904 Scientific News. [Augast; 
ing in the present case must be (the author says) because the ab- 
sorption by the surface of the body and the mouth was #4. M. 
lateau has previously observed that aquatic Coleoptera kept in 
sea water do not absorb its salts 
— The first Walker prize for 1883 was awarded to Howard 
Ayres, of Harvard University, for an essay on the embryology of 
CEcanthus niveus, the tree cricket. It will be seen in our adver- 
tising pages that besides the regular Walker prize, the Boston 
Society of Natural History, through the generosity of a member, 
also offers a first prize of from $60 to $100 and a second prize of 
$50 on the following subject: A study of the venation of the hind 
wings of Coleoptera, with illustrations of all the families of Le 
Conte’s and Horn’s classification. 
— Dr. C. C. Abbott, of Trenton, N. J, has destroyed another 
old belief in weather lore. For twenty years he has kept a rec- 
ord of the building of their winter houses by the muskrats, the 
storing of nuts by squirrels, and other habits of the mammals 
which are commonly regarded as indicating the character of the 
coming winter. His conclusion is that the habits referred to have 
no connection with the rigor or mildness of the approaching 
season. 
— It is stated that five perfect human fossils have been discov- 
ered in a cavern at the mines of Bully-Grenay, in the north 
France. Weapons and utensils of stone and wood were found 
along with them. The remains have been taken to the towns of 
Lens and Lille, and invitations sent to the Academy of Sciences 
and the British Museum soliciting the attendance of some ex- 
rt 
perts. 
— The Balfour memorial fund will probably yield an annual 
income of £300, which it has been agreed shall be applied in < 
dowing a studentship of original research in biology, and in mak- 
ing occasional grants of money in aid ‘of similar investigations, 
especially in animal morphology. > 
— By a slip of the pen Professor W. W. Bailey said riha 
ence, when he meant diameter, in his note on the big spider- i 
in. Franconia. According to Mr. Emerton it was probably 
of Epeira angulata, which he has seen two feet across. oy 
— Adrian Luis Jean Francisco Sumichrast, an able naturalist 
and collector, well known to the scientific world, died on w 
of September, 1882, after a short illness, and in the fifty-four 
rofessor Sumichrast, although for thirty ye : 
Mexico, to the study of whose natural history and antiqu 
ars a resident of eo 
