July 15, 1909] 



NATURE 



79 



tective measures rendered necessary by these raids have 

 given rise to protests from European visitors ignorant of 

 the true facts of the case. 



Natiirwisscnschaftliche Wochctischrift for June 27 in- 

 cludes an illustrated article, by the Rev. E. Wasmann, on 

 the origin of slavery and social parasitism among ants, 

 in which it is urged that, before these can be properly 

 understood, it is essential that we should acquire a know- 

 ledge of a series of independent developmental histories 

 of different species, genera, and subfamilies, which com- 

 menced in past geological times. Only with such histo- 

 ries before us will it be possible to construct anything 

 litce a true worI<ing hypothesis of the origin of the pheno- 

 mena in question. 



To Mr. G. Gilson, director of the Royal Museum of 

 Natural History of Belgium, wc are indebted for a copy 

 of an address read before a conference held in the apart- 

 ments of the Royal Zoological and Malacological Society 

 of Belgium on June 12, on the subject of the proposed 

 establishment of an educational museum in Brussels. The 

 address is chiefly concerned with the aims and objects of 

 such a museum and the manner in which the scheme 

 should be carried out. A teaching museum, it is urged, 

 should be kept entirely apart from museums of the 

 ordinary type, and run on totally different lines. As 

 regards the selection and installation of the objects to be 

 shown in the museum, it is pointed out that this task 

 should be entrusted, in the first instance, to scientific 

 experts, but that after this the collections should be handed 

 over to the actual teaching staff. 



To the July number of the Century Magazine Mr. R. W. 

 Yerkes contributes an article on " imitation in animals," 

 a considerable portion of which is devoted to an account 

 of the behaviour of three Manx kittens, which had never 

 previously seen mice, when confronted with one of these 

 :odcnts. When the first introduction was made the 

 l<ittens were five months' old, and the mouse was un- 

 injured. Six weeks later the experiment was repeated, 

 when the kittens were hungry, but still no attempt was 

 made to devour the mouse. Later on the parent cat was 

 introduced into the cage, when the mouse w'as killed by 

 her, and, little by little, the kittens eventually learnt to 

 follow their mother's example. The experiments, in the 

 author's opinion, serve to show that these particular 

 kittens had no instinctive propensity to kill and eat mice, 

 and that they only learnt to do so by the force of example. 

 Whether this holds good for kittens generally remains to 

 be proved. 



Undf.r the title of Techitilrlla f/iom/isoHi (after Prof. 

 D'.Arcy Thompson) Messrs. E. Heron .Mien and A. Earland 

 describe in the Journal of the Quekelt Microscopical Club 

 a new species of arenaceous foraminifera which constructs 

 its enveloping test entirely out of regularly arranged 

 calcareous plates of echinoderms. Of this foraminifer two 

 specimens only have been found from dredgings in the 

 North Sea. It possesses no oral aperture, the perforations 

 in the echinoderm plates furnishing a sufficient outlet for 

 the pseudopodia. Other species of the genus make their 

 tests out of sponge spicules, but it is believed that the 

 present species stands preeminent in its selective power of 

 building material. 



The annual address to the Armstrong College ."Agri- 

 cultural Students' .Association, by Mr. A. Tindall, has 

 been printed in the Proceedings of that bodv, and will be 

 interesting to students of agricultural economics. It deals 

 with the history and development of the Newcastle cattle 

 NO. 2072, VOL. 81] 



market, and includes a number of valuable statistics, such 

 as prices of cattle, &c., as well as accounts of sale 

 customs. In the same publication will be found a short 

 article on milk production and milk products by Mr. John 

 .Anderson. 



TiTE United States Department of Agriculture Bureau 

 of Entomology has issued a circular (No. 42) on the 

 control of the San Jos^ scale. This pest has, in the past, 

 proved a serious menace to the fruit-growing industry, 

 but experience both in California and in the eastern States 

 shows that it can be controlled. Seven methods have 

 proved successful when properly carried out, viz. : — (i) the 

 lime-sulphur wash ; (2) soap wash ; (3) pure kerosene ; 

 (4) crude petroleum ; (5) mechanical mixtures of either of 

 these two oils with water ; (6) petroleum emulsion and 

 soap ; (7) miscible oils. Instructions are given for carry- 

 ing out each of these methods. 



Bulletin No. 166 of the Maine Agricultural Experiment 

 Station contains a discussion, by Messrs. Raymond Pearl 

 and Frank M. Surface, of the inheritance of fecundity in 

 poultry. The daughters of " 200-egg " hens (t.e. hens 

 laving 200 or more eggs in twelve months) were kept 

 under observation. K is, as yet, too soo-^ to draw general 

 conclusions, but no evidence was obtained to show that 

 a good winter layer necessarily produces another good 

 winter layer, as is said to be assumed by practical poultry- 

 breeders. On the contrary, the exact opposite happened 

 here : the mothers, on the whole, were exceptionally good, 

 and the daughters unusually poor, as winter layers. 



Recent bulletins from the Colorado .Agricultural College 

 include three on strawberry growing, dewberry growing, 

 and the pruning of fruit trees, one on animal diseases, 

 and one on bacterial diseases of plants. A disease of 

 lucerne, first described by Paddock in 1906, and shown 

 to be bacterial, is dealt with at some length. The bacteria 

 seem to come from the soil and work up the stem, giving 

 rise to a " watery, semi-transparent brownish appearance 

 of the tissue, which turns black with age." Blisters are 

 present, containing a sticky, yellow liquid swarming with 

 bacteria. Other diseases dealt with are pear blight, soft 

 rot of sugar beet, black rot of cabbage, bacterial blights 

 of the potato family, of beans, and of cucumbers ; specific 

 organisms have in several of these cases been isolated. 



The endoparasites of Australian stock and native fauna 

 form the subject of two papers by Dr. Georgina Sweet, of 

 the Melbourne University. The work, which is still going 

 on, aims at making a systematic and thorough inquiry 

 into the nature of the internal parasites infesting Australian 

 animals, both native and domesticated, and then into the 

 life-history and conditions of increase and spread of these 

 injurious forms. The work is both of scientific and prac- 

 tical importance ; species exist in .Australia that have not 

 been recorded elsewhere, and it is desirable that their life- 

 histories should be worked out ; methods of control are 

 also necessary, since Australia is largely dependent on its 

 livestock, and suffers great losses of revenue as a result 

 of parasitic diseases. In part i. the author gives a census 

 of forms recorded up to date, in which the work of Dr. 

 N. A. Cobb in New South Wales and others has been 

 drawn upon ; part ii. contains the new and hitherto un- 

 recorded species. 



We are in receipt of the Journal of Agriciillure of South 

 Australia, a publication which is devoted almost exclusively 

 to practical matters of local interest. The statistics for 

 1907 are discussed in one of the articles. The area under 

 crop was 2,265,017 acres, nearly one-fourth of the whole 



