1893.] Scientific News. 845 
most promising of the younger French zoologists, and had made the 
structure of the Arthropod nervous system a subject peculiarly his 
own, 
J. F. M. Bigot, possibly the best known student of the Diptera, died 
in Paris, April 14, 1893, in his 75th year. 
The death of Professor Carl Semper, on May 29, was not unexpected. 
For some time he had been suffering in health, and lately had done no 
teaching in the University of Würzburg. He is best known for his 
prolonged researches in the Philippine Islands, the scientific results of 
which have formed a splendid monument to his name. He visited the 
United States in 1876, and gave a course of lectures before the Lowell 
Institute in Boston, which later were issued in that most suggestive 
volume, *Animal Life as Effected by External Conditions." 
Dr. Eugen Korschelt, formerly of Berlin, has been appointed Pro- 
fessor of Zoology in the University of Marburg. 
The attempt to reduce the rate of postage upon natural history speci- 
mens sent through the mails of the postal union has failed. Such 
specimens can only be sent at regular letter rates (5 cents for each 
half ounce) except to Canada and Mexico, where the rate for such 
specimens is a cent an ounce. Dried animals, including insects, are 
excluded entirely from the mails. 
. Mr. James Wood-Mason died at sea on the voyage from Calcutta to 
London, May 6, 1893. He was born in Gloucestershire in 1846 ; was 
later connected with the Indian Museum, and at the time of his death 
was Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the Medical College of Ben- 
gal  Hewasbest known for his work upon the Morphology of Arthro- 
pods, his systematic work on the Crustacea of India and his explora- 
tions of the deep waters of the Gulf of Bengal with the dredge. 
