474 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 65. 



ography on the part of the author. The 

 control of topographic form \>y climate, for 

 example, is sketched rather than described, 

 although the Peruvian Andes exemplify it 

 with an emphasis hardly paralleled else- 

 where. W. M. Davis. 

 Harvard University. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



The meeting of the Zoological Society of 

 London, March 3d, was devoted to a discussion 

 of Zoological nomenclature, under the the lead- 

 ership of the veteran ornithologist, P. L. Scla- 

 ter, who presented the claims of the Stricklan- 

 dian code in comparison with that of the Ger- 

 man Zoological Society. Strickland's code, 

 that formulated for the British Association in 

 1842, differs from the later one chiefly in the 

 following points : 



1. The German rules disclaim any relation 

 to hotany, so that, according to them, the same 

 generic names may be used for a plant and for 

 an animal. This is contrary to the Strickland- 

 ian code, which, however, is practically a dead 

 letter, in this particular, after fifty-four years of 

 trial. 



2. Under the German rules the same term is 

 to be used for the generic and specific name of 

 a species if these names have priority. 



This is contrary to the Stricklandian code, 

 and also to the usage of many American zoolo- 

 gists, though practiced by those who accept 

 fully the rules of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union. 



The German rules adopt the 10th edition of 

 Linnasus's Systema Naturse as the starting point 

 of zoological nomenclature, whereas the other 

 adopts the 12th. The 10th is universally ac- 

 cepted on this side of the Atlantic. 



These differences are but trifling, and it is 

 probable that they will all be reconciled through 

 the agency of the nomenclature committee ap- 

 pointed at the Leyden meeting of the Interna- 

 tional Zoological Congress. 



THE TORONTO MEETING OF THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



Nature states that the Toronto Local Com- 

 mittee are assiduously engaged in preliminary 



work for the meeting of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science in 1897. Meet- 

 ings of the executive committee are held every 

 fortnight. Besides the executive committee, a 

 number of sub-committees are at work, includ- 

 ing those on finance, conveyances, publication 

 and printing, rooms for oflBces, meetings of the 

 association and committees, hotels and lodgings, 

 press, hospitality, reception and for securiug 

 cooperation of other institutes, associations and 

 corporations, postal, telegraph and telephone 

 facilities. The attention of the committee on 

 conveyance has already been called to the de- 

 sirability of securing from the Canadian Pacific 

 Railroad transportation for such members of the 

 Association as may desire to extend their trav- 

 els to the Pacific coast, with special reference to 

 the suggestion that a meeting of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science 

 may follow the Toronto meeting, if adequate 

 facilities for transportation are assured. This 

 suggestion is . based upon the fact that the 

 American Association have already once voted 

 in favor of suqh a meeting if satisfactory rates 

 could be obtd^fned ; and the hope is still enter- 

 tained that delegates from both British and 

 Australasian Associations might find San Fran- 

 cisco a convenient point at which to meet the 

 American Association. Mr. Grifiith, the gen- 

 eral secretary of the British Association, is ex- 

 expected to be in Toronto about May 22d, to 

 make arrangments for the meeting, and set out 

 the proper lines of work. The chairman of the 

 local committee is Dr. A. B. Macallum. 



ENTOMOLOGY. 



It has always been assumed that flowers at- 

 tracted insects, in large measure at least, by the 

 splendor of their inflorescence. Some recent 

 experiments by Plateau, recorded in the Bulle- 

 tin of the Belgian Academy, throw doubt upon 

 this assumption. In a considerable bed of showy 

 dahlias Plateau concealed from sight the highly 

 colored rays of some of the flowers exposing 

 only the disk, and in a second series of experi- 

 ments the disk also but independently, either 

 by means of colored papers or by green leaves 

 secured in place by pins. Butterfles and bees 

 sought these flowers with the same avidity aud 

 apparently the same frequency as the fully ex- 



