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SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVII. No. 433 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Mr. E. M. Johnson, a graduate of the State School of Mines 

 at RoUa, has been appointed to a position as aide on the Missouri 

 Geographical Survey. 



— Mr. T. H. Cornish of Penzance has a note in the current 

 number of the Zoologist, according to Nature, on some remarkably- 

 large catches of fish on the Cornish coast. On March 18 last, 

 13,000 gray mullet (Mii.gil capito) were captured, by means of a 

 draw seine, by the fishermen of Sennen Cove, at Whitsand Bay, 

 Land's End. The fish were of fine quality, one being brought to 

 Mr. Cornish which measured two feet in length, one foot three 

 inches in girth, and weighed six pounds ten ounces. On the 31st 

 of the same month a Lowestoft mackerel driver, fishing some 

 leagues south-west of the Lizard, took 48,000 mackerel. No such 

 catch of mackerel, for one night's fishing, had ever been heard of 

 before at Penzance, and what makes it more extraordinary, says 

 Mr. Cornish, is that it should have taken place in March, when 

 the catches usually average a few hundreds only. Later on in the 

 season, in the fishing west of Scilly, 20,000 to 2.5,000 is regarded as 

 a heavy catch. 



— The preliminary returns of the recent census operations in 

 India, says Nature, show that the population in British territory is 

 220,400,000, as against 198,655,600 in the former census, an in- 

 crease of nearly 22,000,000. The Feudatory States, omitting in- 

 complete returns, which may be taken at about 90,000, have a 

 population of 61,410,000, making a total of 281,900,000, as against 

 250,700,000 for the same ai-eas at the last census. The returns 

 give Bombay 806,000, Madras 449,000, Calcutta municipal ai'ea 

 and port 674,000, and including the suburbs Howrah and Bally, 

 969,000. At the last census the total for the same area was 847,- 

 000. Calcutta municipal area shows an increase of 92,000, and 

 Howrah and Bally an increase of 24,000. The returns from Bur- 

 mah show that the population of the whole country, excluding 

 the Shan States, is 7,507,063, or 48.8 persons to the square mile. 

 The population of Lower Burmah alone is 4,526,432, or an increase 

 of about 790,000 since 1881. 



— The American Academy of Political and Social Science has 

 just issued its first handbook, containing the Constitution, names 

 of officers, report of the executive domraittee for the first year, 

 and the list of members. Although in active service only twelve 

 months, it now has a membership of 1,978 gathered from every 

 State and Territory in the Union, and from ten foreign countries. 

 The membership in the United States is widely scattered. Cali- 

 fornia, for example, is represented by 25 members; Massachusetts, 

 by 195; New York, by 200; Illinois, by 150; while Canada on the 

 one hand, and our Gulf States on the other, have 20 and 40 re- 

 spectively. There are over 50 members in England, besides sev- 

 eral in Scotland and Ireland. France is represented by 4 ; Germany, 

 by 16 ; Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and even Japan and 

 India, contribute to the academy's membership. The varied 

 character of the occupation of the members also testifies to the 

 great interest which economic and political subjects are exciting 

 at present in the public mind. Among the members are leading 

 representatives of all professions and branches of business. 



— The English Meteorological Council have just published an 

 atlas of cyclone-tracks in the South Indian Ocean, from informa- 

 tion collected by Dr. Meldrum of Mauritius, during a period of 

 thirty-eight years, from 1848 to 1885 inclusive, with the exception 

 of three years for which no reports of cyclones were received. 

 According to Nature, the tracks are represented in two sets of 

 charts, — one set showing the distribution in each year ; and the 

 other grouping the storms according to months, excepting for 

 August and September, in which months no cyclones were re- 

 corded. In dealing with these cyclones, Dr. Meldrum has divided 

 them into progressive and stationary. It is admitted, however, 

 that some of the latter may have moved, but that their progress 

 may not have been detected from lack of observations. The rela- 

 tive frequency of both classes of storms for the whole period is 

 very small, varying from one in eighteen years for July, to five in 

 three years during February and March; but, although the num- 

 ber of storms is so small, it does not appear likely that many have 



been missed, considering the untiring persistence with which Dr. 

