August 22, 1907] 



NA TURE 



421 



mpnt or public grants, a fee is charged in addition lo the 

 out-of-pocket expenses. All fees paid for lectures are 

 devoted to the workinj; expenses of the section. 



In a paper by Mr. W. 1". Allen on the subcutaneous 

 vessels of the head in certain fishes, published in the 

 Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences (vol. 

 ix., p. 79), we regret to observe that Lepidosteus, the 

 well-known name of the bony pike, is changed to 

 I.episosteus. Even if the latter be the original rendering, 

 the former is grammatically correct, and should be main- 

 tained. We have also received copies of two papers on 

 Mendelism, one by Mr. C. B. Davenport and the other 

 by Mr. O. K. Cook, published in the same series. 

 \'ariation and correlation in the crayfish, by Messrs. 

 Pearl and Clawson, and researches on North -American 

 .Acrididse, by Mr. A. P. Morse, form the subject of papers 

 issued by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, of 

 which copies have reached us. 



According to the report in the July number of the 

 Viclorian Naturalist, Mr. F. C. A. Bernard selected as 

 the subject of his presidential address to the last annual 

 meeting of the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria the 

 increased facilities for the study of natural history in 

 .Australasia since 1880. .\fter a well-deserved compliment 

 to the Linnean Socirty of New South Wales, which he 

 believed to be the onl\ r rganisation existing at that date 

 in -Australia devoted solely to promoting the interests of 

 natural history, the president traced the origin and pro- 

 gress of the numerous bodies which now exist for the 

 same purpose. 



In an illustrated pamphlet entitled " The Brent Valley 

 Bird Sanctuary " (published, at the price of sixpence, by 

 the local branch of the .Selborne Society) Mr. W. M. 

 Webb gives a picturesque account of an attempt to 

 encourage and protect the bird-life of the district. A 

 wood of some nineteen acres in extent has been secured 

 and put in charge of a keeper, and it is satisfactory to 

 learn that it has afforded nesting sites for twenty-seven 

 species of birds. 



-An addition to the fauna of the British Isles is recorded 

 by Mr. J. W. Taylor (in the Irish Naturalist for .August) 

 in the shape of Vitrina elongata, a land mollusc inhabit- 

 ing the mountains of many parts of the Continent. The 

 Iii;h specimens were discovered in 1904 and 1905 near 

 Colion, county Louth. 



The contents of vol. xl. of S'eue Denltschriften der 

 allg. scbweiz. Gesellschaft (1906) include an article by Dr. 

 Theodor Studer on additional remains of the ground-sloth, 

 Grypotherium listaei, from the well-known cavern of 

 Ultima Esperanza, .S. Patagonia. Separate copies of this 

 article were issued in 1905. The author confirms the 

 opinion that this ground-sloth inhabited the cave con- 

 temporaneously with aboriginal man, by whom it appears 

 to have been kept in a semi-domesticated state. These 

 aborigines seem to have been identical with the ancient 

 Paragonians. Grypotherium appears to have been a 

 stouter-built animal than Mylodon, with the orbital region 

 of the skull smaller. Stratigraphists will find much to 

 interest them in an article in the same volume by Dr. E. 

 Gerber, of Bonn, on the geology of the Alps to the east- 

 ward of Kienthal, embracing the district between that 

 valley and Lunterbrunnen. 



-A BlxI-ETIs (No. 4) from the -Agricultural Research 

 Institute, Pusa, indicates the preliminary arrangements 

 in connection with a series of fruit experiments initiated 

 NO. 1973. VOL. 76] 



under the direction of Mr. A. Howard. The planting, 

 pruning, and manurial experiments arc in the main similar 

 to those at Woburn. In addition, weathering experiments 

 are proposed, which consist in removing the soil from 

 round the stems and laying bare the roots for a period 

 after the close of the rains ; the object is to check vegeta- 

 tive growth, especially before the flowering period. The 

 largest plots are planted with cilrus fruits, peaches, 

 mangoes, litchis, and figs. 



In plant experiments to test Mendelian principles several 

 apparently anomalous results have been obtained by cross- 

 ing white-seeded strains with plants having coloured seeds. 

 In papers published in Science, vol. xxv., Nos. 646 and 

 647, Dr. Cm. H. .Shull refers to results obtained by cross- 

 ing the flowers of white flageolet beans with those of 

 black-, brown-, and yellow-seeded forms in which the 

 hybrids showed purple and mottled characters. The 

 author adopts the explanation offered by Cu<5not that in 

 such a case there are three characters, the pigment 

 character P, the purple modification B, and the 

 mottling M. The black beans show PB dominant, .\I 

 recessive, the while beans show all three characters 

 dominant. Therefore, instead of considering the nlleh- 

 morpk or distinguishing character as necessarily single, 

 Dr. Shull holds the view that it may be compound. 



Several important contributions to the study of the 

 proteins of the wheat grain have been made from time 

 to time by Dr. T. B. Osborne in conjunction with other 

 collaborators. The results have been brought together in 

 Publication No. 84 of • the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, in which \l given a full account of the 

 experimental work, as well as a brief review of the 

 literature. It is found that gliadin, a protein soluble in 

 70 per cent, alcohol, and gluiettin, which together con- 

 stitute the substance gluten obtained by washing the 

 dough, form nearly the whole of the proteins in the 

 endosperm ; in the embryo the proteins are much smaller 

 in amount, and consist chiefly of globulin, an albumin 

 termed leucosin, and a proteose. 



-An article by -Mr. H. A. Smith entitled " Saving the 

 Forests " appears m the National Geographic Magazine 

 for the present month, and deals with the work of the 

 United States Forest Service, which has charge of 

 Government resources valued at 1,500,000,000 dollars. 

 The U.S. national forests contain more than 150,000,000 

 acres. In economic usefulness the forests increase in 

 importance almost day by day, and they are fast Ijecoming 

 self-supporting. In the year ending June 30. 1904. the 

 national forests yielded a total revenue of 60,000 dollars, 

 while for the year 1906-7 the sum realised amounted to 

 t, 600.000 dollars, and it is thought that by 1910 the 

 receipts from this source will be equal to the appropri- 

 ations for the forest service. 



Ox account of a remarkable discovery of reptilian foot- 

 prints, the Higher Bebington sandstone quarry at Storeton, 

 Cheshire, has been visited by many geologists during the 

 past vear. From time to time Cheirotheroid, Rhyncho- 

 -sauroid, and Chelonoid footprints have been found at this 

 quarry, but since the present owner introduced a stone- 

 channelling machine much more work is being done, a.id 

 the slabs are got out with less breakage. The quarry, 

 which is worked in the Keuper Sandstone, has a vertical 

 face of 130 feet, and at two horirons half-way down the 

 face occjr two thin beds of marl on which the interest- 

 ing footprints are found, and casts of them occur on the 

 layer of sandstone immediately overlying the marl. Photo- 



