222 



SCIUJ^CU. 



[Vol. Vlll., No. 187 



physiological observations on ants, in which he 

 was able, by simple but ingenious means, to study 

 the rate of walk of these insects, and stated that 

 his results, so far as they went, confirmed the 

 opinions of others that the smaller the animal the 

 more rapid the step, and also the more quickly 

 fatigue was produced. Dr. Jastrow also had 

 some observations on the dreams of the blind, 

 taken mostly from persons who had lost the sense 

 of sight before the age of five. In these cases 

 the dreams were all in terms of hearing. In the 

 case of Laura Bridgeman, the dreams were ap- 

 parently based on touch. In persons who become 

 blind between five and seven, sight terms played an 

 imi^ortant part in dreams. The relation of these 

 facts to the development of the sight centres was 

 pointed out. 



A short paper by S. H. Gage and Seth E. Meek, 

 on the lampreys of Cayuga Lake, stated that the 

 large lamprey, heretofore regarded as sub-specifi- 

 cally distinct, was identical with the well-known 

 sea-lamprey of the Atlantic coast, the characters 

 separating it bemg of a sexual nature and assumed 

 at the breeding season. The existence of a second 

 species in Cayuga Lake, hitherto not known east 

 of Indiana, was mentioned. The authors de- 

 scribed the method of nest-bailding, stating that 

 the lampreys seek out a spot in the still water 

 above the ripples, and then, by means of their 

 sucking mouths, remo\e the stones until a nest 

 from four to eight inches deep is made. In the 

 sand in the bottom of this nest the eggs are laid. 

 The time of oviposition was from June 9 to July 

 6 during the present year. The pile of gravel 

 thrown up in making the excavation is not the 

 nest, but later it is found to be occupied by the 

 ammocoete larva. 



The most important feature of Dr. Kingsley's 

 account of the embryology of the shrimp (Crangon) 

 related to the development of the com]DOund eye. 

 Locy was the only previous observer of the early 

 stages of the eye of anthropods, and Dr. 

 Kingsley's observations confirmed his results as 

 well as going more into detail. 



Dr. C. S. Minot, in his paper on the segmenta- 

 tion of the vertebrate ovum, reduced all types of 

 segmentation to a common basis, and clearly 

 pointed out the homologies. The mcst important 

 point was that which showed that the majority of 

 authors had confused the germ-layers in the mam- 

 malian ovum, and have termed the entoderm, 

 ectoderm, and vice versa. On Dr. Minot's showing, 

 the difficulties encountered in mammalian em- 

 bryology are largely those of misconception and 

 misinterpretation. 



Dr. Merriam, after mentioning the fact that 

 bats might be divided into tree-dwelling and cave- 



dwelling forms, presented evidence, of a negative 

 character, which goes to show that the tree- 

 inhabiting bats migrate. No woodsmen have 

 found bats in hollow trees in wMnter, and there is 

 no evidence that any forms hibernate. In a 

 second paper the same gentleman gave an outline 

 of the work being done in the department of agri- 

 culture, on economic ornithology and mammalogy, 

 in which he pointed out, in most vigorous lan- 

 guage, the immense damage done the agricultural 

 interests by the bobolinks and English sparrows. 

 One South Carolina planter with rice-fields of 

 twelve hundred acres employed each year a hun- 

 dred persons to kill the birds, at a total expense 

 for ammunition, etc., of $4,500. 



Among the papers read were the following : 

 'Culture experiments showing accidental relations 

 between Grymnosporangia and Rolstelia,' by Dr. 

 W. G. Farlow ; ' Insect diseases,' by Prof. S. A. 

 Forbes ; ' Areas of form and color perception of 

 the human retina,' by Prof. J. H. Pillsbury ; 

 ' Development of the human chorion,' by Dr. C. S. 

 Minot ; and, ' The auditory bones in the lower 

 vertebrates,' by Prof. E. D. Cope. 



Musk is an animal substance, obtained from 

 an abdominal sac of the male of the Moschus mos- 

 chatus, a small hornless deer inhabiting the higher 

 mountains of central Asia, ranging from Thibet to 

 China, and into Asiatic Russia. The contents of 

 the musk-sac are a solid, brownish, granulated, 

 ovoid mass, exceedingly strong and tenacious in 

 odor, and vai-ying in size from that of a walnut to 

 that of a hen's egg. There are four varieties of 

 musk, viz. : Tonquin, from China, regarded as the 

 best, and which is looked upon as the most recher- 

 che ; Yunnan, from the frontiers of Indo-China ; 

 Assam, or Bengalee ; and, least valued of all, Ka- 

 bartin, from Tartary and Siberia. Musk is very 

 expensive, the price at present ranging from eight 

 to twenty dollars per ounce, in the pods or bags, 

 according to grade. This high price is the cause 

 of much adulteration, in this country as well as at 

 the place of production ; so that there is very little 

 in the market that can be considered pure. The 

 "principal adulterants are lead, iron, coagulated 

 blood, leather, stones, and even j)aper and rags. 

 The adulterant is inserted in the bag, and the 

 opening closed in such a manner as to defy detec- 

 tion. About five hvmdred pounds of musk are used 

 annually in the United States, of which ninety-five 

 per cent goes into toilet soaps and perfumery, the 

 rest being used for medicinal purposes. 



— Prof. John Dickinson, a brother of Miss 

 Anna Dickinson, has accepted the chair of geology 

 and mineralogy in the University of Southern 

 California at Los Angeles. 



