286 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 557. 



by the condition of the water, and inland, 

 away from the influence of tide water, they 

 do not breed until the ground beneath their 

 nests is flooded. For this reason, although 

 Mr. Cherrie stayed until June, he orily ob- 

 tained eggs of this bird. Eggs of a number 

 of other species of birds were also obtained, 

 many of which are but little known. 



Mr. Edward W. Berry, the paleobotanist 

 and secretary of the Torrey Botanical Club, 

 is engaged in studying the fossil flora of 

 Maryland for the Geological Survey of that 

 state. Correspondents are requested to ad- 

 dress him after September 1, in care of the 

 Maryland Geological Survey, Johns Hopkins 

 University, Baltimore, Md. 



Mr. Gerald Dudgeon has been appointed 

 by the secretary of state for the British col- 

 onies to examine and report upon questions 

 relating to the development of the agricultural 

 resources of British West Africa. 



Dr. Oliver E. Glenn, acting professor of 

 mathematics at Drury College, has been ap- 

 pointed a member of the editorial staff of the 

 American Mathematical Monthly^ succeeding 

 Dr. Saul Epsteen, who has been called to the 

 University of Colorado. 



• Professor J. Volhard, professor of chem- 

 istry at Halle, celebrated on August 6 the 

 fiftieth anniversary of his doctorate. 



The trustees of the British National Por- 

 trait Gallery have purchased a portrait of 

 Tiberius Cavallo, 1746-1809, one of the earliest 

 students of electrical science. 



We learn from the New York Evening Post 

 that the city of Nuremberg, in conjunction 

 with the Society of German Clockmakers, has 

 erected a monument by way of commemo- 

 rating Peter Henlein, who, four hundred years 

 ago, substituted springs for weights in clocks, 

 and thus made watches a possibility. The 

 statue was made by the Berlin sculptor Meiss- 

 ner. It represents Henlein at work in his 

 shop. 



In connection with the indication by the 

 council of houses in London which have been 

 the residences of distinguished individuals, a 

 memorial tablet was on August 14 erected on 



No. 34, Gloucester Square, Hyde Park, where 

 Robert Stephenson, the great engineer, resided 

 at one time. The tablet is of encaustic ware 

 and terra-cotta in color. 



Dr. Otto Herz, the entomologist of St. 

 Petersburg, has died at the age of fifty-six 

 years. The deaths are announced of the Rev. 

 Dr. J. Keith, of Scotland, who took an active 

 interest in natural history, and of Mr. W. E. 

 Langdon, a past president of the British Insti- 

 tution of Electrical Engineers. 



We recorded last week the death of Pro- 

 fessor Leo Errera. A correspondent writes in 

 regard to him : " Errera was one of the com- 

 paratively few rich men who work as hard 

 at science as do those who earn their living by 

 teaching and research. A multi-millionaire, 

 he earned the rather hard degree of Docteur 

 Agrege, and since his student days has been 

 an important factor in the class-room 'and re- 

 search work in botany at Brussels. His most 

 notable work as an investigator, perhaps, was 

 his demonstration that fungi store food re- 

 serves in the form of glycogen, like animals, 

 and the contributions from his laboratory have 

 been chiefly along physiological and ecological 

 lines. Notwithstanding this limit to the field 

 of his more active contributions, however, he 

 was interested in all branches of botany, and 

 at the recent International Congress at 

 Vienna, where he secured a decision to hold 

 the next quinquennial session at Brussels, he 

 was one of the most constant and interested 

 attendants at the arduous — and perhaps thank- 

 less — nomenclature sessions. 



The correspondent of the London Times in 

 Cape Town cabled on August 18 that the first 

 boat, conveying a portion of the visiting mem- 

 bers of the British Association to Durban, and 

 marking the conclusion of the biisiness pro- 

 gram in Cape Town, would leave that night. 

 It was obvious at the outset that a rivalry 

 was established between the piirely pedagogic- 

 portion of the program and that part which 

 makes for first-hand knowledge of South 

 Africa. Fortunately there is no tendency to 

 gauge the success of the 1905 meeting by the 

 attendance at the lectures. So far the attend- 

 ance has not been striking, but it is felt that 



