EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 117 



in regard to the completeness of our entries. On the one hand, it is 

 claimed that the admission of every little field-note into a bibliography 

 such as ours is an impediment to research, instead of being an aid, 

 and we are urged to suppress references which appear to have no 

 scientific value. On the other hand, other subscribers warn us against 

 such suppressions, and declare that we may as well abandon entirely 

 the attempt to record the observations on the fauna of Europe and 

 America, if minor notes are to be excluded. It has been particularly 

 pointed out that studies on the gradual spread of an insect require 

 references to the most trivial notes. Heretofore the ' Concilium ' has 

 wavered between these two tendencies, but in 1902 it was decided to 

 establish a supplemental bibliography, which those desiring complete 

 references can especially order. It is manifestly quite unimportant to 

 a subscriber in Australia or in America whether an insect previously 

 known only in Kent is discovered in the neighbouring county of 

 Sussex, but for the student of the fauna of the southern counties of 

 England it is of great importance. True to its principles, the ' Con- 

 cilium ' now leaves it to each subscriber to decide whether minor notes 

 shall be included or not. It is allowed, moreover, for a subscriber to 

 include the British references alone, or those concerning Australia, or 

 America." 



The headquarters is still Zurich-Neumiinster. 



In ' Nature Notes ' for last January, Dr. Herbert Snow contributes 

 a query on " The Influence of Maternal Impressions on the Offspring." 

 The author refers to the old episode narrated in Genesis of Jacob's 

 experiments on Laban's cattle; he also writes: — "It is fashionable 

 nowadays to scout the more extraordinary and exceptional mani- 

 festations of the principle." The question he propounds is this : — 

 " Is the colouration, &c, of birds, of the lower mammals, even of 

 fishes, affected by the natural environment of the mother, particularly 

 so far as that concerns her visual sense ? And, if so, to what extent ? 

 For example, how far may the colour of a Grouse be ascribed to the 

 prevailing tints of the heather amid which the bird lives ? Are not 

 the stripes of the Tiger in part due to the vision ever present to the 

 maternal eye of tree-trunks, with the sun glinting through them ? 

 The white plumage of the Ptarmigan and Snow-Bunting, the tawny 

 yellow of the Lion, the sandy-coloured Snakes of the Egyptian desert, 

 the Sand- Grouse, the dead-leaf-coloured Woodcock — one need not 

 multiply such instances hitherto ascribed to the survival of the fittest 

 in the struggle for existence, and to that alone." 



