704 



SCIENVK. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 435. 



S. Weie Mitchell : ' On the Discovery of an 

 Antidote for Rattlesnake Poison.' 



Alex. Gkaham Bell : ' On the Tetrahedral 

 Principle in Kite Structure.' 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 370th meeting was held on Saturday, 

 April 4. 



H. J. Webber discussed 'Bud Sports and 

 Bud Variation in Breeding.' 



The speaker called attention to the very 

 numerous cases of bud sports which have been 

 described in literature and discussed a num- 

 ber of instances that had come under his 

 personal observation. All parts of a plant, it 

 was pointed out, may exhibit this phenome- 

 non; in some cases almost the entire plant 

 shows the change, while in others the varia- 

 tion is limited to a single fruit or flower or 

 a segment of a fruit or portion of a flower. 



Many cases seem unquestionably to be in- 

 stances of reversion to some ancestral type, 

 while in other cases the change would seem 

 to be attributable to another cause. The 

 writer outlined an hypothesis accounting for 

 the occurrence of such bud sports as segrega- 

 tion changes in the division of meristematic 

 cells in the bud. In plants of - mixed or 

 hybrid origin a segregation of the pangens 

 or anlagen representing an allelomorph, or 

 character pair, was presumed to occur in cer- 

 tain somatic cells resulting in a separation 

 of the anlagen, as in the case of the pollen 

 and egg cell formation of first generation 

 hybrids, following Mendel's hypothesis. In 

 the case of the appearance of new characters 

 the speaker assumes that here, and also in the 

 case of hybrids, the new combination of pan- 

 gens representing various characters results 

 in the formation of a new crystallization, as 

 it were, which appears as a new character. 



Rodney H. True described ' The Manufac- 

 ture of Tea in America,' illustrating his re- 

 marks with lantern slides. He stated that 

 all varieties of tea plant used in American 

 experiments belonged to one botanical species, 

 the class of tea, green, black or oolong, being 

 in large measure the result of factory treat- 

 ment. 



There are present within the tea leaf 



tannin and oxidizing enzymes, which on 

 uniting form a reddish-brown product, allied 

 to the class of bodies known as phlobaphenes. 



In the making of green tea the leaves are 

 so dried as to destroy the oxidizing enzymes 

 before they react with the tannin, thus re- 

 taining the green color of the leaf. The ap- 

 plication of heat is the usual method of 

 destroying the enzymes. Light exerts also a 

 destructive influence on this class of bodies. 



In making black tea any process hindering 

 the reaction between the tannin and oxidases 

 is avoided until the fermentation has been 

 completed. The high temperature attained 

 during the final firing destroys the oxidases 

 and prevents further fermentation. 



Oolong teas represent a class in which the 

 action of the oxidases on the tannin has been 

 begun, but has been stopped before full fer- 

 mentation has taken place. 



Owing to the fact that various varieties of 

 tea contain oxidases in varying quantities, the 

 readiness with which black tea can be made 

 from these varieties is also variable. 



W. 0. Kendall spoke on 'The Trouts of 

 the Eangeley Lakes,' saying that the fish 

 fauna of these waters was poor in species, 

 although the lakes were renowned for the size 

 of their brook trout, examples of which reached 

 a size of from nine to eleven pounds. The 

 trout was now extinct in Lake Umbagog, and 

 while the blame of this was laid on the pick- 

 erel, there were reasons for believing that the 

 pickerel was not wholly, if at all, to blame. 

 The speaker stated that while it had been 

 denied that the Eangeley trout were decreas- 

 ing, yet such was the case, and that the angler 

 was probably to blame for it by the introduc- 

 tion of the landlocked salmon. This fish made 

 additional demands on the small food sup- 

 ply, introduced a competitor to the trout and, 

 possibly, an additional enemy. Mr. Kendall 

 then discussed the blue-backed trout, Salmo 

 oquossa, a species supposed to be peculiar to 

 the Eangeley Lakes, and noted that this fish 

 had become rare within the last few years, 

 although those taken were much larger than 

 the average size of this trout. The possible 

 reasons for the decrease were considered, and 



