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NA TURE 



» 

 465 



traced the various stages of the development of Lamarck's 

 theory, ils relation to the studies of Buffon, l.inn;vus, and 

 Cuvler, and its influence upon Darwin. The present year 

 is at once the hundredth anniversary of the publication of 

 Lamarck's " Philosophic Zoologique " and of Darwin's 

 birth, and in a striking passage M. Perrier drew a parallel 

 between the Darwinian tlieory and Lamarck's doctrine of 

 methodical progress on a basis of rigorous determinism. 

 7 he Minister of Public Instruction contributed to the pro- 

 ceedings a sketch of Lamarck's career, referring to 

 Buffon 's sympathy and friendship and to Cuvier's sceptical 

 hostility. In the name of the French Government, M. 

 Doumergue thanked all who had helped France to make 

 this tardy reparation to the memory of her great son. 



Thr launching of the magnetic survey yacht Carnegie, 

 to the design and future work of which reference has been 

 made more than once in these columns, took place on 

 June 12 at' the shipyard of the Tebo Yacht Basin Com- 

 pany, Brooklyn, N.V. We have been favoured with an 

 advance copy of an illustrated pamphlet dealing with the 

 construction of the new boat, her object, and her work. 

 The entire structure of the yacht is practically non- 

 magnetic ; with the exception of cast-iron pistons in the 

 cylinders of the bronze internal-combustion engine, and 

 the steel cams necessary for operating the valves, there 

 are no magnetic materials in the vessel. It will be 

 reinembered that the function of the department of re- 

 search in terrestrial magnetism of the Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington is the accomplishment of a magnetic survey 

 of the earth within a period of about fifteen years, and 

 in connection with this scheme the magnetic survey of the 

 oceans is assigned to the new yacht. This work will be 

 done under the direction of Dr. L. A. Bauer, director of 

 the department of terrestrial magnetism, and he will be 

 represented on board the Carnegie', as chief of party, by 

 Mr. W. J. Peters, who has great experience in such ocean 

 surveying, gained when in command of the magnetic 

 survey yacht Galilee from 1906-S. The Galilee has made 

 a general magnetic survey of the Pacific Ocean, the total 

 length of her cruises amounting to about 60,000 nautical 

 miles. It is hoped that the Carnegie will effect a mag- 

 netic survey of the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, 

 and complete that of the Pacific. 



We have received a copy of a paper by Drs. Raymond 

 Pearl and F. M. Surface, reprinted from the first volume 

 of Zcilschrift jiir hiologischc Tcchnih, Strassburg, 1909, 

 and entitled " .Apparate und Mcthoden. die bei expcri- 

 mentellcn Untersuchungcn iiber Vererbung beim Geflugel 

 gebraucht werden." 



The Insectivora of the subfamily Gymnurina: form the 

 subject of a paper by Mr. JL W. Lyon, published as 

 No. 1680 (vol. xxxvi., pp. 449-56) of the Proceedings of 

 the U.S. National Museum. The author admits the dis- 

 tinction of the Bornean Gymnura alba from the typical 

 G. rafjlesi (or G. gymnura), and also describes a new and 

 small race of the latter from Siam. The distinctive skull- 

 characters of the allied genera Hylomys and Podogymnura, 

 the latter at present known only by a single specimen 

 from the Philippines, are likewise pointed out. 



The May number of the Museums Journal contains an 

 account, by Mr. R. T. Baker, the curator, of the Techno- 

 logical Museum at Sydney. ' The building, which was 

 opened in 1893, contains considerably more than 150,000 

 specimens, and the establishment serves the purpose of a 

 bureau of information in regard to the raw products and 

 manufactures of New South Wales. When inquiries can- 



NO. 206S, VOL. 80] 



not be answered by the museum staff, visitors are referred 

 to other sources of information. 



In vol. xliv., No. 23, of the Proceedings of the American 

 .\c-ademy of Arts and Sciences, Mr. S. Morgulis describes 

 the capacity for regeneration possessed by one of the 

 brittle-stars {Ophiocoma piimila), with special reference 

 to the influence of the central nervous system. Although 

 the author's experiments do not altogether support the 

 theory that the rate of regeneration of a removed arm 

 increases as the number of uninjured arms still remaining 

 is diminished, it is, nevertheless, evident that there is 

 some correlation between the degree of injury and the 

 rate of regeneration, but this relation does not take the 

 shape of the close parallelism suggested in the above- 

 mentioned theory. 



A.\ account of the my.xomycetes of Pictou County, Nova 

 Scotia, by Mr. C. L. Moore, published in the Transactions 

 of the Nova Scotia Institute of Science (vol. xii., part ii.), 

 furnishes a noteworthy addition to the information on 

 this little-studied group of fungi, as well as an interest- 

 ing contribution to the flora of the country. In the latter 

 respect, the diagnoses of the groups, genera and species 

 will be found useful. One specimen, collected on Tsuga 

 canadensis, is made the type of a new species, Margarita 

 pictoviana. Dictydiiini cancellatum is stated to be the 

 most general species, and others commonly found are 

 Fuligo ovata, Didymiutti melanospermum, Arcyria nutans, 

 Arcyria incarnata, and Lycogala epidendrum. 



The NyctaginaceaK provides an eminently fitting subject 

 for the Contributions of the United States National 

 Herbarium (vol. xii., part viii.), as the family is very 

 largely American, and the group Mirabilieee is essentially 

 characteristic of Mexico and the adjacent southern States. 

 This group is monographed by Mr. P. C. Standley, who 

 adopts .\Uioniaceae as the family name. The changes and 

 additions submitted are very e.xtensive. About twenty 

 new species are proposed for the genus Abronia, from 

 which the section Tripterocalyx is separated as a genus. 

 Allionia, based on the species Allionia violacea, is con- 

 verted into a large genus, partly by the inclusion of species 

 of Oxybaphus and partly by additional new species. 

 Mirabilis is reduced to four species, while Quamoclidion 

 becomes a genus ; similarly, Boerhaavia is split into four 



The beautiful autumnal tints characteristic of the foliage 

 of certain trees and shrubs, so pronounced in temperate 

 countries, are. of course, due to seasonal variations, the 

 factors concerned being diminution of water, stronger 

 insolation, and the advent of cold nights ; also, the more 

 marked the changes the more striking, as a rule, are the 

 colour tones. In a short article in the Journal of the 

 College of Science (vol. xxvii., art. 2), Tokio University, 

 Dr. M. Miyoshi refers to a similar colour effect observed 

 during the dry period in the leaves of the tropical tree 

 Terminalia catappa. Here it is confined to the old leaves, 

 while the younger leaves show their normal green colour, 

 and is due to drying up of the leaves owing to the forma- 

 ti6n of an absciss layer. In both cases the colour is pro- 

 duced by the formation of anthocyanin. 



Dr. GR.4SSET publishes in the May number of La Revue 

 des Idees an elaborate article entitled " La Physiopatho- 

 logie clinique de I'Homme, Plan d'une Pathologic g(;n^rale 

 basfe sur la Physiologie." The "circle of life" starts 

 with general embryology and heredity, and passes on in 

 succession to " fonctions de reception " (digestion and 

 respiration): "fonctions de circul-ition de la matiferp "• 



