Marcu 8, 1901.] 
Nebraska; Dr. Ida Hyde of Kansas; Rame- 
ley of Colorado; Higenmann, King, Mot- 
tier and Slonaker of Indiana; Tower of 
Antioch College; Williams of Miami Uni- 
versity ; Grover of Oberlin ; Guyer of Cin- 
* cinnati; Williamson of Vanderbilt ; Cope- 
land and Parke of West Virginia ; Holmes, 
Jennings and Pearl of Ann Arbor; Clark 
of Olivet; Bensley and Jeffrey of Toronto. 
The attendance was drawn from a much 
larger territory than last year and included 
proportionately far more botanists. Pro- 
fessor Nutting presided at Thursday’s ses- 
sion and Professor Birge at Friday’s. 
All day Thursday papers were read ata 
general session and in the evening a dinner 
attended by forty-one persons was held at 
the Quadrangle Club. Friday morning was 
devoted to a discussion on ‘State Natural 
History Surveys; methods, results and co- 
operation.’ Professors Birge, Nachtrieb and 
Frank Smith opened the discussion in which 
Professors Higenmann, MacMillan, Nutting, 
Ward, Cowles, Hartzell and others also 
took part. The papers of Professors Birge, 
Nachtrieb and Smith will appear in Sctr- 
ENcE. Asa result of an eloquent plea for 
higher ideals of university and college ad- 
ministrators with reference to research, 
made by Professor Loeb at the dinner, the 
following committee on the relations of 
colleges to research was appointed : Profess- 
ors Loeb, Cowles, H. M. Kelly, MacMil- 
lan, Nachtrieb, Nutting and Ward. As 
the relation of the Naturalists’ meeting at 
Chicago to the American Society of Nat- 
uralists was still undefined no definite or- 
ganization was effected but the following 
committee on a meeting in 1901 was ap- 
pointed: Professor S. A. Forbes, Univer- 
sity of Illinois, Chairman; W. A. Locy, 
Northwestern University; Conway Mac- 
Millan, University of Minnesota; D. M. 
Mottier, University of Indiana and C. B. 
Davenport, University of Chicago; the 
last as Secretary. 
SCIENCE. 
371 
On Friday afternoon separate sections 
in botany and zoology were organized for 
the reading of papers. Abstracts of the 
papers read at the meeting follow : 
On the Absorption of Water by Frogs: Henry 
H. Dona.pson. 
A group of frogs that had been dried 
for hours was weighed and it was shown 
that through exposure to the air of the 
laboratory in a dry dish, they had lost 14 
per cent. of their body weight. These frogs 
were at once placed in a dish containing 
water about 1 cm. deep, and in 24 hours 
had regained nearly the entire weight lost 
by drying. This gain in weight was at- 
tributed to the absorption of water through 
the skin, and the fact that frogs never 
took water by the mouth was emphasized. 
Both the loss and the absorption of water 
are more rapid during the summer season 
than in the period of hibernation. The 
general influence of this capacity of the 
frog to lose and gain water readily was 
pointed out, and the evidence adduced that 
the amount of water normal to the spinal 
cord varied with the season of the year, 
being high from the last of May to the first 
of July, a season during which growth prob- 
ably occurred, and gradually diminishing 
from this period to the time of hibernation. 
Heterogeneous Induction in Tadpoles: HE. B. 
CoPpELAND. 
In water deficient in oxygen tadpoles 
swim like fish, with their noses to the sur- 
face. This behavior, though, is nota direct 
search for oxygen, but a manifestation of 
negative geotaxis. If the water is covered 
with oil they stick their noses into it and 
keep them there, or in full and closed glass 
vessels they keep their noses against the 
glass above. When in the greatest need of 
oxygen they remain, as under ordinary con- 
ditions, negatively phototactic. Their be- 
havior with reference to gravity is not the 
result of their own experience. 
