OciobbrSI, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



551 



the reports which have been received this year 

 from the twelve colleges which participated 

 during the year ended March 31st in the annual 

 grant, now amounting to £25,000, made by 

 Parliament for ' University Colleges in Great 

 Britain,' and the three colleges in Wales, which 

 receive from the Treasury a grant of £4,000 

 each. The twelve colleges are : Birmingham, 

 Mason College ; Bristol, University College ; 

 Dundee, University College ; Leeds, Yorkshire 

 College ; Liverpool, University College ; Lon- 

 don, Bedford College, King's College, Univer- 

 sity College ; Manchester, Owens College ; 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Durham Science College; 

 Nottingham, University College, and SheflBeld, 

 University College. The Welsh Colleges are : 

 Aberystwyth, University College of Wales ; 

 Bangor, University College of North Wales ; 

 Cardiff, University College of South Wales 

 and Monmouthshire. Major P. G. Craigie's 

 annual report to the Board of Agriculture on 

 the distribution of grants for agricultural edu- 

 cation and research in 1897-98 has also been 

 issued as a Parliamentary paper. The total 

 amount distributed during the financial year to 

 the fifteen institutions receiving assistance was 

 £7,200, as compared with £7,000 in the previous 

 year. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 

 TEOCHOSPH^EA AGAIN. 



In Science of December 25, 1896, Dr. Ko- 

 foid, of the Illinois Fresh-water Biological 

 Station, records the occurrence, during the pre- 

 ceding summer, of Trochosphiera solstilialis 

 Thorpe in the Illinois River. The discovery in 

 America of this remarkable Rotifer, previously 

 known only from the antipodes, is of great in- 

 terest. Dr. Kofoid raises the question whether 

 its presence in Illinois is due to recent importa- 

 tion, or whether Trochosphxra is to be con- 

 sidered a normal member of our fauna, taking 

 a place with many other Rotifera as a cosmo- 

 politan form. Its rediscovery at a station dis- 

 tant from that recorded by Kofoid is perhaps 

 worthy of mention in the columns of Science. 

 Trochosphiera solsfitialis was found in the work 

 of the Biological Survey carried on during the 

 past summer at Put-in- Bay Id., Lake Erie, by 

 the U. S. Fish Commission. It occurred very 



sparingly in a swamp near the U. S. Fish 

 Hatchery, Put-in-Bay, for a few days in Au- 

 gust, 1898. This swamp has a dense bottom 

 growth of Ceratophyllum, while the surface is 

 completely mantled with Lemna, Spirodela and 

 Wolffia. It is connected with Lake Erie by a 

 streamlet about forty feet in length, the direc- 

 tion of the current through which depends upon 

 the level of the lake. When the lake is high, 

 water flows into the swamp, and at such times 

 the ordinary plankton Rotifera of the lake are 

 found in the swamp. When the lake is low the 

 swamp water passes outward into the lake. 

 Trochosphxra was found at a low- water period) 

 along with Notops elavulatus and some other 

 Rotifers which, though rare, are known to be 

 widely distributed. As this swamp has such 

 intimate connection with the lake, it would 

 not be surprising to find Trochosphsera in 

 swampy parts of Lake Erie itself. 



The discovery of Trochosphsera at two such 

 widely separated stations in the United States 

 certainly tends, so far as it goes, to indicate 

 that the animal is to be considered a normal 

 member of the American fauna. Workers on 

 Rotatoria are few in America, and it may be 

 that more extended observations would show 

 Trochosphsera to be widely distributed, even 

 though somewhat rare. 



Unfortunately, but few individuals were ob- 

 tained, so that it is not possible to furnish 

 specimens to those desirous of examining this 

 remarkable animal. 



H. S. Jennings. 



Daetmouth College, Hanover, N. H. 



the occurrence in great abundance of 

 insects ordinarily merely common. 

 A NOTE in one of the New York papers a 

 day or so ago reporting that a strange butter- 

 fly — in all ■pTohahility Anosia plexippus, judging 

 from the description of the color — was pres- 

 ent in extraordinary abundance at Topeka, 

 Kansas, on the 6th inst. , preventing work out 

 of doors and gathering on the rails of a branch 

 of the Union Pacific Railroad in such numbers 

 as to stop a train by their bodies greasing the 

 rails, calls to mind a similar large swarm of 

 this species seen by the author near Unadilla, 

 Nebraska, in 1885. The air was full of the in- 



