September 9, 1909] 



NA TURE 



;ii 



forcibly in favour of the collectivist principle as against 

 unrestricted individual competition. Opinions will differ as 

 to the practicability and desirability of the respective ideals 

 of the two writers, but whatever may be the value of Mr. 

 Low's political criticisms, they appear to miss what is the 

 gist of his opponent's contention, viz. that the measures 

 of statesmen should be constructed on the basis of scientific 

 principle, and not, as is too often the case, with a hap- 

 hazard disregard of natural laws and conditions. Mr. Low 

 enlarges on the well-known fact that in some circumstances 

 it is not the highest type that proves to be the best fitted 

 to survive ; but he appears to forget that, in spite of all 

 counteracting influences, the net result of competition has 

 been the evolution of forms possessing the most excellent 

 qualities known in nature. Moreover, the struggle for life 

 is not abolished by the association of individuals in 

 altruistic communities. :\U Darwinians know this, and 

 they also know that, as common sense teaches, there must 

 be a liQkit to altruism. It is the business of scientific 

 thinkers to determine the limit, and of politicians to shape 

 their measures accordingly. 



The death is announced of M. L. Bouveault, assistant 

 professor of organic chemistry at the Sorbonne, Paris, at 

 forty-five years of age. 



We regret to see the announcement of the death of Mr. 

 Thomas Southwell, for many years secretary, and twice 

 president, of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' .Society, 

 at the age of seventy-nine. 



News has reached us of the regretted death, un- 

 expectedly, of Dr. Fritz Erk, honorary professor of meteor- 

 ology in the LIniversity of Munich, and the first president 

 of the Munich Meteorological Society. 



The Geneva correspondent of the Times reports that 

 the Janssen Observatory on the summit of Mont Blanc 

 is about to be demolished. It will be replaced by the 

 Cabane on the Rochers Rouges. AH the scientific instru- 

 ments in the observatory, which was completed in i8q4 

 under great difficulties, have been removed to the Vallot 

 Observatory, which is at a lower altitude. 



The Scottish expedition to Spitsbergen under Dr. W. S. 

 Bruce has arrived at Tromso on board the steam yacht 

 Conqueror, with all well on board. The expedition, which 

 left Leith in July, is reported to have completed the survey 

 of Prince Charles Foreland and made important geological 

 and other investigations. An account of the constitution 

 and proposed work of the expedition appeared in Nature 

 of July 15. 



Dr. a. du Pr^ Denning, for several years lecturer in 

 experimental physics in the University of Birmingham, and 

 principal of the Municipal Technical School, Smethwick, 

 has been appointed by the Secretary of State for India to 

 the newly created post of superintendent of industries and 

 inspector of technical and industrial institutions in Bengal. 



The Times correspondent at Paris announces that the 

 following members of the Bureau of Longitudes will re- 

 present France at the meeting of the International Geodetic 

 Association to be held in London on September 2t : — 

 General Bassot, president ; M. Henri Poincar^ ; M. 

 Hanusse, director of hydrography in the French Ministry 

 of Marine ; M. Charles Lallemand, director-general of the 

 French Ordnance Survey Department ; and Colonel 

 Bourgeois, chief of the surveying section of the Geo- 

 graphical Department of the War Office. 



The tenth meeting of the Astronomical and Astrophysical 

 Society of America was held at the Yerkes Observatory, 

 NO. 2080, VOL. 81] 



Williams Bay, Wisconsin, on .August 18-21, Prof. E. C. 

 Pickering, president, presiding, .^bout sixty members, with 

 a few guests, were in attendance, and forty papers, many 

 of them illustrated with lantern-slides, were presented upon 

 various topics. Reports were also made by the committee 

 on comets and the committee on luminous meteors. The 

 official account of the meeting, with abstracts of the papers, 

 will be published, as usual, in Science a few weeks hence. 

 The meeting was favoured with a cloudless sky, and the 

 visitors had an opportunity for observing with the 40-inch 

 telescope and inspecting all departments of the work of 

 the Yerkes Observatory. The next meeting of the society 

 will be held at the Harvard College Observatory in the 

 latter part of August, 19 10. 



The eighth International Congress of Zoology is to be 

 held next year at Graz (.Austria). .As entomology plays 

 only a subordinate part at such a congress, a movement 

 has been started to unite entomologists in a congress 

 entirely devoted to entomology in its various aspects, and 

 to establish a permanent committee which may act as a 

 central organisation in the interest of this subject. It is 

 proposed that a congress of entomology be held every three 

 years, about a fortnight before each triennial zoological 

 congress, so that resolutions and conclusions of general 

 importance could, if deemed necessary, be brought up for 

 discussion at the ensuing zoological congress. The first 

 International Congress of Entomology will be held on 

 August 1-6, 19 10, at Brussels, during the International 

 Exposition which will be taking place there at that time. 

 The subjects to be brought before the general or sectional 

 meetings will comprise systematics, nomenclature, anatomy, 

 physiology, psychology, ontogeny, phylogeny, oecology, 

 mimicry, etiology, bionomy, palreontology, zoogeographv, 

 muscology, medical and economic entomology. The chair- 

 man of the local committee for Great Britain is Dr. G. B. 

 LongstafT, Highlands, Putney Heath, London, S.W. 



Notes on Cornish Crustacea, by Mr. J. Clark, form 

 the subject of the chief article in the August number of 

 the Zoologist, the author directing attention to the great 

 richness of the coasts of Cornwall in animals of this class, 

 even such far-off species as the gulf-weed crab being 

 occasionally drifted into these waters. 



The July number of the Emu is illustrated by a very 

 interesting plate, reproduced from a photograph, showing 

 the feeding-grounds of the laughing kingfisher, cat-bird, 

 and noisy pitta in the Coolabunia pine-scrubs near 

 Kingaroy, to the south-vifest of Maryborough, Queensland. 

 Near the centre of the photograph is shown a large flat 

 stone, around which is strewn an enormous mass of shells 

 of Helix cunninghami, a large species in which the shell 

 measures more than a couple of inches in diameter. The 

 shells of these snails are broken by the birds on the 

 boulder, and their luscious contents eaten. 



We have received a copy of the report of the directors 

 of the various museums in Cape Colony, namely, the South 

 .African, the Port Elizabeth, the KImberley, the Albany, 

 and the King William's Town Museum, for 1908. In the 

 case of the South African Museum, Dr. Peringuey com- 

 plains of the want of sufficient space in the exhibition 

 galleries, more especially in the anthropological and ethno- 

 logical department, where it has been found impossible to 

 find room for a series of life-like models of native races 

 recently prepared under his direction. It is interesting to 

 note that a number of skulls and skeletons of the Hottentot 

 races have been recently acquired by this museum. 



To the Revue scientifique for August 21 Dr. E. 

 Trouessart communicates an article on African big game 



