EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 287 



useful for bacteriological study. These insects will be distributed in the 

 special laboratories " de ITnstitut Pasteur, de 1'^cole d'Alfort, de la Faculte 

 de Medecine ou du Museum." 



Undismayed by the daily Monday to Friday performances of the Press 

 Band in the Embankment Gardens, a pair of Sparrows have built a nest in 

 the ornamental ironwork of the band stand, immediately over the conductor's 

 head, and within a few feet of his baton. Here a young family is being 

 reared, with apparently healthy appetites ; for the old birds, taking no 

 notice of the performers, even in the loudest passages, nor of the big crowd 

 of listeners surrounding them, come every few minutes to their untidy 

 nest and feed the youngsters. (' Westminster Gazette,' May 27th.) 



At Mearbeck, near Settle, the beautiful residence of Mrs. Preston, a 

 large rookery, which has been there for a very considerable number of years, 

 has unexpectedly been abandoned. Mr. Wooler, the gardener, says that in 

 February last a large number of Rooks came to their old nests and, he 

 thinks, took out the linings of the nests, which can be seen on the ground. 

 Afterwards every Rook disappeared, and the place is now unusually quiet for 

 this time of the year. (' Craven Herald,' Skipton, April 30.) 



Lieut.-Colonel H. W. Feilden and Mr. H. J. Pearson, who made a 

 successful expedition to Novaya Zemlya in 1895, are about to proceed to 

 the Petchora river and the coasts of Siberia. The start will be made from 

 Norway, and the explorers will study the geology and zoology of the North 

 Russian shores, and make collections for the British Museum. Some 

 years ago Col. Feilden spent an entire winter in Grinnell Sound — the most 

 northern portion of the globe in which fossil remains have been brought to 

 light — and there obtained ample proof that animals were on the move the 

 whole time. 



In • Nature ' for May 27th, Grassi and Calandruccio, supplementing 

 their last announcement on the larva of the Common Eel, that they had 

 succeeded in following the transformation of Leptocephalus brevirostris into 

 Anguilla vulgaris, now supply figures of a specimen of L. brevirostris with 

 its larval teeth still intact, and also of another specimen captured by Dr. 

 Silvestri in the Straits of Messina, which is described as follows : — " Its total 

 length is 71 mm. The anus is about 29 mm. from the apex of the snout, 

 the anterior extremity of the dorsal flu being about 25 mm from the apex 

 of the snout. The head and the point of the tail have already noticeably 

 acquired the known special characteristics of the Eel. The larval teeth 



