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EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 



The recent Meeting of the British Association at Bradford, as usual, 

 provided thought for the zoologist. Section D — Zoology — was presided 

 over by Dr. Ramsay H. Traquair, and his address was devoted to the 

 teachings of Palaeontology, particularly as referring to fossil ichthyology. 

 Dr. Traquair emphasized the necessary position of Palaeontology in the 

 domain of Biology, and pertinently remarked : — " As I have asked on a 

 previous occasion, ' Does an animal cease to be an animal because it is pre- 

 served in stone instead of spirits ? Is a skeleton any the less a skeleton 

 because it has been excavated from the rock, instead of prepared in a 

 macerating trough?' And I may now add — Do animals, because they 

 have been extinct for it may be millions of years, thereby give up their 

 place in the great chain of organic being, or do they cease to be of any im- 

 portance to the evolutionist because their soft tissues, now no longer existing, 

 cannot be imbedded in paraffin, and cut with a Cambridge microtome ? " 



In this Section, Mr. Borchgrevink read a most interesting paper on the 

 results obtained by the British Antarctic Expedition, organised by Sir 

 George Newnes. On the coast of Victoria Land, and on an island which 

 was discovered and named Duke of York Island, the Penguins literally 

 covered the ground, their nests lying on the top of the guano deposits, and 

 consisting of pebbles. From Oct. 15th one continual stream of Penguins 

 waddled over the ice towards their summer residence ; like so many people, 

 they walked after one another. On sunny days the male bird stood erect 

 in the old nest, his beak towards the zenith, and, while he moved his flip- 

 pers backwards and forwards, he produced a hoarse suffocating sound. 

 The female listened attentively to this antarctic love-song. 



It was curious to see how some lazy Penguins picked those pebbles, 

 which, through the care and work of years, had successfully been accumu- 

 lated by one, when this one happened to turn his back ; and the evident 

 unconcern and innocent behaviour of these scoundrels when caught in the 

 act was a source of great amusement. The rightful proprietor of the 

 pebbles would pursue the culprit most energetically, running after it and 

 hitting it with its flippers until both were quite exhausted and covered with 

 blood. During these fights they generally seemed to remember the cause of 

 the quarrel, but it was noticed that as a rule the one who first gave in walked 

 off with the pebble, while the victorious one, blinded by success, was left 



