142 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXII. 
Sir William Flower has resigned the presidency of the International 
Zoological Congress. Sir John Lubbock has accepted the office, and 
will preside at the meeting at Cambridge next August. 
In a recent number of this journal we gave an outline of several 
expeditions of the summer of 1897. In addition to those there noted 
_ must be added the botanical expedition of Mr. J. M. Rose to Mexico. 
_ Lower California, the west coast of Mexico, and the states of Zacati- 
cas, Durango, and Jalisco were explored, and the collections brought 
back contained 2000 numbers. Mr. A. P. Morse, who is connected 
with Wellesley College, visited the Pacific coast under the direction 
of Mr. S. H. Scudder, and made large collections of insects and 
especially of Orthoptera. 
At the meeting of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, on the 
evening of January 3, the following officers for 1898 were installed : 
President, Edmund A. Engler; Vice-Presidents, Robert Moore and 
D. S. H. Smith; Recording Secretary, William Trelease ; Correspond- 
ing Secretary, Joseph Grindon; Treasurer, Enno Sander; Librarian, 
Gustav Hambach ; Curators, Gustav Hambach, Julius Hurter; 
Directors, M. H. Post, Anand Ravold. 
Prof. R. A. Philippi has resigned the directorship of the National 
Museum at Santiago, Chili, on account of his age (go years). He 
has held the position for 43 years. He is succeeded by his son. 
The Department of Agriculture has decided to abandon the sub- 
tropical laboratory maintained for several years past at Eustis, 
Florida. We are not in a position to judge of the economic results 
of the laboratory, but its scientific production has been such as to 
make its abandonment a matter of regret. 
Dr. Harrison Allen died in Philadelphia November 14. He was 
born in that city April 17, 1841, studied medicine in the University 
of Pennsylvania, served as assistant surgeon in the United States 
Army during the Civil War, and in 1865 was appointed professor of 
comparative anatomy in his 4/ma Mater, a position which in 1878 
was changed to the professorship of physiology. Dr. Allen was a 
careful and accurate anatomist, and his papers on the anatomy of 
mammals and the systematic descriptions of the Chiroptera are of 
great value. Personally, Dr. Allen was a delightful companion, and 
his death, with that of Drs. Horn and Cope, is a severe loss to sci- 
ence, not only in Philadelphia, but in America as well. 
