624 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. ( 



the whole delessite series has been approxi- 

 mately brought to light. The paper will be 

 published in full in the Annals of the 

 academy. Charles P. Berkey, 



Secretary of Section 



THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 441st meeting was held on March 7, 

 1908, President Stejneger in the chair. 

 ■ Mr. H. W. Clark noted a case of fasciatiou 

 in two specimens of hyacinth seen in a Wash- 

 ington market. The flattening of the flower 

 stalk gave a larger floral surface and made it 

 conspicuously showy. The bulbs of these 

 flowers were said to be imported from Holland 

 and new stock was asexually propagated from 

 lateral tubers. This is the beginning of a 

 new and very showy stock of cultivated plants 

 probably worth developing. Fasciation is a 

 unique and remarkable phenomenon in the 

 history of cultivated plants, and occurs fre- 

 quently in such plants as the sweet potato 

 and yam which are cultivated asexually. In 

 the cultivated cockscomb (Gelosia) it is propa- 

 gated by seed. Among our native plants it is 

 common in CEnothera, and occasional in Lep- 

 tilon and the sumacs. It is also common in 

 the imported Ailanthus. 



Professor W. P. Hay by request demon- 

 strated " Some Additional Colored Lantern 

 Slides by the Autochrome Process." He 

 showed on the screen many colored pictures, 

 illustrating the possibilties, difiiculties and 

 defects of the autochrome process. He ex- 

 plained the technique of the process, calling 

 attention to the difiiculties in handling the 

 plates and the differences between autochrome 

 and ordinary photography. 



Mr. Vernon Bailey gave a lantern-slide lec- 

 ture on "Home Life of the Lobo or Buffalo 

 WoK of the Great Plains." This was an 

 account of the observations of the speaker 

 on the large or timber wolf of the western 

 plains, undertaken partly to learn to what 

 extent the forests harbored these wolves. 

 Porest reserves have been opposed with the 

 argument that the wolves breed in them. 

 Mr. Bailey found wolf dens in the open and 

 on the edge of the forest reserve, but none 

 in the timber. He described the habits of 



the wolves and their wary avoidance of at- 

 tempts to trap them and showed many photo- 

 graphic lantern slides of the dens, the young, 

 and of the wolf country. 



Dr. Marcus W. Lyon, Jr., read a paper, 

 describing and illustrating " A Simple Method 

 to Eepresent Graphically the Trend of Varia- 

 tion in a small number of Specimens of Re- 

 lated Species." Where there is but a small 

 number of individuals in a group of related 

 organisms, A^, A,, etc., to be examined, the 

 usual curves representing the extremes of 

 variation with the average at the highest part 

 of the curve, do not give satisfactory results 

 as the curve will present too many irregulari- 

 ties and sometimes show no distinct maximum 

 for the average. A modification of the regu- 

 lar coordinate system may be used, however, 

 to represent graphically the extent and trend 

 of variations, V^, V^ etc., by running a series 

 of parallel lines at right angles to the vertical 

 axis, the space between the lines correspond- 

 ing to the variable character, with its least 

 development at the level of the horizontal axis 

 and its increasing development at regular 

 intervals above it. The horizontal axis is 

 similarly divided by a series of parallel lines, 

 the space between any two lines correspond- 

 ing to the groups of the organisms under con- 

 sideration. To allocate the individuals with 

 respect to the variations it is only necessary 



V7 



Ve 



V5 



V4 



V3 



V2 



Vl 



Ai A2 A3 A4 Ag Ag 



to examine each specimen in turn and place 

 a dot in one of the small squares made by the 



• * • ■ 



