No. 377-] SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 383 
The Ornithological Union of Vienna has disappeared as a distinct 
organization, and now forms a section of the Royal-Imperial Zoologi- 
cal-Botanical Society. The quarterly journal of the union, Die Schwalbe, 
is discontinued after twenty-four volumes. 
The Museum of Natural History of Paris has recently acquired 
the Ragonot collection of Microlepidoptera and the Berthelin collec- 
tion of fossil Foraminifera. 
We learn from Natural Science that a natural history museum is 
being established in the Vatican, geological and mineralogical collec- 
tions being already displayed. 
Bradney B. Griffin, a fellow of Columbia University, died.in New 
York, March 26, aged 26. He was a promising zoologist, and had 
published articles upon the invertebrate fauna of Puget Sound and 
upon the fertilization of Thalassema. A larger paper on this same 
subject was in the printer’s hands at the time of his death. 
The United States National Museum has received a second speci- 
men of the fish Acrotus willoughbyi, of the family Stromateide. Like 
the type and only known specimen, it comes from Washington, and 
will probably supplement the information derived from the former 
incomplete specimen. The type was described as having the bones 
of the head so weak that a pull of about five pounds would pull 
off the head. This second specimen is stated to have the head 
mutilated. 
Mrs. Phoebe Hearst has given a building for the School of Mines 
to the University of California. The building will be fully equipped 
at her expense. 
The Belgian Academy of Science offers prizes of $120 for the best 
articles upon the following subjects: Digestion in Carnivorous 
Plants; Development of a Platode, arid its bearings upon the 
question of the relations of Platodes to Enteroceeles; Do the 
Schizophytes possess a nucleus? and if so, what is its nature and 
how does it divide? The competition is open to all. 
Jules Marcou died in Cambridge, Mass., April 17. He was born 
in Salins, department of the Jura, April 20, 1824, studied geology, 
and in 1847 was appointed to the paleontological staff of the 
Sorbonne. In 1848 he came to the United States, where he worked 
in connection with Agassiz. 1851 and 1852 he spent in Europe, and 
in 1855 he received the appointment of professor of geology in the 
University of Zürich. In 1860 he returned again to the United 
