830 Scientific News. [November, 
Lewis, the owner, at the same time putting his hand in his coat 
pocket and handing the monkey a peculiar hammer. This was a 
surprise to the onlookers ; but the monkey was not long in getting 
to work with his hammer, and, once at work, he was not long in 
completing the task set before him. You may talk about a 
dog being quick at rat-killing, but he is really not in it with 
the monkey and his hammer. Had the monkey been left in 
the ring much longer you could not have told that his victims 
had been rats at all—he was for leaving them in all shapes. Suf- 
fice it to say the monkey won with ease, having time to spare at 
the finish. Most persons present (including Mr. Benson, the 
owner of the dog) thought the monkey would worry the rats in 
the same manner as a dog does; but the conditions said to kill, 
and the monkey killed with a vengeance, and won the £5, besides 
a lot of bets for his owner. 
— The French Gov t has, according to Nature, during the 
past summer carried on deep sea explorations in the Bay of Bis- 
cay in the steamer Travailleur, of 900 tons. The naturalists of 
the expedition were M. A. Milne-Edwards and Profs. Marion and 
Perier; Messrs. J. Gwyn-Jeffreys and A. Norman, of England, 
being present by invitation. Twenty-three dredgings were made 
at depths ranging from 337 to 2600 métres. Those between 600 
ance to those made by Capt. Baudon in 1801, M. d’Urville in 
1829, the Recherche in 1835, the Astrolabe in 1841 and other 
French expeditions. 
— We are glad to announce to our readers that Prof. Chas. E. 
Bessey, of Iowa Agricultural College, has kindly consented to 
edit the Department of Botany of the AMERICAN NATURALE 
Prof. Bessey is the author of the Botany for High Schools and 
Colleges, one of Holt’s American Science Series, and was late 
Lecturer on Botany in the University of California. We fee] sure 
that the magazine will greatly profit by this addition to its edito- 
rial force, and would ask botanists to Iend him all possible assist- 
ance. 
_— The French Association met the last week in August x 
Rheims, about 500 members being present, exclusive of loca 
members. The address of M. Perier on transformism was to the 
end that the doctrine of evolution was a scientific mistake, though 
its first advocate, Lamarck, was a Frenchman 
— It appears that the surgeon of the ill-fated Ad/an/a, which is 
