574 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 



protoplasmic network, and leave the exact origin of the Coccoliths 

 doubtful. A very remarkable observation which he has made neces- 

 sitates this ; for he has discovered a new genus of oceanic Eadiola- 

 rians, in the centre of each specimen of which he finds a mass of 

 concretions which really cannot be distinguished from a Coccosphere. 

 In fact, we may say that Coccospheres are found inside these new 

 Radiolarians. At present there is nothing to show how they got 

 there : whether they are secretions of the Badiolarian, or whether 

 they have been taken in by it. Meanwhile the Coccoliths have 

 been observed in other oceanic accumulations besides the Atlantic 

 mud and the Chalk. 



Miscellaneous. 



Mr. Darwin and the French Academy. — At the outbreak of the 

 present war between Germany and France, the claims of our great 

 naturalist, to be elected a corresponding member of the French 

 Academy, were under discussion in that body. There is nothing 

 which has so fully illustrated the difference between the scientific 

 attitude of France — or rather let us say Imperial France — and 

 Germany, as the manner in which the views of Mr. Darwin have 

 been treated in these two countries. In Germany their almost 

 universal adoption has been the signal for the most active and 

 valuable investigations " fur Darwin ; " and the brilliant researches 

 of Fritz Muller, Haeckel, Kowalewsky, and others have proceeded 

 directly from this as a cause. Imperial France on the other hand 

 has, with a rare exception here and there, treated Mr. Darwin with 

 scorn and even insult. M. Flourens, the late perpetual secretary 

 of the French Academy, made a most unseemly attack upon Mr. 

 Darwin some years since, which Professor Huxley showed up for 

 the amusement of English readers in an article in the 'Natural 

 History Review,' which is reprinted in his volume of ' Lay Sermons.' 

 In the recent discussion on Mr. Darwin's claims, MM. Milne- 

 Edwards and De Quatrefages did justice to his merits as an observer, 

 though they do not accept evolution ; but Brongniart, Eobin, and 

 Emile Blanchard, appear to have expressed a very low opinion of 

 him : he was called ' amateur,' an ' inaccurate dreamer ; ' and Eli de 

 Beaumont, whose theory of mountain chains has been so completely 

 crushed by Lyell, said that Darwinism " is all fizz " — " cest la 

 science moussee." And yet it is a fact that Cuvier and Lamarck 

 were Frenchmen. 



A New Manual of Zoology. — Dr. H. Alleyne Nicholson, of 

 Edinburgh, lecturer on zoology in one of the medical schools, has, 

 with excellent intentions, produced a manual of zoology. He has 

 not done rightly, for the book is almost entirely an abridgment of 

 Huxley's lectures published in 1856 in the 'Medical Times and 



