430 



BGIENGB. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 197 



the naturalist exists in these southern isles. For- 

 tunately, in almost every instance, the date and 

 locality of introduction of nearly every form of 

 animal colonist can be exactly ascertained, and 

 by careful observation and record it vf ill be pos- 

 sible to chronicle every important change. We 

 have already seen in New Zealand the remarkable 

 case of a fruit-eating parrot, the kea (Nestor 

 notabilis), becoming a true bird of prey. Learn- 

 ing to pick at the skins and offal of slaughtered 

 sheep lying about stations and stock-yards, this 

 bird has actually acquired the art of killing sheep. 

 So greatly has this faculty been developed, that 

 great tracts of mountain country in the interior of 

 the South Island are now rendered iminhabitable 

 for the sheep. It is thought that the chamois 

 or any other active smooth-backed animal will 

 prove too much for the kea ; but the poor sheep, 

 w^ith its thick matted fleece, is at the mercy of 

 the powerful bills and claws of these birds. 



Similar cases, of altered habits under altered 

 conditions, ai'e more likely to occur in a new 

 country, with so peculiar an indigenous fauna as 

 New Zealand possesses, than in any other part of 

 the globe : hence the importance of keeping a 

 good record from the very beginning. 



Geo. M. Thomson. 



Dunedin, Oct. 8. 



LONDON LETTER. 



The movement for the establishment of a British 

 school of archeology at Athens seems in a fair 

 way to succeed. A meeting of the general com- 

 mittee and subscribers to the scheme was held a 

 day or two ago, at which it was stated that a 

 director's house, with library and lecture-room at- 

 tached, had been built at Athens, on a site pre- 

 sented by the Greek government. The University 

 of Oxford, the Hellenic society, and other public 

 bodies contributed towards the annual expenses, 

 and Mr. F. C. Penrose was to assume the director- 

 ship of the school for one year from this present 

 November. Among those present at the meeting 

 w^ere the head masters of several of the great 

 English public schools, the minister for Greece, 

 and other influential persons. 



Several of the most distinguished medical men 

 in London assembled at the College of physicians 

 recently, to hear the Harveian oration (instituted 

 by Harvey himself) pronounced by Dr. Pavy. 

 Harvey's object in establishing this was that mem- 

 bers of the college should ' search and study out 

 the secrets of nature by experiment.' After refer- 

 ring to the bacillus, and the attack upon it by pro- 

 cesses of disinfection, Dr. Pavy stated that 

 another way of attacking it was due to researches 



recently conducted. It had been found that the 

 bacillus required virgin soil for its growth, and by 

 certain means it might be brought into such a 

 weakened state as only to occasion, when intro- 

 duced into the system of an animal, an effect of a 

 mild nature, not dangerous to life, instead of the 

 ordinary form of disease ; but the effect produced 



— and this was the great point of practical im- 

 portance — was as protective against a subsequent 

 attack as the f uUy developed disease. The knowl- 

 edge recently acquired had been already practi- 

 cally turned to account upon a large scale for 

 checking the ravages of that exceedingly fatal 

 disease among cattle known as anthrax, or splenic 

 fever ; and, if that could be accomplished for one 

 disease, — and more than one could te mentioned, 



— was there not ground for beheving that means 

 would be found for placing others of the class in 

 the same position ? Attempts were being made in 

 that direction. All eyes throughout the civilized 

 world were, indeed, fixed upon the work of Pasteur 

 in Paris with reference to hydrophobia. Looking 

 at the nature of the disease, there was nothing in- 

 consistent with its being dependent upon a bacillus, 

 or microbe as Pasteur called it. He had been an 

 eye-witness of Pasteur's work. Judgment, it 

 must be stated, still stands in suspense, but it must 

 also be said that the results obtained tell decidedly 

 in favor of the views advanced. 



Two more volumes (xv. and xvi.)of the zoologi- 

 cal reports of the Challenger expedition have been 

 issued during the last few weeks ; and several 

 others may be expected within the next six months, 

 as the treasury grant for the publication of these 

 reports expires on the 31st of March, 1887, so that 

 the various memoirs must be out of the printer's 

 hands before that date. 



The reoaoval of the natural history collections 

 from Bloomsbury to South Kensington has been 

 accompanied by a steady increase in the piibhca- 

 tions both of the zoological and of the geological 

 departments. The fossil mammalia are being 

 catalogued by Mr. Lyddeker, formerly paleontol- 

 ogist to the geological survey of India ; the fourth 

 part of his work, which deals with the Proboscidea, 

 being now m the press. Mr. R. Kidston has made 

 a valuable contribution to paleo-botany by his cata- 

 logue of the palaeozoic plants, which is especially 

 complete as regards the literature of the subject. 

 The last volume issued by the geological depart- 

 ment is the catalogue of Blastoidea, which is the 

 joint work of Mr. R. Etheridge, jun., and Dr. P. 

 H. Carpenter, and is illustrated by twenty quarto 

 plates. The museum contains several remarkably 

 fine types of this class, which were collected some 

 years ago by Messrs. Eilkertson and Rofe respec- 

 tively from the carboniferous limestone of Lan- 



