^54 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



5CIENCE GOSSIP 



m^>^^-^^i^MP^ 



Messrs. Weldox axd Co., the well-known 

 natural-history booksellers, are obliged to remove 

 to new premises on the other side of Great Queen 

 Street, London, as the Freemasons require the 

 present shop for addition to their Hall; conse- 

 quently there are bargains in books to be secured. 



Several daily and weekly newspapers have 

 during the past month made reference to the 

 so-called plague of caterpillars infesting cabbage 

 and cauliflower fields in the South of England. 

 They are, of course, the larvae of Pieris byassicae, 

 the common cabbage white butterfly. When 

 stripped of sensational reporting, these accounts 

 record little that is unusual. 



In connection with the caterpillar scare one sees 

 much written by well-intentioned persons whose 

 facts are very much home-made. For instance, 

 one writer attributes the plague to the killing off 

 of "all" our sparrows and swallows. As neither 

 of these birds eat either the larvae or imagines 

 of our cabbage white butterflies, the suggestion is 

 hardly to the point. 



There seems to be a fatal association of tastes 

 for scientific research and Alpine climbing. The 

 terrible accident which occurred to that distin- 

 guished electrician, Dr. John Hopkinson, D.Sc, 

 F.R.S., when he, his son and two daughters were 

 killed, is by no means the only case where a well- 

 known man of high scientific reputation has lost 

 his life through mountain climbing. The list was, 

 unfortunately, already a long one. 



A GOOD deal of nonsense has been written during 

 the past month about the danger to sea-side 

 bathers and boatmen from sharks around our 

 western and southern coasts. The subject was 

 started by Mr. F. G. Aflalo in a letter to a daily 

 paper. We should like to know more of these 

 dangerous denizens of the deep to which he refers. 

 We wonder if he identified the species as well as ob- 

 served the length to within "six inches, either way." 



The trustees of the National Portrait Gallery 

 have done wisely in suspending, in the case of the 

 late Professor Thos. Huxley, the rule of ten years' 

 interval between the death and the exhibiting of a 

 portrait of a celebrity. The picture is a full-sized 

 replica of the portrait painted by the Hon. John 

 Collier in 1S83, who has not only specially made 

 the copy for the national collection, but also 

 presented it. Mr. Collier, it will be remembered, 

 married a daughter of Prof. Huxley. 



The death of John Van Voorst, F.L.S., which 

 occurred at his residence in Queen's Road, Clapham 

 Park, on the 24th of July last, removed a connect- 

 ing link between the science of the collector and 

 that of the investigator. He had passed his ninety- 

 fourth year, and died simply from senility, though 

 maintaining an unclouded intellect to the last. Mr. 

 Van Voorst was unmarried, and with his death 

 his family, of Dutch origin, becomes extinct. He 

 was first engaged in the Longmans publishing 

 house, but in 1833 commenced on his own account 

 as a publisher at i , Paternoster Row, issuing many 



excellent books on natural history, by such eminent 

 writers as Yarrell, Edward Forbes, and others. 

 The business was some time ago handed over to 

 Alessrs. Gurney and Jackson, who had been in 

 Van Voorst's service from boyhood. 



Sir John Lubbock was distinctly successful in 

 the pleasant and popular style of his presidential 

 address to the International Congress of Zoolo- 

 gists held last month at Cambridge. Had his 

 remarks been confined to high science only, only a 

 fraction of those who were interested in the daily 

 proceedings which followed would have had their 

 attention drawm to the Congress. 



Herr Wilckens, of Eisenach, is publishing a 

 new work in German, by Dr. R. Tiimpel, on the 

 Dragon-flies of Europe. It is beautifully illustrated 

 with many coloured plates, also others of the 

 nymphs, drawn by W. IMiiller. The work is being 

 issued in two- shilling parts, but it is not to exceed 

 fifteen marks (or shillings) as a whole. Parts i, 2, 

 and the remainder may be obtained through Janson 

 and Son, 44, Great Russell Street, London. 



Dr. Daniel Morris, C.M.G., F.L.S., has been 

 transferred from the post of Assistant Director of 

 Kew Gardens, which he has held since 1886, to 

 that of Commissioner of Agriculture for the West 

 Indies. In addition. Dr. Morris will preside over 

 the Botanical Department recently created for the 

 West Indies. His headquarters will at first be in 

 Barbados. There will be ample work to do, for 

 what with agricultural distress, hurricanes and 

 general depression, it is difficult to imagine a worse 

 condition for those unfortunate islands. 



Dr. AIorris is by no means new to colonial 

 botanical work. He was Assistant Director of the 

 Ceylon Botanic Gardens in 1877, and made his 

 mark by the investigation of the coffee-leaf disease. 

 In 1879 he was appointed Director of the Jamaica 

 Botanic Department ; explored British Honduras 

 in 18S2 ; reported on the botanical and agricultural 

 resources of St. Helena in 1883. In 1890-1891 he 

 officially visited a second time the West Indies, 

 and 1895 saw him officially in the Bahamas. 



In the September number of the "Entomologists' 

 Record" a series of articles on "The Dispersal 

 and Migration of Insects" is commenced by Mr. 

 J. W. Tutt. The articles will consist of " General 

 Considerations affecting Dispersal and Migration," 

 "Migration of Aphides," "Migration of Orthop- 

 tera," " Migration of Dragonflies," " Migration of 

 Ants, Bees, Flies, Beetles, etc.," "Migration of 

 Lepidoptera " and "General Conclusions relating 

 to Dispersal and Migration." The material has 

 been collected from every available source. 



A great refracting telescope is in course of con- 

 struction for the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Its 

 aperture is to be 492 inches, and its focal length 

 196 feet 10 inches. The bill is expected to reach 

 1,400,000 francs. The constructor, M. Gautier, is 

 arranging for the monster to be mounted hori- 

 zontally, the light entering it being reflected by a 

 plane mirror, having a diameter of two metres and 

 a thickness of thirteen inches. Out of a dozen 

 castings for this mirror, the first was selected as 

 the best. Grinding was commenced on this 

 mirror seven months since, but it is not yet com- 

 pleted. The instrument has two interchangeable 

 objectives, one for visual, the other for photo- 

 graphic observation. It is hoped that under 

 favourable circumstances magnifying powers of 

 from 6,000 to 10,000 diameters will be employed. 

 " La Nature," August 27th, says good progress is 

 being made with the instrument. 



