October 7, 1909] 



NA TURE 



433 



ploration in Bolivia and Brazil, by Major P. H. Fawcett ; 

 exploration in the Kasai region of the Congo, by Mr. E. 

 Torday ; a journey in South-west Africa, by Prof. Pearson ; 

 geographical conditions affecting the development of 

 Australia, by Prof. J. W. Gregory, F.R.S. ; and geo- 

 graphical conditions affecting the development of Canada, 

 by Mr. \V. L. Grant. 



ArrangeiMENTS have been completed whereby a standard 

 clock at the Hamburg Observatory, Bergedorf, is con- 

 nected to the trunk telephone system. A sounder auto- 

 matically emits a siren-like note from the fifty-fifth to 

 the sixtieth second of each minute — mid-European time — 

 and this goes automatically to all the receivers connected, 

 at that time, with the special exchange number which has 

 been allotted to the time signal. Thus Hamburg and 

 neighbourhood and other towns of east Germany are 

 supplied with a ready means of ascertaining the standard 

 time. 



The past summer was characterised by cool and un- 

 settled weathet*, and, with the exception of about a fort- 

 night at the commencement of August, there was a peculiar 

 absence of warm days. For the six months .'Vpril to 

 September the observations at Greenwich show that there 

 were in all only fifty-three days with a temperature of 

 70° or above ; of these, twenty occurred in August and 

 eighteen in July, whilst there was only one instance in 

 September. During the last quarter of a century the only 

 years with as few warm days are 1888, 1894, and 1903. 

 On the average of the last fifty years, there are seventy- 

 four such warm days. There were nine days with a 

 te.mperature of 80° or above, and in the last five years 

 the number varies from two in 1907 to twenty in 1906. 

 The absolutely highest temperature during the summer 

 •was 86°, on -August 12 and 15. The aggregate rainfall at 

 Greenwich for the six months is 14-04 inches, which is 

 I 75 inches more than the average summer fall of the last 

 fifty years, the mean being 12-29 inches. With the excep- 

 tion of the summer of 1903, when the aggregate rainfall 

 was 22-21 inches, there has been no summer as wet since 

 1888. There was an excess of rain in all the summer 

 months except May and August, and the wettest month 

 was June, with a total of 3-65 inches, which is 1-65 inches 

 above the average- The early summer months were ex- 

 ceptionally bright, and a record duration of sunshine for 

 any month was established in May, with 326 hours, but 

 most of the subsequent months had a deficiency of bright 

 sunshine. 



Some remarkable experiments on the reproductive 

 apparatus of insects have recently been conducted by Prof. 

 J. Meisenheimer, and are recorded by him in a treatise 

 (■" Experimentelle Studien zur Soma- und Geschlechts- 

 Differenzierung ") published by Fischer at Jena. The 

 results of this investigation have been summarised by the 

 author in the Naturwissenschaftliche Wochciischrlft for 

 August 29. The species selected for experiment was the 

 well-known "gipsy moth," Lymantria dispar. The re- 

 productive glands were removed from larvae of both sexes, 

 in some cases immediately after emergence from the egg. 

 The difficulty of operating upon larvae barely three milli- 

 metres long must have been great ; it was, however, 

 successfully overcome by aid of the galvanic cautery. In 

 larvs of a larger growth an actual transplantation was 

 effected of testis into the female and ovary into the male. 

 Details of much interest are given in the original paper ; 

 the main result is that, in strong contrast to the conditions 

 obtaining in vertebrates, the removal of the primary 

 sexual organs has no effect upon the development of the 

 remainder of the sexual apparatus, or of the secondary 

 NO. 2084, VOL. Si] 



sexual characters whether somatic or psychic. This takes 

 its normal course even in the presence of a successfully 

 transplanted primary organ of the opposite sex. 



To the August number of the National Geographic 

 Magazine Mr. H. M. Smith, U.S. Deputy Commissioner 

 of Fisheries, communicates a very graphic and interesting 

 account of the herring-fisheries of the world, in which 

 stress is laid on the importance and value of this industry, 

 which has determined the position of cities and influenced 

 the destiny of nations. In America large numbers of the 

 smaller-sized herrings are tinned and sold as sardines. In 

 place of the methods adopted on this side of the Atlantic, 

 weirs of stakes and brushwood play an important part 

 in the .American herring-fishery. As the average tidal rise 

 and fall is 20 feet, and in spring nearly 30 feet, the weirs 

 are necessarily large and strongly built structures. These 

 weirs are fished at low water, when the fishermen enter 

 in boats, set a seine and haul its ends together, and 

 proceed to take out the fish in huge dip-nets. Sometimes, 

 however, the herring are left high and dry by the falling 

 tide, when they are collected by hand or with pitchforks. 



In No. 29 of the " North American Fauna," published by 

 the Biological Division of the U.S. Department of Agri- 

 culture, Mr. E. W. Nelson gives an exhaustive account of 

 the Leporida; of North America, of which no fewer than 

 ninety-seven species and races are recognised, against 

 eighteen in 1887. Although in America all the members 

 of the family are commonly termed rabbits, the author 

 suggests that the name rabbit should be restricted to the 

 so-called "cotton-tails," which produce blind and naked 

 young in burrows or other concealed cavities, while the 

 species related to the typical Lepus of the Old World 

 should be designated hares. The fact that the cotton-tails 

 resemble the European rabbit in the matter of habits and 

 the condition of the young at birth goes far to justify 

 their separation as Sylvilagus, although that term might per- 

 haps be preferably employed in a subgeneric rather than in 

 a generic sense. It is pointed out that both " jack-rabbits " 

 and " cotton-tails " are serious pests to the agriculturist 

 and horticulturist in the United States, although the former 

 are considerably the worse of the two. On the other 

 hand, these rodents form a valuable asset to the country as 

 a source of food and of fur. 



In the annual report of the Natural History Section of 

 the Indian Museum for 1908-9 the director states that the 

 Museum Conference at Calcutta has done much to facili- 

 tate the interchange of opinions and specimens between 

 the various museums of the country. At that conference 

 it was agreed that the Calcutta establishment was to be 

 the depository for all type-specimens, except such as, for 

 climatic reasons, would be safer in London, .'\mong recent 

 additions attention is directed to a skeleton of the Mishmi 

 takin (Budorcas taxicolor), which is alleged to be the only 

 one in existence. If those of the living individuals of 

 the species be excluded, this statement may be literally 

 true, although it might have been added that the British 

 Museum possesses skeletons of the Bhutan race (B. t. 

 lahilei) and of the Sze-chuen B. tibetanns. 



In the September number of the Zoologist Mr. G. B. 

 Corbin states that the smooth snake (Coluher laevis, or 

 austriaca) is still to be found in the New Forest and on 

 the heath-lands on the opposite side of the Avon, where 

 it was first recognised as a British species. Unfortunately, 

 a portion of its habitat is slowly but steadily coming under 

 the hand of the builder. 



We have received three parts (Nos. i, 4, and 5) of a 

 new Bulletin of Economic Biology, issued by the Depart- 



