170 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1048 



the normal nutrition of Drosophila no bac- 

 terial action is required. 



It will be our nest task to attempt to raise 

 the flies aseptically on our artificial culture 

 media, to decide whether or not in our experi- 

 ments bacteria performed the work of syn- 

 thesis for the larvse. 



It was natural to raise the question to what 

 extent the nitrogen content of the filter paper 

 contributed to the result. The fact that no 

 larva was able to grow on filter paper, water, 

 sugar and salts alone indicates that the nitro- 

 gen content of the filter paper played prac- 

 tically no role in the nutrition. Moreover, the 

 amount of N contained in the filter paper was 

 negligible compared with the amount of N 

 added in the form of amino-acid or ammonium 

 salts. One culture contained, as a rule, 200 mg. 

 glycocoll or other amino acid, i. e., roughly 

 between 30 and 40 mg. of nitrogen. The 250 

 mg. of filter paper added to the culture con- 

 tained only 0.02 mg. of nitrogen. The nitro- 

 gen in the filter paper was therefore about 

 between 1/2,000 and 1/1,500 of the total nitro- 

 gen in the culture medium. Nevertheless, it 

 is a fact that in liquid cultures without filter 

 paper — in this case glass beads were used to 

 prevent the drowning of the files — ^the yield 

 of larvse was very much smaller than with 

 filter paper. It should also be stated that the 

 larvse ate little if any of the filter paper. It 

 wiU be one of the tasks of our further experi- 

 ments to find out what caused the difference 

 in the two cases. 



Jacques Loeb 



The Eockefellee Institute 

 POE Medical Eeseaech, 

 New Yoke 



TEB BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMEMICA 



The ninth annual meeting of the Botanical So- 

 ciety of America was held in the Medical School 

 of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 

 Pa., December 29-31, 1914. The following offi- 

 cers were elected for the ensuing year: 



President — John M. Coulter. 



Vice-president — E. A. Harper. 



Treasurer — Arthur Hollick. 



Councilor — "W. F. Ganong. 



The resignation of George T. Moore as secre- 

 tary was accepted and Mr. H. H. Bartlett, of the 



Department of Agriculture, elected to fill the un- 

 expired term. 



The council for 1915 will consist of above offi- 

 cers and George P. Atkinson and David Pairchild. 



The following botanists were elected to member- 

 ship: Adeline Ames, Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. ; E. G. Arzberger, Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, Washington, D. C. ; Freda M. 

 Bachmann, Milwaukee Downer College, Mil- 

 waukee, Wis.; Samuel M. Bain, University of Ten- 

 nessee, KnoxviUe, Tenn. ; A. L. Bakke, Ames, 

 Iowa; Henry W. Barre, Clemson College, S. C; 

 H. P. Barss, Oregon Agric. Coll., CorvalUs, Ore- 

 gon; E. Kent Beattie, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Washington, D. C; Albert T. Bell, University of 

 Louisiana, Baton Eouge, La.; H. M. Benedict, 

 University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, O. ; E. C. 

 Benedict, 2303 New Kirk Ave., Brooklyn, New 

 York; Charles Brooks, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Washington, D. C; E. P. Bioknell, 30 Pine St., 

 New York City; Guy E. Bisbey, Brooklyn Botanic 

 Garden, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Harry P. Brown, 219 

 Linden Ave., Ithaca, N. Y. ; Stewardson Brown, 20 

 East Penn St., Philadelphia, Penna. ; Edward 

 Sandford Burgess, Hunter College, New York 

 City; Gertrude S. Burlingham, 556 Lafayette Ave., 

 Brooklyn, N. Y.; George H. Chapman, Mass. 

 Agric. College, Amherst, Mass.; C. Harvey CrabOl, 

 Va. Agr. Exp. Sta., Blacksburg, Va. ; Eichard O. 

 Cromwell, North Carolina Agric. Exp. Sta., West 

 Ealeigh, N. C; Gilbert Cameron Cunning'ham, 

 Burlington, Vt. ; Charles C. Deam, Bluffton, Indi- 

 ana; W. W. Eggleston, Dept. of Agriculture, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. ; John H. Ehlers, Univ. of Michigan, 

 Ann Arbor, Mich.; Julia T. Emerson, 131 East 

 66th St., New York City; T. J. Fitzpatrick, Oot- 

 ner University, Bethany, Nebraska; Eloise Gerry 

 (U. S. Forest Service), 616 Lake St., Madison, 

 Wis.; Melvin E. Gilmore, Neb. His. Soc. Museum, 

 Lincoln, Nebraska; John P. Helyar, New Bruns- 

 wick, New Jersey; Bascombe Britt Higgins, 

 Georgia Exp. Sta., Experiment, Georgia; H. B. 

 Humphrey, Dept. of Agric, Washington, D. C. ; 

 L. M. Hutchins, Bureau Plant Industry, Washing- 

 ton, D. C. ; H. S. Jackson, Oregon Agric. College, 

 Corvallis, Oregon; Cyrus A. King, Erasmus Hall 

 High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.; B. F. Lutman, 

 University of "Vt., Burlington, Vt.; Fred McAllis- 

 ter, University of Texas, Austin, Texas; Walter B. 

 McDougall, University of Illinois, Urbana, Uls. ; 

 S. M. McMurran, Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Washington, D. C; K. K. Mackenzie, 139 North 

 Walnut St., East Orange, New Jersey; W. E. 

 Manewal, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. ; 

 H. F. Meier, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. 



