364 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



to the movement, caused by wind, of a loose-hang- 

 ing twig. Mr. Prout instanced Notodonta ziczac as 

 resembling a withered edge of a disreputable- 

 looking sallow leaf. Mr. Dadd and Mr. Nicholson 

 gave instances bearing out points in the paper, 

 such as the green and brown forms of larvae of 

 Phlogophora metkulosa, Mamestra persicariae and 

 Euplexia lucipara, each form finding its colour 

 valuable for protection according to its food-plant. 

 — H. A. Sauz'e, Hon. Sec, 4, Mount Villas, Sydenham 

 Hill Road, S.E. 



Royal Meteorological Society. — The 

 monthly meeting of this society was held on 

 Wednesday evening, April 20th, at the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers, Mr. F. C. Bayard, LL.M., 

 President, in the chair. Major H. E. Rawson, 

 R.E., read a paper on " Anticyclonic systems and 

 their movements." Cyclones and anticyclones 

 have long been recognised as powerful weather 

 controls and their movements studied, but up to 

 the present very little has been written in this 

 country upon the progressive movements of the 

 cores of the permanent high-pressure areas which 

 are found to be associated with certain localities at 

 different times of the year. The author referred to 

 previous investigations by Abercromby, Scott, 

 Loomis, H. C. Russell, and Buchan, and then 

 proceeded to give the results of an examination 

 which he had made of all the available synoptic 

 weather charts for the eleven years, 1881 to 1891. 

 During this period there were 212 cases in 

 which the centre or core of an anticyclonic 

 system was over the British Isles, and of these 

 130 were due to the Atlantic system, forty- 

 one to the Scandinavian, and seventeen to the 

 Greenland, twenty-two to the Atlantic and 

 Scandinavian systems extending and merging 

 together, and two to the same thing occurring in 

 the case of the Atlantic and Greenland systems. 

 It is thus evident that we owe the greatest number 

 of our anticyclones to the Atlantic system. They 

 occur in all months but more especially in January, 

 June and October, and are least frequent in April 

 and November. When such anticyclones move 

 away from our area, the direction is very much 

 influenced by the season of the year. By far the 

 largest number drift off in some direction between 

 north-east, through east to south, and take the 

 more southerly course in December, January and 

 February. Some few between April and July 

 move west and south-west, and still fewer north or 

 north-west. The Hon. F. A. Rollo Russell 

 described the results of observations which he had 

 made on haze and transparency during 1897. He 

 found that the greatest clearness occurred with 

 winds from the westward, and the least clearness 

 with winds from the eastward. The highest mean 

 visibility was twenty-four miles with west winds, 

 and the lowest mean visibility was io-6 miles with 

 north-east winds. 



Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' 

 Club. — At a recent meeting " The Marine Fauna 

 of the Yorkshire Coast" was the title of a paper 

 read by Mr. F. W. Fierke, M.C.S., the Club's 

 Recorder for Marine Biology. Mr. Fierke 

 explained that there was probably no branch of 

 natural history that had been so much neglected 

 on our coasts as Marine Biology. The Plymouth, 

 Liverpool, Essex and Scotch Marine Biological 

 Associations, judging from their publications, have 

 been doing very good work for some time. So far 

 as the coast in the south-east of Yorkshire is 

 concerned, the cliffs and beach from Spurn Point 



to Filey, and perhaps as far as Scarboro', should be 

 thoroughly explored and examined by the members 

 of the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' Club. 

 The only drawback is the difficulty of reaching the 

 various points most likely to reward observation. 

 The cliffs between Spurn and Bridlington being of 

 boulder clay throughout, and the beach also being 

 of a similar character the whole length, do not 

 afford the variety of objects necessary to make an 

 excursion prolific in good finds ; nevertheless, there 

 is much to be done even in this part of the coast. 

 The material thrown up by the waves at high-tide 

 mark is always full of interesting objects. Spurn 

 Point itself, especially on the Humber side of that 

 tongue of land, should prove a most interesting 

 region for research, and much benefit would be 

 derived by carefully comparing the specimens 

 found on the Humber side with those found on the 

 opposite beach. At Flamboro'and Filey, however, 

 the rocks and scars, with the huge boulders, 

 sheltered ledges of rock, and pools of clear water, 

 afford habitation to many deeply interesting forms 

 of marine life, and jelly-fishes, star-fishes, sea- 

 urchins, sea-anemones, crabs, etc., in endless 

 variety are to be found in plenty, in addition to a 

 large variety of marine shells. By the aid of 

 lantern views, Mr. Fierke pointed out the many 

 delightful hunting-grounds amongst the rocks and 

 pools of Flamboro' Head, and also showed a great 

 number of the different types of marine life there 

 to be met with. The Brig and Spittle at Filey 

 were also recommended as profitable localities for 

 a day's collecting. The Spittle, unfortunately, is 

 only accessible at very low tides, when a good 

 variety of specimens can be secured. The shells, 

 etc., which occur on the coast, are arranged in 

 definite and well-defined zones. For instance, 

 between high and low watermark, the littoral zone, 

 a certain class of life forms is met with which 

 differs from that immediately below the low-tide 

 mark, viz., the laminarian zone. This latter, 

 however, is of the greatest interest to a marine 

 zoologist. Mr. Fierke illustrated his paper by 

 an excellent series of slides on the screen, repre- 

 senting the various objects found on our coast as 

 well as views of the places at which they are 

 secured. — T. Sheppard, Hon. Sec, 78, Sherburn Street, 

 Hull. 



Greenock Natural History Society. — At a 

 meeting held March 31st, in the Maclean Museum, 

 the President, Mr. M. F. Dunlop, in the chair, 

 Mr. John Ballantyne, Rothesay, read two papers, 

 one on " The Hornet Sawfly (Sirex gigas)," and the 

 other on "Fern Structure." With regard to the 

 saw-fly, he said he had obtained much interesting 

 information from the foresters and woodmen 

 employed in the woods of Arran, Bute, and 

 Ormidale, the insect having been observed in these 

 localities during the last twenty or twenty-five 

 years. The female fly, which measures from one- 

 and a half to two inches in length from the head 

 to the point of the ovipositor, lays her eggs under- 

 neath the bark of the Scotch fir. When the eggs 

 are hatched the larvae feed on the wood, and in 

 doing so bore passages of circular section, leaving 

 the remains of the partly digested sawdust behind 

 as a nearly solid plug. The flies from the larvae 

 under Mr. Ballantyne's observation emerged from 

 the wood at the beginning of August. Last July 

 one of these saw-flies was captured at Kothesay 

 Harbour on a pile of spruce deals that had formed 

 part of a cargo from Quebec. In addition to the 

 flies themselves, there were shown at the meeting 



