208 
NEWS FROM THE MAGAZINES. 
Prof. McIntosh has a valuable paper on ‘ The Toothed Whales,’ in The — 
Zoologist for March. 
Mr. V. H. Blackman has a paper on ‘ Nucleus and Heredity ’ in Dhe:5 
New Phytologist for March. 
With La Feuille des jeunes Naturalistes (April-May, rot1), are six 
plates with excellent representations of various species of Limacide and 
Helicide. ; 
A report on ‘The 1909 Irruption of the Crossbill as observed in the 
British Isles,’ by Messrs H. F. Witherby and C. J. Alexander, appears in 
British Birds for April. 
The parts of the Harmsworth Natural History recently published 
are devoted to the birds, and are particularly well illustrated, both by 
coloured plates and figures Inthe yeexct. 
We regret to notice the record of the death, in South Africa, of Mr. 
©} Cx sily erlock, formerly an assistant master ‘at the Heath. Grammar 
School, Halifax, and a member of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. Mr. 
Silverlock was on the Zambesi in a canoe, and was capsized by a hippopo- 
tamus and drowned. 
We are glad to. see Part III. of S. S. Buckman’s Yorkshive Type Am- 
monites’ (W. Wesley & Sons, 3/6). It includes admirable plates with 
illustrations of .Ammonites birdi, depvessus, figulinus, omissus, aureolus, 
vortex, and turyiculatus, with descriptive letterpress. Mr. Buckman is 
evidently doing this work conscientiously. 
In the April Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, Mr. G. H. Verrall gives 
‘ Another Hundred New British Species of Diptera.’ This is merely a 
list of names, adjoining some of which are ‘n. sp.’ In the same journal” 
Messrs. C. Davies Sherborn and J. H. Durrant give a bibliographical 
“Note on John Curtis’s British Entomology.’ 
Even Punch is being influenced by the growth of the Nature Study 
movement, and occasionally has a natural history item. The following is 
from No. 3633 of that journal, under the heading, os Pretty Compliment’: = 
A correspondent informs us that at the last scientific meeting of the 
Zoological Society, Mr. Oldfield Thomas described a collection of mammals 
from Eastern Asia, and stated that, in recognition of the help given by 
the Duke of Bedford in forming this collection, he proposed to name a 
new species of Striped Shrew after the Duchess.’ 
In Knowledge (No. 511), reference is made to Dr. Dammermann’s 
recent inv estigation concerning the saccus vasculosus, a dependence of the 
brain peculiar to fishes. A remarkable downgrowth or infundibulum from 
the tween-brain or region of the optic thalami bears the very interesting 
pituitary body, but it also gives off a posterior diverticulum called the 
saccus vasculosus. In many fishes this lies, along with the pituitary body, 
in a pit of the skull called the sella turcica. We are not surprised to learn 
that Dr. Dammermann proposes to call this a ‘ Benthic ’ or Depth Organ. 
The following rather tall story is given by a correspondent in a recent 
issue of N ature :—A fox in Cambridge was seen by a farmer to be collect- 
ing the sheep’s wool caught in the thorns and branches. ‘ When he had 
gathered a large bunch, he went down to a pool at the junction of two 
streams, and, turning round, backed slowly brush first into the water, 
until he was all submerged except his nose and the bunch of wool which 
he held in his mouth. He remained thus for a short time, and then let 
go of the wool, which floated away; then he came out, shook himself, 
and ran off.’ The wool was secured, and found to be full of fleas, which 
had * gradually ctept up the fox’s body and head to prevent themselves 
from drowning.’ We think the farmer might have presented the fox with 
a small-tooth comb. 
Naturalist, 
