218 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Prof. Hans Molisch, of Prague, is spending a year in the botanical 
gardens at Buitenzoog. 
Dr. Karl Futterer, of Carlsruhe, has gone on a geological expedi- 
tion to Central Asia. 
The University of Bonn has received the valuable anthropological 
collections of the late Mr. Schaafhausen. 
The library of the late Prof. Carl Vogt has been purchased by the 
Senckenberg Society of Frankfurt am Main. 
Some years ago the Boston Society of Natural History attempted 
to establish zoological gardens and aquaria in Boston, but from the 
first, as a result of impracticable plans, the project was doomed to 
failure. Recently the idea has taken another form, and the mayor 
of the city, Mr. Josiah Quincy, in his inaugural address, recom- 
mended that the city itself take up the work, which it was estimated 
would involve an expenditure of about $200,000. 
The gypsy moth still makes demands upon the Massachusetts 
Legislature. The state has already expended considerably over half 
a million dollars in the attempt to exterminate the pest, and for the 
coming year the committee of the State Board of Agriculture having 
the work in charge ask for an appropriation of $200,000 for the work 
in 1898. That the insect can be kept in check cannot be denied, 
but that extermination of it can be accomplished does not seem so 
certain to us as it does to the committee. It is proposed by some to 
limit the appropriation to $75,000. 
Recent Appointments: Dr. Abelous, professor of botany in the 
University of Toulouse, France. — Dr. Otto Finsch, director of the 
collection of ornithology in the Leyden Museum,— Dr. Hollermann, 
privat docent in botany in the University of Berlin. — Dr. Julius 
Istvánffy, professor of botany in the University of Klausenburg, 
Hungary. — W. P. Pycraft, temporary assistant in ornithology in the 
British Museum. — Mr. Francis Ramaley, of Minneapolis, assistant 
. professor of botany in the University of Colorado at Boulder. — 
Dr. L. Rhumbler, privat docent in zoology in the University of Göt- 
tingen. — r 
Recent Deaths: Charles Cornevin, professor of zoology and 
hygiene in the veterinary school at Lyons, France. — Dr. Mietschke, 
a German entomologist. — George H. Piper, geologist, of Ledbury, 
England.— Dr. F. Sintenis, German student of Diptera. — Prof. 
Ernst Ludwig Taschenberg, entomologist, of Halle, Jan. 20, 1898. 
He was born Jan. 10, 1818. 
