632 Scientific News. [June, 
vestigations concerning the minute animals and plants in waters 
contaminated with sewage, &c., and then described different 
modes of collecting and examining waters microscopically, and 
urged the importance of further investigation, so as.to ascertain 
how far the organized matters present in water are capable of 
developing disease, and how such organisms may be destroyed 
by various means, describing several modes which might be 
adopted in carrying out such inquiries. In conclusion he men-, 
tioned impurities found in natural ice, and also two methods of 
examination of rain and air. 
— In the death of Th. C. von Siebold, at the age of 80, Ger- 
many has lost one of her foremost biologists, while as a compara- 
tive anatomist he has held a prominent position for over fifty 
years. He will be remembered for his Comparative Anatomy of 
the Invertebrates, which was translated into English by Burnett 
in 1854, and is still nearly indispensable ; for his fruitful labors 
on parthenogenesis in bees, saw-flies, moths, the Branchi- 
* 
hybrids, and on intestinal worms, which made him second to 
none of the biologists of Europe, not even excepting Darwin. He 
was, with Professor Kolliker, the founder of Siebold and Kolli- 
ker’s Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie, a journal which has 
done more than any other to elevate the tone and spirit of biologi- 
cal research. He was a most unaffected man, most cordial in his 
reception of young men, and he died at Munich full of honors. 
— The Official Gazette of India reports that in 1883 the num- 
ber of persons killed by wild beasts and poisonous snakes were 
22,905, against 22,125 in 1882. 20,057 deaths were due to the 
bites of poisonous animals ; 985 persons were devoured by tigers, 
287 by wolves, and 217 by leopards. The loss of cattle amounted 
to 47,478 animals, an increase of 771 over the preceding year. 
While most of the deaths of human beings was due to the bite of 
snakes, only 1644 cattle were thus poisoned. More than three- 
quarters of the deaths took place in Bengal and in the provinces 
of the north-west. 19,890 dangerous animals were killed during 
the year. 
— Ina recent memoir by F. A. Forel on the deep fauna of 
: Swiss lakes, he corrects the facts and theories which he had pre- 
viously advanced on the origin of the blind Gammarus and Asel- 
lus of the deep parts of the lakes. Formerly he attributed them 
to direct emigration from a littoral fauna, which, penetrating into 
a region devoid of light, had there lost the visual organ and pig- 
ment. New researches have now led him to conclude that these 
__ blind animals have descended from cave-inhabiting forms which 
had already become differentiated in the dark subterranean 
