SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Jan. 6, iSSS. 



With regard to classification the author still follows 

 the arrangement of Zopf, though looking upon it as only 

 provisional. According to Zopf the difference between 

 a bacterium and a bacillus turns on the presence or 

 absence of endogenous spore-formation, a distinction 

 certainly more scientific than that of the relation of length 

 to breadth adopted by many English authorities. 



As a practical guide to bacteriological study and experi- 

 ment this book is without a rival, and the appendices on 

 the examination of air, soil, and water are very concise 

 and good. Its get-up reflects great credit on the pub- 

 lisher, and we consider that the new edition is much 

 improved by the fact of the full-page plates having been 

 collected together at the end of the book, and by the ad- 

 dition of a classified and amplified Bibliography. 



Scicncc-Lcdures delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, 

 Newcastle-upon-Tyne. London : Scott. 



This little volume Contains a series of lectures, not 

 equal in merit, but all of them decidedly interesting. 

 They arrest our attention the more because they are 

 devoted to the same task which we are attempting — the 

 presentation of scientific truth in forms suitable for 

 intelligent non-specialists. 



We first find a discourse on the " Natural History of 

 Instinct," by G. J. Romanes, F.R.S. " Instinct," as most 

 of us know, is one of those pretty words which men 

 have long been in the habit of using to bewilder them- 

 selves and their fellows. Ever and again they have 

 brought forward this word to explain the actions of 

 animals when it would have been more honest, and quite 

 as satisfactory, to own their total ignorance. Mr. 

 Romanes, how'ever, lays before us a definition in which 

 we can find little that can be objected to, and which will, 

 we hope, in future restrain that abuse to which 

 we have just referred. He writes : — " We may say 

 that instinct is a term used to designate all those 

 faculties of mind that are concerned in conscious 

 and adaptive actions antecedent to individual experience, 

 without necessary knowledge of the relation between the 

 ends employed and the ends attained, but similarly per- 

 formed under similar and frequently recurring circum- 

 stances of all individuals of the same species." We hope 

 that our readers will bear this defini^ibn in mind when 

 they meet with the term instinct in the older works on 

 Natural History. 



Some of the facts which the author advances in sup- 

 port or in illustration of his positions, are profoundly 

 interesting. Thus : — " There is a kind of caterpillar, 

 eight or ten of which live in company inside the fruit of 

 the pomegranate. They eat out the fruit by degrees, 

 and as they do so it withers ; when it withers, the stalk 

 is apt to break and allow the pomegranate to dry. It has 

 been observed that in order to prevent this possible 

 catastrophe — it is not a necessary catastrophe, as the 

 pomegranate does not alwaj's drop — these caterpillars 

 before they begin to eat out the inside of the fruit, care- 

 fully make a web, extending from the fruit to the branch, 

 so as to act as a stalk in case of the natural stalk 

 withering." 



Many other curious facts are here mentioned which it 

 is the less necessarj' for us to quote, as they may pro- 

 bably be before long discussed in a separate article. 



" Animal Life on the Ocean Surface." By Professor 

 H. M. Mosely, F.R.S., formerly of the celebrated 

 Challenger e.-s.T^\orvag expedition. W'e can merely notice 

 Professor Weissmann's explanation, here quoted, of the 



fact that a number of surface-haunting water animals 

 descend some forty or fifty fathoms during the day-time 

 and reascend as night draws on. The explanation is 

 this : these surface animals, finding that floating vege- 

 table matter extends to the depth of fifty fathoms, in 

 order to economise their feeding-ground, which they 

 cannot graze over without the aid of some light, feed on 

 the food contained in the lowest levels when the sun 

 penetrates down furthest. As the sun sinks, its light 

 penetrates less and less deeply, and the animals gradually 

 retreat to the upper surface, and there feed by the aid 

 of starlight, or moonlight, if any. 



The " Eye and its Work," by Dr. Litton Forbes, is 

 a very clear exposition of the ej'e and its functions. In 

 addition, there are some practical hints on the preserva- 

 tion of eye-sight, rendered timely by the increase of 

 short-sightedness in schools. The author declares him- 

 self an opponent of over-pressure, of home-lessons, and 

 of over-crowding. He protests against defective light 

 in schools, and the use of badly-printed books. He 

 might have pointed his moral by a reference to the 

 prevalence of short-sightedness in Germanj', where 

 it has been fostered by the prevalence of school- 

 books printed on a material little better than blotting- 

 paper, and by the wretched German printing-characters, 

 where the trifling distinction between letter and letter 

 compels the reader to pore much more closely over the 

 book than where the Latin characters are used. 



Dr. Forbes further complains of a common reluctance 

 to use spectacles when they are actually needed. 



We do not doubt that such a feeling may be encoun- 

 tered, but far more common, we fear, is the idiotic 

 affectation of using spectacles or ej^e-glasses when the 

 sight is perfectly normal. 



The " IVlovements of Plants," by E. A. Parkyn, M.A., 

 is an exposition of a set of curious phenomena which 

 have been chiefly brought to light by the researches of 

 Charles Darwin. 



The " Relations between Natural Science and Litera- 

 ture," by Professor H. Nettleship, is a paper dealing 

 with relations not over amicable, though the author 

 endeavours to hold out an olive-leaf to both contending 

 forces. This subject, however, must be reserved for 

 special consideration at the earliest opportunity. 



" Facts and Fictions in Zoology," by Dr. A. Wilson, 

 F.R.S.E., is an instructive and amusing glance over the 

 mythical side of Natural History, with suggestions as to 

 the possible origin of such fables. As instances may 

 serve, the barnacle goose, the lamb tree, the sails and 

 oars of the paper nautilus. But whilst the progress of 

 science explodes many of the beliefs of our fathers, quite 

 as frequently it proves that stories once derided as 

 fables, have in them a oasis of very substantial truth. 

 Cuttle-fish — though they are by no means fish — have 

 been actually caught measuring twenty feet in length of 

 body, with arms twentj^-four feet across. Such monsters 

 are amply capable of overpowering a man in the water, 

 or even of endangering small boats, and we are scarcely 

 warranted in saying that the specimens taken are the 

 largest in existence. 



Dr. Wilson then declares himself willing "to hold a brief 

 for the sea-serpent." He points out that none of the 

 explanations suggested can account for such a case as that 

 of the Pauline. Neither a flock of sea-fowl, nor a line of 

 reefs, nor a quantity of floating wreck, nor a gigantic 

 seal could do what the sea-serpent in that case is reported 

 to have done, that is, coil itself round a sperm-whale and 



