866 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 626. 



selves with all previous literature on the same 

 subjects; but notwithstanding the elaborate 

 bibliographies now so commonly appended to 

 papers on special topics, the crediting and 

 utilization of the more remote publications 

 seems in danger of falling into innocuous 

 desuetude. E. W. Hilgard. 



Unh^ersity of Califoenia, 

 December, 1906. 



CURRENT N0TE8 ON METEOROLOGY. 

 BLUE HILL OBSERVATORY. 



Vol. LVin., Part II., of the Annals of the 

 Harvard College OTjservatory contains ' Ob- 

 servations and Investigations made at the 

 Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in the 

 Years 1903 and 1904.' From the introduc- 

 tion we learn that Mr. H. H. Clayton, well 

 known as one of the foremost meteorological 

 investigators in the world, has completed 

 twenty years of service at Blue Hill, and that 

 Mr. S. P. Pergusson, who, by his skill as a 

 mechanician and his general ability along 

 many lines of meteorological inquiry has con- 

 tributed largely to the success of the Blue Hill 

 work, has completed eighteen years of service. 

 The introduction also contains a review of the 

 principal work done at Blue Hill in the twenty 

 years since its opening, but as readers of Sci- 

 ence are familiar with much of this, we do 

 not summarize here. Mr. A. Lawrence Eotch, 

 the founder of the observatory, without whose 

 untiring devotion to his science and unfailing 

 readiness to assume the increasing financial 

 burden of maintaining this institution the 

 United States would occupy a far less promi- 

 nent place in meteorological advancement, 

 may well look back on the past twenty years 

 of work at Blue Hill with pride and satisfac- 

 tion. American men of science can have but 

 one hope and wish in connection with the 

 Blue Hill Observatory: that its next twenty 

 years may be as fruitful in results as the last 

 twenty have been. 



THUNDER-STORMS AND THE MOON. 



Much time has been spent by various in- 

 vestigators in the attempt to show some rela- 

 tion between the occurrence of thunder-storms 

 and the phases of the moon. The latest con- 



tribution to this discussion comes from C. W. 

 Hissink, of Zutphen, who in the September 

 number of ' Hemel en Dampkring ' presents 

 the results of a study of thunderstorm days 

 in Holland for the period 1883-1903. The 

 means for these years show so complete an 

 agreement for different phases of the moon 

 that there can be no question that no lunar 

 influence is shown. Evidently the supposed 

 connection between moon and thunder-storms 

 depends for the results obtained upon the 

 period which any investigator uses, and upon 

 the length of the series of observations. 

 When a long series of observations is avail- 

 able, no lunar influence is, on the whole, 

 manifest. 



LANTERN SLIDES ILLUSTRATING CLIMATE. 



We note the publication, by the Diagram 

 Company, of New Maiden, Surrey, England, 

 of the seventh issue of ' The Diagram Series,' 

 designed by B. B. Dickinson, assistant master 

 at Rugby, and A. W. Andrews, extension lec- 

 turer. This series comprises a considerable 

 number of lantern slides illustrating the cli- 

 mate of the world as a whole, and of the 

 separate continents. Among these we observe 

 charts of isotherms, isobars, winds, ocean cur- 

 rents and rainfall. It is encouraging to see 

 the rapid increase in the demand for such 

 teaching materials in meteorology and clima- 

 tology for use in colleges and schools. 



R. DeC. Ward. 



NOTES ON ENTOMOLOGY. 

 A MOST interesting and attractive paper is 

 that of Arnold Pictet,^ on the influence of 

 food and himiidity on Lepidoptera. A great 

 number of experiments were made by the 

 author on the larvae of twenty-one different 

 species of Lepidoptera, among them the gipsy 

 and brown-tail moths. His results show that 

 changing the usual food is apt to cause varia- 

 tion in adults. A food difficult of assimila- 

 tion hinders the growth of the caterpillar and 

 lengthens larval life ; in consequence the pupal 



^ ' Influence de ralimentation et de I'humidit^ 

 sur la variation des papillons,' MSm. Soc. Phy- 

 sique et d'Hist. Nat. de Geneve, Vol. 35, pp. 45- 

 127, 4 pi., 1905. 



