Mat 25, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



829 



and, furthermore, saw the animal alive. It 

 will be remembered that the okapi is a giraffe- 

 like animal first described by Sir Harry 

 Johnston. 



The general totals of the Paris census, 

 taken on March 4, and now published in the 

 French press, show that the total population 

 of the French capital is 2,731,728, as compared 

 with 2,660,559 in 1901 and 2,511,629 in 1896. 

 The increase during the last five years is, 

 therefore, less than half that of the preceding 

 quinquennial period. 



Nature says : " After being closed for a very 

 considerable time, the fish gallery of the 

 British Museum (Natural History) — or, to be 

 accurate, the southern half of it — ^has just been 

 reopened to the public in what may be termed 

 a metamorphosed condition. In place of a 

 dismal crowd of ill-moimted specimens, faded, 

 for the most part, to one dull uniformity, the 

 public has now a small but well-assorted selec- 

 tion of specimens, colored artificially to imi- 

 tate, so far as practicable, their appearance in 

 life, and arranged in such a raanner that they 

 can be seen to the very best advantage. De- 

 scriptive labels — of which only a portion are 

 yet printed — will render the exhibit about as 

 perfect as is at present possible, and the 

 gallery as a whole will enable the public to 

 gain the greatest possible amount of informa- 

 tion about fishes with the least possible troubla 

 As regards the advisability of coloring ex- 

 hibited specimens of this nature there can 

 scarcely be two opinions, for, although with 

 our present methods and our present lack of 

 knowledge of the appearance of many fishes 

 in life it is impossible to imitate nature closely, 

 yet such an approximation to natural coloring 

 as is practicable to make is infinitely better 

 than no color at all." 



The report of the council of the London 

 Zoological Society was presented to the annual 

 meeting on April 30. According to the re- 

 port in the London Times the Zoological 

 Record, beginning with the literature of 1906, 

 has been provisionally amalgamated with the 

 ' International Catalogue of Scientific Litera- 

 ture'; the high level of the society's publica- 

 tions has been maintained; three editions 



(81,665 copies) of the Garden Guide have 

 been sold, and the fourth has just been issued. 

 Naturalists in increasing numbers have 

 availed themselves of the advantages of the 

 library in Hanover-square, to which important 

 additions have been made. Valuable scientific 

 work has been done by the prosector, Mr. F. E. 

 Beddard, and the pathologist. Dr. Seligmann. 

 Mr. Beddard has carried out anatomical re- 

 searches, supplied material to anatomists and 

 musexuns and superintended the preservation 

 of surplus material; Dr. Seligmann has taken 

 over the post mortem investigations, and re- 

 ported on the cause of death of 206 mammals 

 and 218 birds in 1905. There were practically 

 no deaths among the monkeys in outdoor 

 cages, whereas there was a marked mortality 

 among those in the house. The total number 

 of animals in the collection on December 31, 

 1905, was 2,913, as against 2,552 on the cor- 

 responding date of 1904; in consequence, the 

 food bill went up £95— from £3,423 to £3,518. 

 This contrasts favorably with £4,858, the cost 

 of provisions in 1902, when the number of 

 animals was 2,783. At the end of 1905 the 

 roll of members stood at 3,702, the largest 

 number of fellows in the history of the society. 

 The income last year was £30,421, and the 

 ordinary expenditure £25,288. Out of the 

 balance of over £5,000 the whole of the cost 

 (£4,281) of the improvements at the gardens 

 for that year has been paid. The work of re- 

 organizing the gardens began in 1903, and 

 over £11,000 has been spent in providing new 

 buildings or enclosures. If the assets, which 

 now stand at £62,000, be not taken into ac- 

 count, there was at the end of 1902 a cash 

 deficit of over £3,700. During the last three 

 years, in spite of the large expenditure for 

 improvements, this deficit has only increased 

 by about £500, the difference having been paid 

 out of income. 



An account of Dr. Koch's travels in the 

 northern Amazon Basin was given by Dr. 

 Koch before the Berlin Geographical Society 

 at the close of 1905, and has since appeared in 

 the Zeitschrift of that body (1906, No. 2). 

 It appears from the abstract in the Geograph- 

 ical Journal that Dr. Koch's researches were 



