14: 



NA rURE 



[June ii, 1896 



appearance in plant form. There were no less than 628 species of 

 fungi which flourished in excrement, and of these no less than 402 

 were peculiar to certain animals. There could be no doubt the 

 excrement oflen contained the organisms which led to its 

 dissolution and circulation. 



• The proper course to pur.sue with organic matter was to place 

 it near to the surface of \vell-tilled groimd, and such a course 

 seemed to be both profitable and safe. By mixing it with water 

 we had all the evils of putrefaction, while our capital was thrown 

 into the sea, and our water-supplies were poisoned by leakage. 

 Our methods of sanitation inevitably lead to overcrowding, and 

 farmers were often taxed to provide expensive apparatus, which 

 merely deprived them of organic matter which otherwise might 

 fertilise the land instead of involving them in a ruinous expense. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCA TIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



CAMBRIDGE. — Some friends of the late Prof. Sir T. F. Wade 

 have offered to the University, by way of memorial, a sum of 

 ;f 100 for the construction of a catalogue of the Chinese books in 

 the University Library. These books were his own gift, and 

 during his lifetime he held the post of Honorary Curator of the 

 collection. 



Mr. J. E. Gray, and Mr. S. D.'Scott, of King's College, have 

 been appointed to work at the University's table in the Zoo- 

 logical Station of Naples and Plymouth respectively. 



Sir Walter Gilbey has offered to the University a fund 

 sufficient to provide an income of ^25 a year for twenty-one 

 years as an endowment for a Lecturer in the History and 

 Economics of Agriculture. The Council of the Senate recom- 

 mend that the benefaction should be gratefully accepted, and 

 propose suitable regulations for the foundation of a " Gilbey 

 Lectureship." 



The Library Syndicate propose that the new class of "Ad- 

 vanced Students " should have the same privileges as Bachelors 

 of Arts in respect of borrowing books from the Library. 



The discussion by the Senate of the proposal to expend 

 ^27,000 in acquiring sites adjoining the congested area occupied 

 by the New Museums was unusually full and detailed. The 

 price is generally held to be high, but the importance of the 

 ground in question for the extension of the scientific and other 

 departments was strongly urged. The question is to be decided 

 by a vote to-day. 



In the Mathematical Tripos, Part I., all but one of the can- 

 didates have obtained honours. Fourteen women are among 

 the succe.'^sful. The class list will be published on June 16. 



The Deputy-Professor of Pathology, Dr. A. A. Kanthack, 

 announces four courses of instruction in different branches of 

 his subject, including bacteriology, during the ensuing Long 

 ^'acation (July and August). 



Honorary degrees are to be conferred on June 18 on a number 

 of foreign men of letters, and upon Prof. Carl Gegenbaur, of 

 Heidelberg, Prof. Felix Klein, of Gottingen, and Prof. Simon 

 Newcomb, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. 



Mr. Charles Smith, Master of Sidney Sussex College, has 

 been re-elected Vice-Chancellor. 



"The College of New Jersey," universally known as " Prince- 

 ton," has just changed its corporate name to Princeton Uni- 

 versity. An attempt will be made to raise 2,000,000 dols. in 

 connection with its approaching sesqui-centennial celebration 

 this fall. John \. Blair has contributed 150,000 dols. for a 

 dormitory to be known as Blair's Hall, and another friend has 

 contributed 100,000 dols. 



The Council of Firth College and the Committees of the 

 Medical School and Technical School, Sheffield, have each 

 passed resolutions in favour of a joint application for a charter 

 of incorporation with the Victoria University, Manchester. A 

 meeting of representatives from these educational establishments 

 has been held, at which the form of the proposed charter was 

 finally agreed upon, and a small Committee appointed to bring 

 it before the proper authorities. 