 Meldrum has pursued his investigations. The tracks of the several 

 cyclones will afford much valuable information, and lead to a 

 better knowledge of the latitude in which the recurvature of the 

 storms in that ocean takes place. A cursory examination shows 

 that the range of latitude over which the points of recurvature ex- 

 tend varies considerably, being from about 15° to 25" south. 



— The trustees of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, have issued an 

 interesting and instructive report, by Mr. E. C. Cotes, on the 

 locust of north-western India (Acridium peregrinurri). The re- 

 port, as quoted in Nature, sums up the results of an investigation 

 conducted in the entomological section of the museum. It seems 

 to be established that most of the flights of this locust issue from 

 the region of sand-hills in western Rajputana. Others, however, 

 invade India from breeding-grounds which probably lie along the 

 Suliman Range, or even, perhaps, in some cases, beyond India's 

 western frontier, in the sandy deserts of Baluchistan, southern 

 Afghanistan, and Persia, though reports received from these 

 regions, Mr. Cotes says, are so fragmentary that no very definite 

 conclusions can be formed from them. 



— The Meteorological Department of the Government of India 

 has published Part 3 of " Cyclone Memoirs," containing an elabo- 

 rate discussion of the two most important storms in the Bay of 

 Bengal during the year 1888, — viz., those of Sept. 13-20 and of 

 Oct. 27-31, — and also of the cyclone in the Arabian Sea of Nov. 

 6-9, 1888, accompanied by tables of observations during and before 

 the storms and by 29 plates. The following {Nature, April 30) is 

 a very brief resume of some of the more important conclusions 

 arrived at by Mr. Eliot with regard to these storms, and with re- 

 gard to cyclones generally in India: (1) that the difference of in- 

 tensity in difi'erent quadrants is chiefly due to the fact that the 

 humid winds which keep up the circulation enter mainly in one 

 quadrant; (2) that the ascensional movement is usually most vig- 

 orous in the advancing quadrant, a little distance in front of the 

 centre ; (3) in consequence of this, and of rainfall taking place 

 most vigorously in front of the cyclone, the isobars are oval in 

 form, and the longest diameter coincides approximately with the 

 direction of the path of the centre (this is not in the middle of the 

 diameter, but at some distance behind); (4) that the cyclonic cir- 

 culation cannot be resolved into the translation of a rotating disk 

 or mass of air, and that its motion is somewhat analogous to the 

 transmission of a wave; (5) that the direction of advance of these 

 storms is mainly determined by rainfall distribution, and there is 

 a marked tendency for storms to form in and run along the south- 

 west monsoon trough of low pressure ; (6) the lie of this trough 

 depends upon the relative strengths and extension of the two 

 currents. 



— Among the contents of the current number of the Journal of 

 the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, as we learn from 

 Nature, is a paper on the Sphingidce, or hawk-moths, of Singa- 

 jjore, by Lieut. H, L, Kelsall, R,A.. Mr. H. N. Ridley contributes 

 papers on the Burmanniacece of the Malay Peninsusa; on the so- 

 called tiger's milk, " Susu Rimau," of the Malays; and on the 

 habits of the red ant, commonly called the Caringa. These ants, 

 although very ferocious, are remarkably intelligent; and Mr. Rid- 

 ley gives a striking account of the way in which they make leaf- 

 nests. They have also great courage, and do not scruple to attack 

 any insect, however large. Mr. Ridley once saw a fight between 

 an army of Caringas, who tenanted the upper part of a fig-tree, 

 and an advancing crowd of a much larger kind of black ants. 

 The field of battle was a horizontal bough about five feet from the 

 ground. The Caringas, standing alert on their tall legs, were 

 arranged in masses, awaiting the onset of the enemy. The black 

 ants ohai-ged singly at any isolated Caringa, and tried to bite it in 

 two vpith their powerful jaws. If the attack was successful, the 

 Caringa was borne off to the nest at the foot of the ti-ee. The red 

 ant, on the other hand, attempted always to seize the black ant 

 and hold on to it, so that its formic acid might take effect in the 

 body of its enemy. If it got a hold on the black ant, the latter 

 soon succumbed, and was borne off to the nest in the top of the 

 tree Eventually the Caringas retreated to their nest The last 

 to go had lost one leg and the abdomen in the fight; nevertheless, 



