Dkckmber 12, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



945 



The Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of 

 America will meet during Convocation Week, in 

 affiliation with Section A of the A. A. A. S. 

 President, Simon Newcomb; secretary, George C. 

 Comstock, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 



Tft-e Botanical Society of America will meet on 

 December 31 and January 1. President, B. T. 

 Galloway; secretary, T>. T. MacDougal, New York 

 City. 



The Botanists of the Central and Western States 

 will meet on December 30. Committee in charge 

 of the meeting, John M. Coulter, University of 

 Chicago ; D. M. Mottier, University of Indiana, 

 Bloomington, Ind. ; Conway MacMillan, Univer- 

 sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 



The Geological Society of America, will meet on 

 December 29, 30 and 31. President, N. H. Win- 

 ehell; vice-presidents, S. F. Emmons, J. C. Bran- 

 ner; secretary, H. L. Fairchild, University of 

 Rochester, Rochester, N. Y. 



The National Geographic Society will hold a 

 meeting during Convocation Week. President, 

 A. Graham Bell; vice-president, W J MeGee; 

 secretary, A. J. Henry, U. S. Weather Bureau, 

 Washington, D. C. 



The Naturalists of the Central States will meet 

 on December 30 and 31. Chairman, S. A. Forbes; 

 secretary, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago, 

 Chicago, 111. 



The Society of American Bacteriologists will 

 meet on December 30 and 31. President, H. W. 

 Conn; vice-president, James Carroll; secretary, E. 

 O. Jordan, University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.; 

 council, W. H. Welch, Theobald Smith, H. L. 

 Russell, Chester, Pa. 



Tlie Society for Plant Morplwlogy and Physiol- 

 ogy will meet during Convocation Week. Presi- 

 dent, V. M. Spalding; vice-president, B. D. 

 Halsted; secretary and treasurer, W. F. Ganong, 

 Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 



The Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 

 Science will meet during Convocation Week. 

 President, W. H, Jordan; seoretaiy, F. M. Web- 

 ster, Urbana, 111. 



The Zoologists of the Central and Western 

 States will meet during Convocation Week. 

 President, C. B. Davenport, University of Chicago. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 360th meeting was held Saturday even- 

 ing, November 15. 



M. B. Lyon exhibited some photographs of 

 bats, one of a specimen of Lasiurus horealis 

 with four young attached and one of Dasyp- 



teris intermedius showing two mammse on 

 one side. These examples, and others that 

 had been dissected, showed conclusively that 

 the commonly accepted statement that bats 

 usually bore but one young was incorrect. 



Charles Louis Pollard spoke on ' Some As- 

 pects of the Flora of Cuba,' illustrating his 

 remarks with lantern slides showing the char- 

 acteristics of the flora near the coast and at 

 different localities in the interior. 



Under the title ' Stages of Vital Motion ' 

 Mr. O. F. Cook presented a discussion of 

 evolutionary factors, in which it was held 

 that evolution, or the progressive change in 

 groups of organisms, is not primarily due to 

 segregation, but to the normal accumulation 

 of variations by cross-fertilization. Condi- 

 tions most favorable to evolutionary progress 

 are found in large and widely distributed 

 natural species, narrow in-breeding and wide 

 cross-breeding tending alike to a decline of 

 reproductive fertility and to the production 

 of abnormally abrupt variations, indicating 

 a so-called catalytic or declining stage of evo- 

 lution. Between the catalytic stage and the 

 normally progressive or prostholytic stage 

 there is, on the side of in-breeding, the hemi- 

 lytic or retarded stage marked by relative 

 uniformity, and, on the side of cross-breed- 

 ing, a dialytic or divergent stage in which 

 the characters of the parents are not perma- 

 nently combined in the offspring but, as shown 

 by Mendel, tend to separate again on the lines 

 of the evolutionary motion of the parental 

 types. The paper will appear in full later. 

 F. A. Lucas. 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OP WASHINGTON. 



The ninth regular meeting of the Botanical 

 Society of "Washington was held at the Port- 

 ner Hotel, October 25, 1902. The principal 

 paper of the evening was by Mr. 0. F. Cook, 

 on ' Evolution in Coffee ; Mutations Described 

 and a Cause Suggested.' 



Coffee, the speaker stated, is the most im- 

 portant crop grown from seed for the seeds. It 

 has been in cultivation about a thousand years, 

 but the selection of varieties has not been 

 practiced; nevertheless, sports or mutations 

 are rather frequent, at least in the coffee 



