1880. | Scientific News. 551 
—- Our series of articles regarding progress in the different 
departments discussed in the NaTuracist, have, according to a 
number of letters, domestic and foreign, been highly approved 
by our readers. It is to be hoped that we may be encouraged to 
render this a permanent feature of the magazine by additions to 
our subscription list. 
— The report for 1879 of Mr. W. A. Conklin, director of the 
Central park menagerie, states that the total number of animals 
exhibited was 1206. A goodly number of mammals and birds 
were bred in the menagerie. The most valuable animals on exhi- 
bition, were two black leopards, four polar bears, a two-horned 
rhinoceros, and a sea lion and cu 
— About half the skeleton of a Camarasaurus, obtained by 
Prof. Cope, last summer, has been shipped to Philadelphia. The 
weigh 6850 pounds. The complete skeleton would weigh about 
six tons. The bones are to be deposited in the Permanent Exhi- 
bition Building. 
— We notice large numbers of mussels for sale in the fish mar- 
kets of Providence, R. I., where they have been sold for some 
thirteen years, being bought largely by English people. We have 
not before heard of the edible mussel being used as an article of 
food on this side of the Atlantic. They are sold mostly in 
summer, 
r. A. H. Swinton, of Binfield House, Guildford, Surrey, 
England, desires subscriptions (price, 7s. 6d.) for on “the 
causes which propagate, distribute, and modify insects.” The 
book will treat of the organs of sense, secondary sexual characters, 
and variations in insects, 
— Pierre Henri Nyst, conservator of the Royal Museum of 
Natural History of Brussels, died on the 6th of April, in the 67th 
year of his age. He was well known as one of the first of the 
Belgian geologists and palzontologists. 
— The Boston Society of Natural History celebrated the 
fiftieth anniversary of its foundation by a special meeting in its 
museum, April 28th, when addresses were made by President 
Bouvé, Prof. W. B. Rogers, and others. 
_ — The French Government propose to spend nearly $500,000 
in experiments calculated to drown out the phylloxera in about 
18,000 acres of vineyards in L’Aude and L’Hérault. 
— Prof. W, K, Kedzie, a successful teacher of chemistry and 
well known for his attainments in geology and zoology, died at 
Lansing, Mich., April 14th, aged thirty-nine years. 
— A catalogue of the fungi of the Pacific coast, by Dr. H. W. 
Harkness and Justin P. Moore, has been published under the 
auspices of the California Academy of Sciences. 