A RESOLUTION Was moved at the last meeting of the Technical 

 Instruction Committee of the Glamorganshire County Council 



NO. 1389, VOL. 54] 



to the eftect that funds should be allocated to the establishment 

 of five musical scholarships, each of the value of £0,0 per 

 annum, tenable at the University College, Cardiff. The reso- 

 lution was not .seconded. It was decided to defer the matter 

 until the next meeting. The two issues which are here raised, 

 (I) whether the fimds for technical instruction can rightly be 

 devoted to musical education, and (2) whether it is desirable to 

 encourage such instruction at a University College, certainly 

 require some time for consideration. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 The Quarterly Joiiriml of Miiroscopical Science for May 1 896 

 (vol. xxxix. part I) contains :— On the blood of Magelona, by 

 Dr. W. Blaxland Benham (pi. I). The blood of Magelona 

 papillicornis is totally different in structure from that of any 

 other known Chretopod, in that it consists mainly of very small 

 madder rose-coloured, non-nucleated globules, embedded (rather 

 than floating) in a very small amount of colourless plasma ; 

 amongst the corpuscles occur isolated nuclei. It was oiiginally 

 demonstrated by Lankester that nuclei occur in the red fluid of 

 the common earthworm, and this observation has been extended 

 to sundry other Annelids by various observers. In these cases, 

 as in Megalona, the nucleus is surrounded by very little, if any, 

 protoplasm, and floats freely in the perfectly liquid plasma, 

 which is coloured red by haemoglobin, or in a few cases green by 

 chlorocruorin or chlorochromin ; while in some 01igocha;tes the 

 plasma is colourless. The so-called "corpuscles" or coloured 

 globules of Magelona differ from those observed in other 

 Annelids, not only in position, viz, within blood-vessels instead 

 of in the crelom, but also in structure and in their behaviour to 

 chemicals. These globules "stand, as it were, midway between 

 the coloured liquid plasma of Annelids generally and the 

 coloured corpuscles of mammalian blood." The colouring 

 matter showed no absorption bands, when spectroscopically 

 analysed. — Fission in Nemertines, by Dr. W. Blaxland 

 Benham (pis. 2 and 3). The fact that many Nemertines break up 

 into pieces when irritated is well known, but the phenomenon 

 has received but little attention, nor does it seem to have been 

 definitely ascertained whether it is a normal occurrence. From 

 these researches it seems, however, proved that these pieces are 

 gonads, thrown off from the male and female worms, about the 

 time the sexual elements are mature. The species examined 

 belonged to the genus Carinella, and was probably C. linearis, 

 Montagu. — .Studies on the nervous system of Crustacea, by Edgar 

 J. Allen (pi. 4). IV. Further observations on the nerve elements 

 of the embryonic lobster. — Notes on Oligoch^tes, with the 

 description of a new species, by Edwin S. Goodrich (pis. 5 and 

 6). The author first describes a new species of Enchytrceus, 

 found in a garden at Weymouth, also near Oxford and London 

 (E. hortensis) ; it is, when full grown, about 15 mm. in length, 

 and milky white in colour, the anterior end being sometimes 

 yellowi-sh. The chetae are in bundles of from three to four, 

 generally three in the dorsal and four in the ventral bundle ; 

 they have a straight shaft and a hooked inner end ; a small 

 dorsal head-i>ore is found between the pro-stomium and the first 

 segment. In a favourable light the cuticle is seen to be covered 

 throughout with fine hair-like processes, similar to those 

 described by the author in Verniiciilus pilosits. Three kinds of 

 ccelomic corpuscles are described as very characteristic of this 

 worm : (a) amceboid ; (V) oval corpuscles of the type so fre- 

 quently met with in the Enchytrii;idEe, nearly twice as large as 

 the amreboid, flattened oval in form, and filled with refringent 

 granules ; and (c] a third type of a discoid form, but the 

 refringent granules, when they escape by rupture of the corpuscle 

 wall, form a long thread of transparent homogeneous substance, 

 closely coiled. These threads are possibly of an albuminoid 

 nature. — On the development oi Liclienopora verrucaria, Fabr. , 

 by Sidney F. Harmer (pis. 7-10). The author in a previous 

 volume of this journal, from a study of Crisia, had suggested that 

 embryonic fission would be found to be characteristic of the 

 whole group of cyclostomatous Polyzoa. A chance discovery of 

 large numbers of the colonies of IJchenopora verrucaria, F'abr., 

 in all stages of development, has enabled him not only to show 

 that this fission occurs here in an equally marked manner as in 

 Crisia, but to discover some previously unsuspected phenomena 

 in the life-history of Lichenopora verrucaria. Among these is 

 the restriction of the production of an embryo to one or two of 

 the oldest Zotecia in the normal development. 



