December 2, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



799 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



A GENERAL meeting was held November 2d, 

 thirty-seven persons present. Professor Al- 

 pheus Hyatt exhibited the lower jaw of a 

 whale, Mesoplodon sp., that came ashore on 

 the beach inside the harbor of Annisquam, 

 Mass., in August, 1898. The specimen was a 

 young female ; after the removal of the blub- 

 ber, the length, measured along the side of the 

 body, from the re- entrant angle of the tail-fin 

 to the end of the lower jaw, was twelve feet, 

 two inches. The lower jaw projected slightly 

 beyond the upper jaw. A narrow crease was 

 observed on the under side of the throat along 

 the median line. The shape of the body was 

 more or less laterally compressed oval. A sin- 

 gle cresentio blow-hole was situated in a de- 

 pression on the top of the head. The greatest 

 diameter of the nasal pouch was about four 

 inches. 



According to True there are but two records 

 of Mesoplodon from the north Atlantic coast. 

 The first of these refers to a specimen from 

 Nantucket, and is noticed by Professor Louis 

 Agassiz in the ' Proceedings ' of this Society, 

 1868, Vol. 11., p. 318. This specimen was six- 

 teen feet long, and the skull and other bones, 

 preserved in the collection of the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, indicate a female some- 

 what older than the Annisquam specimen. 

 The skeleton of the second specimen, taken at 

 Atlantic City, N. J., in 1889, is in the United 

 States National Museum. The skeleton of the 

 Annisquam specimen will be preserved in the 

 Museum of the Society. 



Dr. R. T. Jackson spoke on localized stages 

 in development in plants and animals. This 

 paper will be printed as No. 4, Vol. 5, of the 

 Memoirs of the Society. 



Samuel Henshaw, 



Secretary. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON — 297TH 

 MEETING, NOVEMBER 19. 



Dr. F. W. True exhibited a copy of an ento- 

 mological journal published in Japan, explain- 

 ing that it was the first journal of its kind to 

 appear in that country. 



Mr. E. L. Morris narrated an extraordinary 

 feat of climbing in the case of a small green 

 snake, whereby the animal ascended a vertical 

 polished nickel pipe for some distance above the 

 tank in which it was confined. 



Dr. L. O. Howard displayed three entomo- 

 logical posters issued in handsome form by for- 

 eign governments. Two, devoted to the Colo- 

 rado potato beetle and the San Jose scale, were 

 produced by the German authorities, and one, 

 illustrating a destructive grain beetle, by the 

 Eussian. 



Dr. Cleveland Abbe presented a paper entitled 

 'Climate and the Corn Crop,' illustrated by 

 numerous charts and statistical tables. He dis- 

 cussed the various factors affecting the crop 

 production in diflTerent portions of the country, 

 with special reference to climatology. 



Mr. Herbert J. Webber, in the course of ' A 

 Comparison of the Types of Fecundation of 

 Flowering Plants,' pointed out that zoidiaga- 

 mous fertilization, by means of motile spei-ma- 

 tozoids was, so far as known, confined to the 

 Cycadales and the Ginkgoales among the Gym- 

 nospermse. He described briefly the two forms 

 of the process, porogamy and chalazogamy, 

 found among the higher flowering plants, illus- 

 trating his remarks by numerous drawings of 

 special cases. F. A. Lucas, 



Secretary. 



harvard UNIVERSITY : STUDENTS' GEOLOGICAL 

 CLUB, NOVEMBER P, 1898. 



Mr. W. E. Hobbs described some Cambrian 

 fossils which he collected as East Braintree, 

 Mass., from an outcrop that Professor Crosby 

 places stratigraphically above the quarry out- 

 crop. They include young individuals of Para- 

 doxides harlani, shields of Agraulua quadrangu- 

 laris, Ptychoparia rogersi, Hyolithes haywardengis 

 (Grabau, not yet published), and an indistinct 

 Obolella. Under the title of ' A new Species 

 of Cystid,' Mr. L. LaForge discussed some 

 specimens from the middle Chemung, at Alfred, 

 N. Y. All the specimens, about one hundred 

 in number, have been collected from boulders 

 within an area of two or three square miles. 

 The perfect specimens show the characteristics 

 of Agelacrinus, but differ chiefly from the 

 known species in the ambulacra. 



