SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



219 



THE "PRINCESS ALICE" MARINE RESEARCHES. 



T)RINCE Albert of Monaco, whose deep-sea 

 dredgings and other investigations into 

 marine zoology and botany are so well-known, 

 recently described his third voyage in his specially 

 constructed vessel, the " Princess Alice," before 

 the Academy of Sciences of Paris. This 

 voyage, however, is the seventh the Prince has 

 undertaken at his own expense in the cause of 

 science. His Serene Highness left Monaco about 

 the end of May last, and the voyage lasted 

 until the end of August, comprising two expedi- 

 tions, the first in the Mediterranean and the 

 other in the Atlantic. In the Mediterranean the 

 Prince devoted his attention to the capture of large 

 Cetaceans, which have never been properly studied 

 in that sea. For this purpose he engaged a master 

 whaler from Scotland and proper means for 

 capturing these large marine animals. Among the 

 specimens secured were a GrampJis griscus, ten and 

 a-half feet long, and two examples of the Orca 

 gladiator, one of which reached nineteen feet in 

 length. A whale measuring sixty feet was har- 

 pooned and lost. This whale was afterwards 

 found dead in the Gulf of Genoa, and the skeleton 

 has since been offered to the Prince by the 

 Italian Government. 



In the Atlantic, the Prince surveyed and charted 

 a bank extending about 150 miles in diameter 

 about 350 feet below the surface. The principal inte- 

 rest in this expedition centred in the use of entirely 

 new types of fishing-gear hitherto insufficiently 

 tested in deep waters, such as trellis nets, which 

 are generally used on the Mediterranean littoral, 

 but at a depth not exceeding 100 feet. These have 

 been lowered to 8,000 feet ; from those regions the 

 nets in the three first trials produced very interest- 

 ing and rare species of fish. By using very long lines 

 bearing a hundred or more hooks, lowered as deep 

 as 5,150 feet, other fish of equal interest and which 

 have not occurred in preceding expeditions were ob- 

 tained. Trials with thirty-four dredges and "eel- 

 traps " around the Azores, about 300 miles from the 

 Portuguese coast, at a depth of 15,000 feet, have 

 given rich results, notably at 4,500 feet, in varied 

 specimens of crustaceans and fish. From 12,000 

 feet to 15,000 feet produced many specimens of 

 Echiderm ; one " trap " left for forty-eight hours 

 on a bottom 4,080 feet deep brought up 225 fish 

 and sixty-four enormous crabs. 



In the neighbourhood of the Azores the ex- 

 pedition captured seventeen turtles : some weighing 

 as much as seventy pounds each were captured 

 and studied. One was set at liberty with a brass 

 medal attached indicating the name of the ship, 

 date, and spot where it was thrown back into the 



sea. It is unknown where these reptiles come 

 from, or where they go ; it is only known that 

 they do not breed near the Azores. In his speech 

 before the Academy the Prince mentioned a curious 

 incident that occurred at the commencement of his 

 voyage, while still in the Mediterranean. 



On the 4th and 5th of June a hundred or so 

 swallows invaded the ship, visiting the engine- 

 rooms, stoke-holes, and laboratories. Eighty were 

 counted as having spent the night on board, and 

 the next morning they freely took food from the 

 sailors' hands. There were also at the same time 

 numbers of birds of other species which remained 

 in the rigging during the day, but these were far 

 less tame than the swallows. 



The expedition included M. Neuville, the 

 prosector and taxidermist to the Paris Museum, 

 and Mile. Le Roux as artist. These expeditions 

 made by the Prince of Monaco are of great value, 

 as contributing to a better knowledge of the 

 Oceanic fauna and flora, being well conceived and 

 admirably carried out with a large expenditure 

 of money and care. In this case the results have 

 borne great benefit to fishermen, who have made 

 great hauls on the new bank discovered this year 

 by His Serene Highness. 



POP0LAR Names of British Plants. — In the 

 "Transactions" of the Leicester Literary and 

 Philosophical Society, Part vi., there is a paper by 

 Mr. F. T. Mott, F.R.G.S., on this subject. He 

 points out that the popular or English names for 

 plants are very unstable. For instance, the flower 

 once called forget-me-not is ground-pine {Ajuga 

 chamoepitys) ; heart's-ease once meant the wall- 

 flower, now it is the well-known pansy which 

 goes by this charming designation. There seems 

 to be no reasonable explanation of these curious 

 changes, sometimes they are due to clerical blun- 

 ders, and sometimes to a misunderstanding of 

 obsolete or foreign words. Mr. Mott says that 

 one of the most complicated name-pedigrees he has 

 met with is that which Prior gives as the origin 

 of the two names "yew" and "ivy." The two 

 plants are not in any way similar. One is a gyrano- 

 sperm and the other an angiosperm . Yet it is evident 

 ttiat their names are derived trom the same source. 

 They are both a corruption of the Latin " abiga," 

 which was formerly written with a " u " or a "v." 

 The abiga was a plant called by the Greeks 

 "chamoepitys," and this in Italy " abiga," or the 

 " black cypress." This black cypress was supposed 

 to be the yew, hence the yew got the name "abiga "' 

 altered in manuscripts to "ajuga," "aiuga," 

 "iua," and then into "yew." The Greek name 

 " chamoepitj^s " was, however, by the early 

 English writers understood to refer not to the black 

 cypress but to a plant with a similar odour, the 

 ground-pine, which also got the name "iua" from 

 "abiga," anglicised in this case into "iva"and 



