158 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 291. 



age ; in 1855 he accepted the Invitation of 

 the late Sir George Grey to a post in the Civil 

 Service at Cape Town. There he founded the 

 South African Museum and became its first 

 curator ; Layard's chief work was 'The Birds 

 of South Africa,' published in 1867, of which 

 a new and revised edition, with the collabora- 

 tion of Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, made its appear- 

 ance between 1875-84. It is rather by his 

 many and varied contributions from 1854 al- 

 most to the time of his death that he will be 

 remembered ; and a column of closely printed 

 type in the General Subject Index to The Ibis 

 testifies to his work in ornithology. Percy S. 

 Selous, an associate member of the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union, died at his home 

 in Greenville, Mich., on April 7, 1900. His 

 death was due to the bite of a pet Florida 

 moccasin. Mr. Selous was a great traveler and 

 an enthusiastic naturalist, especially interested 

 in birds and reptiles. 



Among the British Civil List pensions granted 

 during the year ended on June 20th, Nature 

 notices the following : Mr. Benjamin Harrison, 

 in consideration of his researches in the subject 

 of pre-historic flint implements, 261.; Mr. 

 Thomas Whittaker, in consideration of his 

 philosophical writings, 501. ; Mr. Charles James 

 Wollaston, in recognition of his services in 

 connection with the introduction of submarine 

 telegraphy, IQOL; Mr. Robert Tucker, in consid- 

 eration of his services in promoting the study 

 of mathematics, 40/. ; Mrs. Eliza Arlidge, in 

 consideration of the labors of her late husband. 

 Dr. John Thomas Arlidge, in the cause of in- 

 dustrial hygiene, 501.; Miss Emily Victoria 

 Biscoe, in consideration of the services rendered 

 to Antarctic exploration by her late father, 

 Captain John Biscoe, SOI. 



The death is announced of Dr. Corrado Tom- 

 masi Crudeli, professor of pathological histol- 

 ogy at Rome, one of the secretaries of the 

 Accademia dei Lincei and known for his im- 

 portant researches on cholera and malaria. 



By the will of the late Timothy B. Black- 

 stone, of Chicago, $250,000 is given to public 

 institutions, including $100,000 to the Black- 

 stone Library at Branford, Conn., and $25,000 

 to the Chicago Art Institute. 



The Belgian Academy of Medicine offers a 

 prize of 1200 fr. for a research on the influence 

 of change of temperature on nutrition. Essays 

 must be sent before the 20th of January, 1901, 

 to the Secretary of the Academy, Brussels. 



The fiftieth anniversary of the German Or- 

 nithological Society will be celebrated at the 

 annual meeting which will be held at Leipzig on 

 October 5th. 



The third annual meeting of the American 

 Section of the International Association for the 

 Testing of Materials will be held in New York, 

 October 25th-27th. At this meeting reports of 

 a number of committees as to proposed standard 

 specifications will be submitted for discussion. 

 Among these are specifications for steel axles, 

 steel forgings, steel castings and wrought iron. 



The annual meeting of the British Museums 

 Association began at Canterbury on July 9th, 

 under the presidency of Dr. Henry Woodward, 

 of the British Museum. 



The Victoria Institute, London, held its an- 

 nual meeting on July 15th, when an address 

 was given by Professor Hull, F.R.S. 



The Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine, 

 London, will be taxed according to a decision 

 of the English Courts, because it is not exclu- 

 sively for purposes of science. It is held that 

 the fact that the Institute has sold certain anti- 

 toxines prevents it being regarded as exclusively 

 for the advancement of science. 



The British Secretary of State for India has 

 received a telegraph from the Governor of 

 Bombay stating that there were 9928 cases of 

 cholera in the famine districts during the week 

 ending July 7th, of which 6474 were fatal, and 

 that in the native States there were 9526 cases, 

 of which 5892 were fatal. The total number 

 of death on the relief works was 5870, which 

 was 3.9 per 1000. 



The hut in which Drs. Sambon and Low 

 are about to make their experiments, to see 

 whether malaria is prevented by excluding 

 mosquitoes, is to be placed on a site about two 

 miles from Ostia, on the edge of a swamp form- 

 ing part of the royal hunting domain of Castel 

 Fusano, and left undrained to preserve the 

 wild animals. It is one of the most fever 

 stricken centers of the Roman Campana and 



