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NEWS FROM THE MAGAZINES. 
The name of Mr. R. Welch has been added to the list of Editors of the 
Irish Naturalist, in place of that of Mr. Robert Patterson, who has resigned- 
The Scientific Roll and Magazine of Systematised notes, conducted by 
Alexander Ramsay, continues to make its appearance. Vol. II., No. 26 
(pp. 291-322, 1/-) is still in ‘ Bacteria,’ and deals with Vital Chemistry =: 
Butyric, Caproic, Caprylic, Carbolic, Citric, and Formic Acids. 
Dr. David Starr Jordan’s Presidential Address to the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science, is printed in Nature, No. 2150. 
He deals with ‘The Making of a Darwin,” and refers to the question 
as to whether a Darwin could be produced at a University to-day. It 
is an excellent comparison of present with past educational methods. 
We should like to congratulate a Mr. ‘S. F. Cook, B.E.N.A., Middles- 
brough,’ upon the way in which he has ‘lifted’ Mr. Riley Fortune's 
note on ‘A Pugnacious Grouse’ from the pages of The Naturalist, and 
placed it under his own name in another journal, without any acknowledg- 
ment whatever. Oris it that ‘S.F.Cook’ is a species of ‘ Mrs. Harris ?” 
The ‘ Lancashive Naturalist’, which started as a journal devoted to 
Lancashire, subsequently included Cheshire, Derbyshire, Westmorland, 
the Lake District, and the Isle of Man. It now takes in the ‘ Lake Dis- 
trict,’ which ‘ will explain the alteration on the part of the cover.’ This 
we presume, refers to the fact that part of the title is printed upside down! 
But why not drop the word * Lancashire ’ ? 
Mr. W. Eagle Clarke (Ann. of Scottish Nat. Hist., January, 1911), 
records that he visited St. Kilda from September 1st to October 8th, and 
met with quite unlooked-for success. Fifty-four species of birds were 
noticed on passage, of which thirty-five were new to the avi-fauna of the 
island, and included some not previously recorded for the west of Scot- 
land; whilst the American Pipit is new to the British fauna, and the 
Marsh Warbler to that of Scotland. 
Parts II. and III. of Major Barrett-Hamilton’s History of British 
Mammals (2/6 each, Gurney & Jackson), are to hand, and are well up: 
to the standard of the first part, already noticed in these columns. In 
addition to the General Introduction to the Bats, the author deals with 
Leisler’s bat, the Pipistrelle, the Serotine, the Parti-coloured bat; Dau- 
benton’s, the Rough-legged Water Bat, and the Whiskered Bat. His 
grasp of the scattered literature on the subject is astonishing. 
Remarks on some Palgoxyvis from the Middle Coal Measures of 
Lancashire, by Mr. J. W. Jackson, of the Manchester Museum, appear 
in The Lancashire Naturalist for January. These curious organisms: 
are now generally accepted as being the egg-capsules of some species of 
Carboniferous fish, though at one time opinion was strongly in favour 
of their being the fruits of some plant. It will be remembered that one 
of the first British examples was figured in The Naturalist by Prof. A. C. 
Seward, some years ago. 
The Animal World gives the following specimen of police court natural 
history, in connection with a R.S.P.C.A. prosecution for cruelty to a seal. 
‘ The bench declared that the seal was an animal, but the solicitor for the 
defence disputed this, arguing that from the definition given in a dic- 
tionary, it wasa mammal. The Chairman said a mammal was an animal, 
and the clerk, consulting a dictionary, said a mammal was defined as a. 
mammalian animal. The Chairman said a whale was an animal, but the 
solicitor said it was a mammal. One of the justices observed that it 
certainly was not a vegetable, and the bench ultimately held the seal to. 
be an animal ! 
Naturalist, 
