284 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 999 



A NUMBER of Herefordshire teachers came 

 out on strike on January 31 owing to the re- 

 fusal of the local education authority to estab- 

 lish a scale of salaries, whereby if a teacher's 

 record is satisfactory his pay shall increase 

 automatically until a maximum is reached. 

 We learn from the London Times that the 

 strikers include the head teachers of about 

 80 out of some 1Y6 schools. In addition, there 

 are schools where assistants and not the head- 

 masters or mistresses are ceasing work. More 

 resignations will fall due as the weeks pass, 

 until at the end of March 117 head teachers 

 out of 189 employed will be idle, and, including 

 assistants, a total of 223. Before the teachers' 

 threat to strike the average salary of head- 

 masters was £111, against an average for all 

 the British counties of £146 6s., and the aver- 

 age salary of head mistresses was £88 16s., 

 against £100 8s. for the English counties. 

 There were similar disproportions in the sal- 

 aries of class teachers. The local education 

 authority, admitting that the salaries paid in 

 Herefordshire were low, increased the salaries 

 of certain teachers in December last by 

 amounts totalling £1,300 a year. 



Dr. Ethelbert D. Warfield has resigned 

 the presidency of Lafayette College. 



Dr. George E. Brewer has been appointed 

 to the chair of surgery at the College of Physi- 

 cians and Surgeons of Columbia University. 

 Dr. Walter B. James has asked to be relieved 

 from membership in the medical faculty. He 

 ■will retain his professorship and continue to 

 direct research students from time to time. 



J. F. McClendon, of Cornell Medical Col- 

 lege, New York City, has accepted a position 

 in the department of physiology, University 

 of Minnesota Medical School. 



Dr. Watson Marshall has been appointed 

 demonstrator in laryngology in the School of 

 Medicine of the University of Pittsburgh. 



Dr. Marienne Plehn, assistant in the bio- 

 logical laboratory at Munich, has been made 

 professor. She is said to be the fifth woman 

 to receive this title in German universities. 



Dr. August Brauer, director of the zoolog- 

 ical museum of the University of Berlin, has 



been called to a professorship at Bonn, but it 

 is expected that he will remain at Berlin. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 



THE OYTOLOGICAL TIME OP MUTATION EST TOBACCO 



In the issue of Science for January 2, 1914, 

 there is described a mutation that occurred in 

 a variety of the common tobacco which gives 

 promise to become of great economic value. 

 In the article referred to it was assumed that 

 the germinal change must have occurred after 

 fertilization because the aberrant plant bred 

 true. Professor Castle has asked if partheno- 

 genesis may not be as reasonable an interpre- 

 tation of the phenomenon since partheno- 

 genesis is known to occur in Nicotiana 

 tabacum. 



The possibility had naturally occurred to 

 us. And since it is impossible to prove a 

 negative the same alternative may be pre- 

 sented in discussing any Angiosperm varia- 

 tion. Mrs. Rose Haig Thomas has reported 

 parthenogenesis in Nicotiana and her work 

 has been confirmed by Bateson on one variety. 



One may not deny their conclusions, but the 

 theorem of logic used above holds here as 

 well. While admitting the possibility that 

 Mrs. Thomas has found strains of partheno- 

 genetic Nicotiana, it is possible that her re- 

 sults were incorrectly interpreted. We have 

 made numerous attempts to secure partheno- 

 genetic seeds from various species of Nico- 

 tiana without success. Dr. E. M. East and 

 Mr. R. Wellington made nearly one thousand 

 such attempts with over 50 species and vari- 

 eties of the genus, also without success. We 

 think it reasonable to assume, therefore, that 

 parthenogenesis in our strain of Nicotiana is 

 extremely improbable. H. K. Hates, 



E. G. Beinhart 



Connecticut Experiment Station, 

 New Haven 



WINTER coloration OF WEASELS 



To THE Editoe of Science : It is well known 

 that throughout Canada, and in the northern 

 parts of the United States, the weasels become 

 white in winter, whereas in the southern, 

 warmer parts of the country they do not do 



