January 24, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



139 



tion, their cosmology, ontology, their ethics and 

 religion. 



In a long article Prof. August Weismann ex- 

 pounds and defends his new theory of Germinal 

 Selection, a modification of Wilhelm Roux's idea 

 of the principle of selection as applied to the < 

 parts of organisms — the struggle of the parts. 

 Weismann reviews the ivhole status of the prob- 

 lem of the eflficacy of natural selection, attacks 

 the doctrines of internal formative laws and of 

 internal motive forces in evolution, ascribing all 

 impulse and guidance in the choice of variations 

 to utility. Establishing the efficacy of selection 

 by what he deems indisputable evidence, he 

 contends, nevertheless, that natural selection 

 does not explain a very important crux of evo- 

 lution, viz, why the useful variations are always 

 present. Something is wanting to the selection 

 of persons, and that missing agency is supplied 

 by germinal selection, which the author claims 

 is the last consequence of the application of the 

 principle of Malthus to living nature, and has 

 its roots ' in the necessity of putting something 

 else in the place of the Lamarckian principle,' 

 which is declared to be inadequate. His treat- 

 ment of the views of American inquirers on this 

 point shows a higher appreciation of the strength 

 of their position than we are accustomed to ex- 

 pect from European critics. In opposition 

 thereto, however, he maintains — and here the 

 whole burden of his objection rests — that since 

 degeneration takes place in sujaerfluous parts 

 having only passive and not active functions, as 

 in the chitinous parts of the skeleton of Arthro- 

 poda, therefore, it is certain that the cessation 

 of functional action is not the efficient cause of 

 degeneration. It is a curious and instructive 

 circumstance that he grounds his arguments 

 upon the same facts as his opponents, viz. , on 

 the facts of artificial selection. He repudiates 

 the charge that his germ elements are modern- 

 ized reproductions of Bonnet's preformations, 

 and also argues for the simplicity of his theory 

 of the constitution of the germinal substance as 

 compared with that of Spencer. The mechanism 

 of the selection and survival of the plus and 

 minus determinants in Weismann' s theory of the 

 germinalhattle for life is that of oscillations of the 

 nutrient supply and of the active as well as passive 

 assimilative powers of the struggling particles. 



In the last article. On the Nature of Mathe- 

 matical Knoivledge, Prof H. Schubert, of Ham- 

 burg, shows the varying degrees of certainty 

 attainable in the different branches of mathe- 

 matics as compared with each other and with 

 the remaining sciences, and points out the lead- 

 ing features by which mathematical thought is 

 distinguished from other rational processes. 



Prof. Henry F. Osborn reviews the late Mr. 

 Romanes's Post-Danoinian Questions. Other im- 

 portant works in science and philosophy also 

 receive critical discussion. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADE3IIES. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 253D 



MEETING, SATURDAY, JANUARY 11. 



Geerit S. Miller read by title a paper on the 

 Sub-genera of voles {Microtinse). 



T. S. Palmer spoke on Babbit Drives in the 

 West, illustrating his remarks with lantern 

 slides. He alluded to the great destruction 

 caused by the introduction of rabbits into New 

 Zealand and Australia, and the efforts to check 

 their increase, and described the damage to 

 fruit and other crops in California. The drives 

 were undertaken with the object of reducing 

 the numbers of the rabbits and the principal 

 locality where they were held was in the San 

 Joaquin valley. The method was practiced on 

 a limited scale by the Indians as far back as 

 1839, but the first of the modern drives by 

 whites took place at Pixley, Cal. , in November, 

 1887. The principle of a drive was as follows: 

 A corral or pen of some kind was built with 

 wing fences leading from it for a long distance, 

 like a funnel, and a multitude of people, who 

 assemble in response to notices and advertise- 

 ments form a line and drive the rabbits toward 

 this trap. The line may be several miles in 

 length and it is formed some distance from the 

 pen. The rabbits which try to dovible on the 

 line are killed with clubs, and when the others 

 have been driven into the trap, gates are shut 

 and all clubbed to death. The number de- 

 stroyed in 208 drives,- including under this 

 head the ' shotgun hunts ' of Colorado and 

 Utah, was 459,000, the average per drive being 

 about 2,200; the greatest number killed at any 

 one time was in March, 1892, at Fresno, Cal., 



