January 30, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



187 



"A Study of the Annual Eeeurrence of Fhy- 

 tophthora infestans," by I. E. Melhus. 



"Fungous Gummosis of Citrus in California," 

 by H. 8. Faweett. C. L. Shear, 



Secretary- Treasurer 



THE PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

 The fifth annual meeting of the Paleontological 

 Society was held at Princeton, N. J., on Wednes- 

 day, December 31, 1913, and Thursday, January 1, 

 1914, in affiliation with the Geological Society of 

 America. The meeting this year included a general 

 session in which selected papers of interest to all 

 members of the society were read, and special ses- 

 sions dealing with vertebrate and invertebrate 

 paleontology and paleobotany. Notable features 

 of the meeting were first, the president 's address 

 by Dr. Charles D. Walcott on the Cambrian of 

 western North America, and second a conference 

 on the close of the Cretaceous and opening of 

 Eocene time. In the latter the geological and 

 paleontological evidence was presented by Messrs. 

 F. H. Knowlton and T. W. Stanton, and recent 

 discoveries in regard to late Cretaceous and early 

 Eocene life were reported especially as a result of 

 the American Museum expeditions under Messrs. 

 Barnum Brown and Walter Granger. 



A new Ungulate of very distinctive South Amer- 

 ican type was recorded by Dr. Matthew as addi- 

 tional evidence of affinity between North and 

 South America in Lower Eocene times. The line 

 of ancestry of the uintatheres was recorded as 

 traced into Basal or Paleocene times. A new 

 fauna is described between the Puerco-Torrejon 

 and Wasatch, to be known as the Clark Fork. Still 

 more striking was the record of Mr. J. W. Gidley, 

 of the V. S. National Museum, of the occurrence 

 of a true eland Taurotragus in the Pleistocene cave 

 of western Maryland. This discovery confirms 

 the statement of J. C. Merriam of the occurrence 

 of African antelopes in Virgin Valley, northern 

 Nevada and links North America very closely to 

 Asia in Pliocene times. Accompanying the eland 

 was a peculiar species of African dog. 



R. S. Bassler, 



Secretary 

 SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OP WASHINGTON 



The 516th meeting of the society was held on 

 November 15, 1913, Vice-president Paul Bartsch 

 in the chair and 35 persons present. 



F. V. Coville presented a communication on 



"The Physiology of the Blueberry." His re- 

 marks were based on wide experience in green- 

 house and outdoor culture of this plant. Three 

 conditions are essential to its successful propaga- 

 tion: first, an acid soil; second, the presence of 

 the micorrhizal fungus to enable the plant to ob- 

 tain nitrogen, and third, the stimulating effect of 

 cold on the twigs while they are dormant. The 

 last is a condition of vital importance, associated 

 as it is with the transformation of starch into 

 sugar. As a result of this series of experiments, 

 the commercial propagation of the blueberry is 

 now possible. Very large berries have been de- 

 veloped, some of them from •* inch to i iueh in 

 diameter. The various means of cultivation were 

 explained and illustrated by means of numerous 

 lantern slides. 



W. C. Kendall, the second speaker announced on 

 the program, was absent, and the chairman asked 

 Dr. Leon J. Cole, of the University of Wisconsin, 

 to address the society. He responded by giving an 

 account of his experiments in breeding pigeons for 

 the study of color inheritance. 



Owing to lateness, the communication by Barton 

 W. Evermann was postponed. 



The 517th meeting of the society was held on 

 November 29, 1913, President E. W. Nelson in the 

 chair and 63 persons present. 



The meeting was devoted to a discussion of 

 Parallel Development. A. D. Hopkins read a 

 paper on ' ' Parallelism in Morphological Characters 

 and Physiological Characteristics in Scolytoid 

 Beetles." He had made a special study of these 

 beetles and his ideas of parallelism in nature were 

 largely founded on evidence they have furnished. 

 He defined the subject as follows: 



' ' Parallelism in morphological characters and 

 physiological characteristics in Scolytoid beetles 

 relates to the occurrence of the same or similar 

 elements of structure or the same kind of activity 

 in two or more species, genera, subfamilies or 

 families. Parallel species, genera and larger 

 groups are those in which structure or habit is in 

 many respects alike. Such species or groups may 

 be closely allied or more or less widely separated. 

 Universal parallelism relates to repeated or mul- 

 tiple origin, development and evolution of the same 

 or similar inorganic or organic form or activity. 



' ' This tendency towards parallel development 

 appears to be iu accordance with a fundamental 

 principle or law of parallelism in evolution, under 

 which the origin and evolution of the same form 

 or activity, under the same or similar physical in- 



