304 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
water, if the trees, as I believe, live in a morass. The advantage the 
grub gets is very obscure. That there is an advantage is clear from 
the fact that if a hole be made in the bean the grub, instead of try- 
ing to escape from its prison, does just the opposite, closing the 
window with a web. I should think that as the parent tree must be 
covered with these grubs, they want a fresh dwelling place, and they 
secure this by travelling with the seeds. As soon as the seed com- 
mences to grow the grub has a fresh tree to start on. But the life- 
history of these insects is essential before a reliable account can be 
obtained. As I have only seen the beans for a few hours, perhaps 
someone who may have kept and studied them will bring forward a 
more satisfactory explanation to account for this peculiar pheno- 
menon.—J. P. Lioyp (St. Giles’s Vicarage, Norwich). 
(The creature inhabiting the bean is the larva of one of the Tortri- 
cid@ (Lepidoptera). According to Dr. Sharp: ‘There are, at least, 
two species of these insects, and two plants harbouring them, known 
in the United States and Mexico, viz. Carpocapsa saltitans living in 
the seeds of Croton colliguaja, and Grapholitha sebastianie living in 
the seeds of Sebastiania bicapsularis.”—Ep. | 


EDITORIAL GLEHANINGS. 

British Association At Dusnin, 1908.—The meeting just termi- 
nated at Dublin was under the Presidency of Dr. Francis Darwin, 
whose Address, though largely dependent on botanical observations, 
was a reaffirmation of his distinguished father’s position in the famous 
theory of Natural Selection, as distinct from much of the neo-Dar- 
winism of the present day, and as opposed to many of the conclusions 
of Weismann. 
The Zoological Section was presided over by Dr. Sidney F. Har- 
mer, who devoted the larger part of his Address to the problems 
attached to a philosophical study of the Polyzoa, especially those 
relating to an explanation of the functions of the avicularia. Fora 
proper estimation of this important zoological contribution the Ad- 
dress requires to be studied throughout, but the following extracts are 
a guide to the conclusions of its writer :— 
“The decision of the principles on which the Polyzoa should be 
classified may not be a matter of immediate practical importance, but 
our theories of species cannot be regarded as established until they 
have shown themselves capable of explaining all the cases. Some 
modification of the Mendelian theory seems to me to be capable of 
elucidating the apparently haphazard way in which the several forms 
of avicularia are distributed in the species of Cheilostomata, and it 
