W. H. Lever, looo!. 

 a year for four years; Mr. T. Sutton Timmis, 250/. a year. 

 It is proposed to take steps to obtain a charter of in- 

 corporation for the institute. 



Thk tenth session of the International Statistical Insti- 

 tute was opened on Monday by the Prince of Wales, as 

 honorary president of the institute, and of the Royal 

 Statistical Society. In the course of his address, the 

 Prince said : — " My revered grandfather, the late Prince 

 Consort, who did so much for the progress of science, was 

 instrumental in rendering special assistance to the first 

 efl'ort of statistical science to secure for itself an assured 

 and prominent position in the ranks of the older and better 

 recognised sciences. Quetelet, whose name stands pre- 

 eminent in that science, was at one time the Prince 

 Consort's mathematical teacher, and later on his close 

 personal friend. It was on the occasion of our great 

 exhibition of 185 1 that a large and distinguished company 

 of statisticians was assembled in London. It was chiefly at 

 the instigation of Quetelet that the question of instituting 

 periodical international congresses for the discussion of 

 questions of common interest and international concern 

 was proposed. In consequence of this proposal an inter- 

 national organisation was formed, and the first inter- 

 national statistical congress was held in Brussels in 1853. 

 Later on, in i86o, London welcomed the international 

 congress, which met under the presidency of the Prince 

 Consort, who, in his opening address, remarked : — ' The 

 importance of these international congresses cannot be 

 overrated. They not only awaken public attention to the 

 value of these pursuits by bringing together men of all 

 countries who devote their lives to this work, and who 

 are thus enabled to exchange their thoughts and varied 

 experiences. They also pave the way to an agreement 

 among different Governments and nations to follow up 

 these common inquiries in a common spirit, bv a common 

 method and for a common end.' This watchword of the 

 congress of i860 I would endeavour to commend to the 

 congress of 1905 as worthily embodying its aims and its 

 objects. National and social tendencies are to-dav capable 

 of increasingly accurate measurement with the aid of the 

 very numerous statistical tabulations which now exist. In 

 the future all branches of social science must look for 

 their advancement and increase of precision to the con- 

 tinually improving character of the raw material furnished 

 them by statisticians. For scientific progress, however, a 

 primary essential is active and effective cooperation among 

 scientific workers in all countries in order that publicity 

 can be given to their results and uniformity obtained in 

 the collection and arrangement of data for the purpose of 

 their common employment." 



NO 1866, VOL. 72] 



The first number of a periodical for the publication oi 

 original investigations in economic biology will appear on 

 September 29. The new magazine will be entitled the 

 journal oj Economic Biology^ and will be edited by Mr. 

 W. E. Collinge, with the cooperation of Prof. A. H. R. 

 Buller, Prof. G. H. Carpenter, Mr. R. Newstead, and Mr. 

 A. E. Shipley, F.R.S. 



Nos. I and 2 of vol. xxvi. of Notes from the Leyden 

 Museum are entirely occupied by a memoir by Dr. O. 

 Finsch on the birds collected by Dr. A. W. Nieuwenhuis 

 in Dutch Borneo, more especially in the districts of 

 Mahakam and Kajan. No less than 209 species were re- 

 presented in the collection. The paper is illustrated with 

 a coloured plate of the new species Poliolophus 

 nit'uwenhuisi, as well as with a map of the districts 

 traversed by the explorer. 



The most generally interesting item in the June number 

 of the \'ictorian Naturalist is the description by Mr. J. A. 

 Hill of fights between two species of ants. One of the 

 two is the large soldier-ant (Formica purpurea), a species 

 which forms huge nests, and is capable of overpowering 

 such creatures as small snakes. Nevertheless, this species 

 is vanquished and exterminated by a small black ant 

 scarcely one-third its size, the battles between the two 

 often lasting months, and the victors finally taking 

 possession of the nests of the vanquished. 



■\t the annual meeting held in May last of the Boston 

 .Society of Natural History, the curator of the museum 

 reported (Proceedings, vol. .xxxii.. No. 5) that the plan for 

 re-arranging the collections referred to at the previous 

 meeting had been in great measure carried out, and that 

 I he New England mammals and birds now occupy all the 

 cases on the main floor of the building with the e.xception 

 of one temporarily devoted to the palrcontology of the 

 district. This special attention to the proper display of 

 the local fauna is a feature which should be copied by all 

 provincial museums. 



The July number of the Zoologist contains a full report 

 of a lecture on the migration of birds delivered at the 

 recent International Ornithological Congress by Mr. Otto 

 Herman, director of the Hungarian Central Office of 

 Ornithology. The lecturer directed special attention to 

 work which had been accomplished in Hungary in the 

 matter of recording the dates of arrival and departure of 

 migratory species by means of the services of a very large 

 number of observers scattered all over the country. It has 

 been ascertained, for example, that it takes one hundred 

 and five days for swallows to complete their migration 

 throughout Europe, that is to say, from Gibraltar in the 

 south to l.ulea in the north, the young being fully fledged 

 in the former locality by the time the old birds have 

 reached the latter. Even in Hungary itself the period of 

 arrival may last as long as seventy days, the time that the 

 species spends in that country averaging one hundred and 

 sixty-seven days. 



In recording a collection of fishes obtained by Dr. B. 

 Dean from Negros Island, Philippines, Messrs. Jordan and 

 Seale (['roc. VS. Nat. Mus., No. 1407) take occasion to 

 mention that a large percentage of the small species, so 

 often neglected by collectors, appear to be new. Taken 

 generally, the Philippine fish fauna seems to be Very 

 similar, to that of the Indo-Malayan archipelago, although 

 a few' species are identical with Indian forms. In the 

 course of their list the authors give an example of one 

 of those transpositions of generic names which are so 

 hostile to the real progress of zoology. In this particular 



