SCIENCE 



Friday, October 3, 1913 



CONTENTS 



The British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science: — 



Old and New Aims and Methods of Morphol- 

 ogy : Professor H. F. Gadow 455 



The New Eelativity in Physics: Dr. Eeinhard 

 A. Wetzel 466 



Grants iy the British Association 474 



Scientific Notes and News 474 



University and Education-al Neios 477 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



The Bread Supply: Professor Cyril G. 

 Hopkins 479 



Scientific BooTcs: — 



Ganong's The Living Plant: Professor 

 Burton E. Livingston. Nichols and Mer- 

 ritt's Studies in Luminescence: Professor 

 P. E. Kester 481 



Special Articles: — 



Non-electrolytes and the Colloid- chemical 

 Theory of Water Absorption: Professor 

 Martin H. Fischer, Anne Sykes. 

 Changes during Quiescent Stages in the 

 Metamorphosis of Termites: Thomas E. 

 Snyder 486 



The American Mathematical Society: Pro- 

 fessor H. E. Slaught 488 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc.. intended for 

 reTlew should be sent to Professor J. MoKeen Cattell, Garrison- 

 on-Hudson. N. Y. 



THE BSITISH ASSOCIATION FOB THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



OLD AND NEW AIMS AND METHODS OF 



MORPHOLOGY > 



"Address your audience about what you 

 yourself happen to be most interested in, 

 speak from the fullness of your heart and 

 make a clean breast of your troubles." 

 That seemed good advice, and I shall en- 

 deavor to follow it, taking for my text old 

 and new aims and methods of morphology, 

 with special reference to resemblances in 

 function and structure on the part of 

 organs and their owners in the animal 

 kingdom. First, however, allow me to tell 

 you what has brought me to such a well- 

 worn theme. Amongst the many impres- 

 sions which it has been my good luck to 

 gather during my travels in that enchant- 

 ing country Mexico are the two following: 



First, the poisonous coral snakes, Elaps, 

 in their beautiful black, red and yellow 

 garb ; it varies in detail in the various spe- 

 cies of Elaps, and this garb with most of 

 the variations too, occurs also in an aston- 

 ishing number of genera and families of 

 semi-poisonous and quite harmless Mexican 

 snakes, some of which inhabit the same dis- 

 tricts. A somewhat exhaustive study of 

 these beauties has shown incontestably that 

 these often astoundingly close resemblances 

 are not cases of mimicry, but due to some 

 other cooperations. 



Secondly, in the wilds of the state of 

 Michoacan, at two places, about 20 and 70 

 miles from the Pacific coast, I myself col- 

 lected specimens of Typhlops which Dr. 



^Address of the president to the Zoological Sec- 

 tion of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, Birmingham, 1913. 



