148 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. 26. 



— The death is announced of E. Mohler, secretary 

 of the Danube commission, and of Hermann Alexan- 

 der von Berlepsch of Zurich, the latter in his seventy- 

 first year. 



— The death is also announced of Dr. J. S. Bailey 

 of Albany, a young entomologist who had published 

 a few papers of some importance on Lepidoptera. 



— In the June number of the Journal of science is 

 given the following account of a bird-eating frog. " A 

 lady living in the George district (Cape Colony) sup- 

 plies the G. B. herald with the following particulars 

 of the remarkable habits of this creature: 'I have 

 much pleasure in furnishing all the information we 

 have, regarding the large frogs which have proved 

 so destructive to our young chickens. A water-sluit 

 runs round our terrace, and passes through the 

 ground over which the poultry range, and in this the 

 frogs harbor. The first time our attention was drawn 

 to their bird-eating propensity was by the cries of a 

 small bird in a fuchsia near the stream. Thinking 

 it had been seized by a snake, several hastened to 

 the spot, and saw a beautiful red and green sugar- 

 bird in the mouth of a large greenish frog. Only the 

 bird's head was visible ; and, its cries becoming .faint- 

 er, the frog was killed, and the bird released. Its 

 feathers were all wet and slimy, and for some days 

 after we could distinguish it in the garden by its 

 ruffled plumage. Since then the same species of frog 

 has Ofi several occasions been killed with young 

 chickens, half -swallowed ; and once a duckling was 

 rescued from the same fate. Whether the noise is 

 natural to these frogs, or assumed to decoy the 

 chickens within their reach, we know not; but they 

 constantly make a chuckling sound so exactly like a 

 hen calling her chickens for food that we have seen 

 whole broods deceived, and rushing towards the sluit, 

 where they supposed the hen to be. The frogs are 

 very wary, and it is difficult to find them unless by 

 the screams of their victims. We have lost large 

 numbers of small chickens in an unaccountable 

 manner, and feel sure now that these frogs must be 

 answerable for very many of them, as there are no 

 rats here, and the chickens are carefully housed at 

 night. If I can give you any further details, I shall 

 be glad to do so.' " 



— The distinguished spectroscopist, M. Thollon, is 

 now working at the observatory at Paris, as has been 

 his custom during previous summers. The proposed 

 observatory on the top of the Pic du Midi — where the 

 brothers Henry saw the planet Venus with the naked 

 eye in full daylight, when only three or fovtr degrees 

 from the sun, and two days after the transit — is said 

 to be making great progress toward completion. It 

 is expected that Admiral Mouchez, M. Thollon, and 

 other astronomers will visit it toward the end of 

 August. 



— The Vierteljahrsschrift der astronomischen ge- 

 sellschaft (18 jahrgang, erstes heft) is frontispieced 

 with a solar print of Dr. Carl Christian Bruhns, the 

 late director of the observatory at Leipzig. In the 

 nekrologe are brief notices of Bruhns and C. Backer, 

 and a more extended one of E. Plantamour, by Dr. 

 Kudolph Wolf of Zurich. Among the literarische 



anzeigen are the following: Backlund, Zur theorie 

 des Encke'schen cometen, by Paul Harzer: Callan- 

 drean, De'termination des perturbations d'une petite 

 planfete par les m^thodes de M. Gyld^n, by O. Back- 

 lund; Ginzel, Astronomische untersuchungen iiber 

 finsternisse, by Th. von Oppolzer: and Fischer, Der 

 eintluss der lateralrefraction auf das messen von 

 horizontal-winkeln, by Wilhelm Schur. Among the 

 newly elected members of the gesellschaft are P. 

 Harzer of Leipzig, J. Holetschek of Vienna, J. 

 Scheiner of Bonn, and C. Wagner of Kremsmiinster. 

 The next meeting of the gcselUchajt will be held at 

 Vienna, commencing on Friday, Sept. 14, and lasting 

 foiu- days. 



— The geological commission of Spain has pre- 

 pared a pamphlet of twenty pages for the mineral ex- 

 hibition, now open at Madrid, giving a brief account 

 of the different geological formations occurring in 

 Spain, their geographical distribution, general charac- 

 ters, and the minerals of economic interest occurring 

 in each. It also gives a short orographical account of 

 the country, which has a higher average elevation 

 than any country in Europe excepting Switzerland. 

 The highest peak Is that of Mulahacen, in the Sierra 

 Nevada, 3,554 metres above the sea-level. The for- 

 mation which has the greatest extent in Spain is 

 the tertiary, which covers .34 per cent of the sur- 

 face; next comes the primary, covering 27 per cent; 

 the secondary, 18J per cent; the hipogenica, 10 per 

 cent; the quaternary, 10 per cent; and the azoic. -J 

 per cent. Given in numerical order, the miocene and 

 oligocene cover together 137,877 D kilom. ; the Cam- 

 brian and Silurian, 114,382; the hipogenica, 49,665; 

 the quaternai-y, 49,477; the cretaceous, 47,002; the 

 eocene, 23,564; tht Jurassic, 22,697; the triassic, 

 22,443; the carboniferous, 11,:301; the pliocene, 9,064; 

 the Devonian, 5,780; and the crystalline strata, 1,694, 

 — a total of 494,946 n kilom. The term ' rocas hipo- 

 genicas ' is applied to what are generally called plu- 

 tonic and volcanic rocks, both old and recent eruptive 

 rocks. 



— Pfere Vidal, French missionary at Tutuila, Navi- 

 gator's Islands, announces the discovery, made last 

 year, of the place of burial of Commandant Fleuriot 

 de Langle, of the unfortunate expedition of la Pe- 

 rouse. De Langle and his companions were killed by 

 the natives at a point named Massacre Bay, in De- 

 cember, 1787; but up to this recent date their remains 

 and ijlace of biu-ial had not been discovered. The 

 pious missionary intends to erect an expiatory chapel 

 for the converted natives on the spot where their bar- 

 barous ancestors' victims were buried. 



— Mr. Henry H. Ho worth, who is our standard 

 authority on the Mongols, reviews with favor the 

 work of the Eev. James Gilmour, who has lived as 

 a missionary among them. We have space only for 

 a brief abstract upon the hospitality of these least 

 sophisticated tribes of men: "Any traveller is at 

 perfect liberty to alight at any village he may w-ish, 

 and demand admittance; and any Mongol who re- 

 fuses admittance, or gives a cold welcome even, is 

 at once stigmatized as not a man, but a dog. Any 

 host who did not offer tea without money and with- 



