May 14, 1908] 



NA TURE 



35 



make changes in the manner proposed by the Bill must 

 lead to confusion. Instead of adopting this method of 

 making use of daylight hours, Sir David Gill suggests a 

 change in our national habits and customs, such as was 

 advocated in an article in Nature of February 20 (vol. 

 Ixvii., p. 372). He points out that if, for example, the 

 Bank of England could be persuaded to open business at 

 9 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. from April i to the end of 

 September, no doubt all other banks and offices would 

 follow suit, and if employers of labour would open their 

 works an hour earlier in the spring and summer months 

 the objects of the Bill' would be in great part gained with- 

 out difficulty or confusion. 



The news of the death on May 10 of the Rev. Father 

 Eugene Lafont, S.J., C.I.E., has been recently notified 

 from India, and will be received by his numerous friends 

 with great regret. He died in Darjiling, the hill station 

 of Bengal, to which place he went some little time ago. 

 His age was seventy-one years, and he lived almost con- 

 tinuously in Bengal, with perhaps one visit to Europe, for 

 about forty-three years. Father Lafont will long be n-- 

 membered in Bengal for his distinguished scientific attain- 

 ments and for the enthusiastic zeal with which he fostered 

 the study of practical science by every means in his power 

 among Indian and Eurasian students. He was, however, 

 an educationist rather than an original thinker or original 

 worker, but he did yeoman service for science in Bengal. 

 For many years he was professor of physical science at 

 St. Xavier's College, in Calcutta, and afterwards he be- 

 came' rector of the same institution. This college is one 

 which makes provision for the education of the domiciled 

 European and Eurasian population of Calcutta and Lower 

 Bengal, and in this way Father Lafont secured great 

 influence among these classes. The college is also popular 

 with native Indian gentlemen, and by his influence with 

 Rajahs and other men of note Lafont was able to obtain 

 srveral endowments for the purchase of scientific apparatus. 

 This college possesses an excellent supply of most costly 

 lecture apparatus, especiallv of the kind necessary *for 

 popular lecture demonstration, in which way that college 

 is better equipped than any other in India. Indeed, in 

 addition to his sterling qualities as an educationist. Father 

 Lafont was a born popular scientific lecturer, and had a 

 peculiar facility for putting dry facts in a popular way 

 and an equal facility for making his lectures interesting 

 by excellent experimental illustrations. For more than 

 thirty years he was a prominent fellow of the Calcutta 

 I'niversity, both under its former and its present con- 

 stitution, and he held a number of prominent honorary 

 po5t3 under it, while his influence is to be found in many 

 of the science courses of study as at present arranged. 

 He was always held in the greatest respect and esteem by 

 all his fellow-workers, and was most popular with all 

 Indian gentlemen. It was to a considerable extent 

 owing to his cooperation and influence that the late Dr. 

 Mahendra Lai Sarkar, CLE., was able to start, some 

 thirty years ago, a society called the " Indian Association 

 for the Cultivation of Science " in Calcutta, an associa- 

 tion which is still doing very useful work in diffusing 

 scientific knowledge among various classes of Indian 

 gentlemen. Father Lafont was for many years an active 

 supporter of this society, and was one of its honorary 

 lecturers, and later on became its vice-president. His 

 name will thus be long kept in mind as that of one of the 

 pioneers of scientific education in Bengal, and his death 

 is hence a great loss, especially at this time, when 

 strenuous efforts are being made to put education in Bengal 

 on a satisfactory basis. 



NO. 20 II, VOL. 78] 



We have to acknowledge the receipt of the ninth fasci- 

 culus of the " Fauna of New England," now in course of 

 publication in Occasional Papers of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History. It is devoted to a list of the spiders 

 (.Araneida), which has been drawn up by Elizabeth B. 

 Bryant, and comprises 399 definitely recognised species, 

 together with about a dozen others which are at present 

 unrecognised. 



We are indebted to the author. Dr. E. Balducci. for a 

 copy of a paper entitled " Morfologia dello Sterno degli 

 Uccelli," published by C. and G. Spighi, of Prato, at the 

 price of five lira. It is illustrated by a large number of 

 figures of the sternum in a numerous series of nocturnal 

 and diurnal birds of prey. After discussing the bearing of 

 the characters of this part of the skeleton on the relation- 

 ship of the Striges to the Accipitres, the author points 

 out that not only can the different species of these two 

 groups be recognised by means of the sternum, but that 

 there are also recognisable sexual features in the sterna 

 of individual species. 



In the February issue of the Proceedings of the Phila- 

 delphia Academy, Mr. F. W. True discusses the fossil 

 cetacean beak from Charles County on which Cope 

 founded the genus and species Rhabdosteus latiradix, 

 together with certain other fragmentary beaks and teeth 

 which have been assigned to the same form. In Mr. 

 True's opinion, it is probable that while the teeth belong 

 to the widely spread genus Schizodelphis, the type beak 

 is generically distinct. Of the other two beaks, one 

 apparently indicates a dolphin allied to the Amazonian 

 Inia, while the third may be provisionally assigned to the 

 extinct genus Priscodelphinus. 



Protective colouring in South African birds forms the 

 subject of an article by Mr. A. Haagner in the April issue 

 of the Journal of the South African Ornithologists' Union. 

 One of the most remarkable instances of such protective 

 resemblances is furnished by the rufous-cheeked nightjar. 

 Noticing what appeared to be a strange protuberance on 

 a bough, the author on one occasion ascended a tree to 

 ascertain its real nature, when he was astonished to see 

 a nightjar fly off. " The bird had been sitting length- 

 ways on the bough, flattened up against it, and the 

 assimilative nature of its plumage was most marked, the 

 mottled grey-brown and rufous colouring harmonising with 

 the bark of the tree on which the nightjar sat." 



To the first number for the current year of the Bulletin 

 dc la Classe des Sciences of the .'\cad^mie Royale de 

 Belgique, Comte Goblet d'Alviella contributes a memoir 

 on the excavations at Court-Saint-Etienne, in the valley of 

 the Orne, one of the richest prehistoric cemeteries in 

 Belgium. The remains discovered consist of articles in 

 bronze and iron, with numerous examples of pottery. Of 

 bronze, the most remarkable article is either a portion of 

 a sword-belt or of a horse bridle. In some of the mortuary 

 jars the bones of children have been discovered, pointing 

 either to the burial of infants with their dead mothers or 

 to a sacrifice intended to ensure the fertility of the crops. 

 The cemetery appears to be of the well-known Hallstadt 

 period, and the researches of Comte d'.Mviella are of 

 much interest in relation to the extension of the bronze 

 and iron culture from the south into northern Europe. 



In the fourth part of vol. xvii. of the Proceedings of 

 the Royal Physical Society, Edinburgh, Prof. D. C. 

 MTntosh discusses variation in the lobster, both in respect 

 of the relative sizes of males and females, the relative 

 numerical proportions of the two sexes, and in regard to 

 the number and arrangement of the genital apertures in 



