March 26, 1915J 



SCIENCE 



417 



Yen, Tangshan Engineering College. Three ap- 

 plications for membership were received. 



The following papers were read at this meet- 

 ing: 



M. Fr^ehet : " Sur les f onetionnelles bilinfiaires. ' ' 



A. S. Hathaway : ' ' Gamma coefficients. ' ' 



P. H. Linehan : ' ' Equilong invariants of ir- 

 regular and regular analytic curves." 



B. H. Camp : ' ' Multiple integrals over infinite 

 fields. ' ' 



A. E. Schweitzer : ' ' On the methods of mathe- 

 matical discovery. ' ' 



P. K. Kider: "An extension of Bliss's form of 

 the problem of the calculus of variations, with 

 applications to the generalization of angle. ' ' 



E. B. Wilson: "The Ziwet -Field note on plane 

 kinematics. ' ' 



O. E. Glenn: "Ternary transveetant systems." 



E. J. Miles : ' ' Note on the application of the 

 calculus of variations to a problem in mechan- 

 ics. ' ' 



A. B. Frizell: "The permutations of the nat- 

 ural numbers can not be well ordered." 



0. H. Forsyth: "Osculatory interpolation for- 

 mulas. ' ' 



J. F. Bitt: "A function of a real variable with 

 any desired derivatives at a point. ' ' 



J. F. Eitt: "On Babbage's functional equa- 

 tion. ' ' 



The next meetings of the society will be in 

 Chicago, April 2-3, and New York, April 24. 

 The summer meeting will be held at the Univer- 

 sity of California and Stanford University, Au- 

 gust 3-5. F. N. Cole, 



Secretary 



THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF 'WASHINGTON 



The 533d meeting of the Biological Society of 

 Washington was held in the Assembly Hall of the 

 Cosmos Club, Saturday, January 9, 1915. It was 

 called to order by President Bartsch at S p.m. 

 About 40 members were present. 



The minutes of the 531st meeting were read 

 and approved. 



Waldo Schmitt, of the U. S. National Museum, 

 was elected to active membership. 



Under the heading Brief Notes and Exhibition 

 of Specimens, Dr. L. 0. Howard made remarks on 

 the meetings held at Philadelphia during convo- 

 cation week and Dr. Pilsbry discussed certain as- 

 pects of the Hawaiian land-shell problem. The 

 latter said early collecting was done in the val- 

 leys, but recent work showed chief home of spe- 

 cies to be on ridges. Distribution of forms oc- 



curred in groups and there were many instances 

 of Mendelian inheritance between different forms 

 carried out on large natural scale. 



The first paper on the regular program was by 

 Wm. Palmer: "An Unknown Fossil." Mr. 

 Palmer exhibited the specimen from the Calvert 

 Cliffs of Chesapeake Bay and hoped members 

 would express views as to its nature. His own 

 view was that it might represent the lower jaw of 

 an unknown turtle. From the same locality other 

 fossils were shown that had previously proved very 

 difficult to identify. Mr. Palmer's communica- 

 tion was discussed by Professor Hay. 



The second paper was by Professor Hay: "An 

 Albino Terrapin. ' ' The unique specimen was ex- 

 hibited; it was hatched near Beaufort, N. C. ; an 

 attempt was made to raise it, but it lived only a 

 few months. Professor Hay took occasion to show 

 excellent lantern slides of certain interesting 

 crustaceans, especially of Limnoria Ugnorum, 

 wood-boring Isopod, and of Xylotria, a wood-bor- 

 ing mollusk. Professor Hay's communication 

 was discussed by Messrs. Bartsch, Wilcox, Palmer, 

 Smith, Hopkins and by Miss Eathbun. 



The last communication was by M. W. Lyon; 

 Jr. : ' ' Notes on the Physiology of Bats. ' ' The 

 speaker stated little was known of exact physiology 

 of bats, but discussed subject from broad stand- 

 point of their physiology of locomotion, of food, 

 adaptation and of special senses. Need of care- 

 ful experiments on use of, and modern histological 

 work on structure of nose leaves was pointed out. 

 Paper was discussed by Messrs. Howard, Bishop, 

 Hunter, Palmer and Stiles; Mr. Bishop giving an 

 account of a bat roost near San Antonio, Texas, 

 erected with the idea that bats would consume' 

 large numbers of malarial mosquitoes, Mr. Hunter 

 stating that an examination of stomach contents 

 of bats showed food of Nytinomus mexicanus con- 

 sisted of 95 per cent, moths, the rest being cara- 

 bid beetles, hymenopterous insects and a few crane 

 flies, the only Diptera found, no mosquitoes being 

 observed. 



On Tuesday, January 19, 1915, at 8:30 p.m., 

 the Biological Society held a joint meeting with 

 the Washington Academy of Sciences in the audi- 

 torium of the National Museum. Dr. Johan Hjort, 

 Director of Fisheries of Norway, delivered an il- 

 lustrated lecture on "Migrations and Fluctua- 

 tions of the Marine Animals of Western Europe. ' ' 

 About 200 persons were present. 



