SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



207 



We have received the twelfth catalogue of the 

 Natural History Library of M. Alphonse Milne- 

 Edwards, which is to be sold in Paris by public 

 auction from the 16th to the 21st of this month. 



A linnet's nest containing four eggs is said to 

 have been found recently in Suffolk. The nest 

 was probably that of a pair of this year's birds 

 who had mistaken the mildness of the autumn for 

 an early spring. 



Experiments with Signor Bacelli's treatment 

 of foot-and-mouth disease continue to be made, 

 and up to the present have met with complete 

 success. It is noteworthy that the Japanese 

 Government has asked for full particulars of this 

 treatment. 



The Zoological Society have issued with the list 

 of Fellows an interesting summary of about one 

 hundred pages of the history of the Society from 

 its foundation and the development of the Gardens. 

 This appears to be a new departure in the literature 

 of learned bodies. 



Among the recipients of birthday honours we 

 congratulate Sir George Anderson Critchett, on 

 whom King Edward has conferred the honour of 

 knighthood. Sir G. A. Critchett is oculist to his 

 Majesty and President of the Ophthalmological 

 Society of London. 



The village of Stavrova, in the Ananieff District 

 of South Eussia, was recently the scene of an 

 interesting discovery. The skeleton of a huge 

 animal was found in a neighbouring ravine, and, 

 from the shape of a tooth, is thought' to be that of 

 a mastodon or sivatherium. The tooth, lower jaw- 

 bone, and the bones of the extremities have been 

 placed in the Archaeological Museum at Kherson. 



A map of America, said to be one of the earliest 

 known, has been discovered in the library of 

 Wolf egg Castle, which belongs to Prince ' von 

 Waldburg-Wolfegg. The map was drawn in 1507 

 by Martin Waldsee Midler, who is supposed to 

 have given America its name after the explorer 

 Amerigo Vespucci. An evening paper reports this 

 discovery under the heading "An Early Map of 

 the U.S." It would, indeed, be a very early map, 

 seeing that the United States of America were not 

 in existence for some centuries later. 



The young male zebra recently presented by 

 the Negus Menelik to King Edward VII. has 

 been identified as Equus granti, a form allied to 

 Equus burclieUi. Another interesting arrival at 

 the Gardens is a young specimen of the black- 

 crested langur (Semnopithecus melanoloplvus) from 

 Sumatra. This animal, though known to science 

 for the past eighty years, has never before been 

 exhibited. The "eagle" that was said to have 

 attacked a workman at Westminster in October 

 was sent to the Gardens and placed in an aviary 

 behind the Camel House. The bird, a female gos- 

 hawk, probably escaped from captivity. 



We have received a reprint of a Paper by Mr. 

 J. J. Wilkinson, " On the Pharynx of Uristalis 

 Larva." There are several illustrations showing 

 the anatomical arrangement of the muscles. 



Professor J. A. Fleming will deliver the 

 Christmas course of lectures to young people this 

 year at the Royal Institution. The subject will 

 be " Waves and Ripples in Water, Air, and 

 Ether." 



Preparations are being made for the despatch 

 of a new Norwegian expedition to determine more 

 exactly the position of the North Magnetic Pole. 

 The expedition will be directed by M. Amundsen, 

 one of the officers in M. Gerlache's Antarctic 

 Expedition. 



M. Santos-Dumont is to be congratulated on 

 being awarded the Deutsch prize. He has become 

 a member of the Aero Club of the United Kingdom, 

 which has been registered lately as a limited 

 liability company, and is now staying in London 

 with a view to further experiments. 



Mr. Cecil Barker, from the Veterinary Com- 

 mittee, reports that the Society's experiments 011 

 the possibility of infecting bovine animals with 

 tuberculous material from the human subject has 

 been in progress for over three months. We await 

 with great interest the publication of the results 

 of these experiments. 



Professor Paul Ehrlich, of Frankfort-on- 

 Main, has been enabled to devote himself to the 

 special study of the disease of cancer in conse- 

 quence of a bequest of 500,000 marks dedicated to 

 this purpose by the late Herr Theodore Stern. 

 Other donations have raised this amount by 40,000 

 marks (£2,000) a year. 



A students' hall of residence in connection 

 with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine 

 was opened on November 2nd. The object of the 

 promoters of this institution is to provide a tem- 

 porary home for Colonials who come to study at 

 the School of Trojucal Medicine. Already five 

 students are in residence at the new hall, which is 

 situated in Upper Parliament Street, Liverpool. 



Madame Christensen, the fasting woman at 

 the Royal Aquarium, recently completed her thirty- 

 five days' fast without any appreciable detriment 

 to health other than the loss of 27f lbs. in weight. 

 Without entering upon the question of the possi- 

 bility of fraud in such cases, there is no doubt a 

 certain scientific value attached to these experi- 

 ments, inasmuch as they show that miners and 

 others imprisoned without food, but with water, 

 may support life for a prolonged period, provided 

 there is no physical exertion to rapidly destroy 

 muscular and nerve tissues. 



Dr. William Saunders recently issued a report 

 upon the hybridising of various forms of apples in 

 view of establishing a fruit that will prove hardy 

 in the North-west of Canada. Hitherto no variety 

 has been found which would stand the intense cold 

 of the Central North-west Provinces, where a 

 minimum temperature of 60° below zero Fahr. 

 is not infrequent. Professor Saunders has experi- 

 mented with some success on a hybrid of Pyrvs 

 baccata, a species of wild crab apple native to 

 N. Siberia, and some Canadian hardy forms, the 

 result being the production of a fruit that bears an 

 abundance of small apples of fairly good flavour, 

 which have become easily acclimatised in the 

 North-west Provinces. 



