186 Sclent'/ /ir Intelligence — Astronomy. 



tadpole. He further stated that there was no water in the cellar, 

 and no means of young frogs entering, except by first coming into 

 the kitchen, a mode of entry, if not impossible, highly improbable. 

 Mr Sidebotham never found any spawn. 



It seems probable from the above, that frogs are occasionally 

 born alive in situations where no water can be found for the spawn 

 to bo deposited in, and that toads are either reproduced in the same 

 manner, or from the egg directly. The latter mode seems most 

 likely, owing to spawn having been found previously to the young 

 toads. 



Mr Higginbottom tells me, the same remark on the birth of the 

 Triton, without the stage of tadpole, has been mentioned to him. 



These are the facts ; should the subject be deemed worthy of 

 further investigation, I shall be glad to continue observations upon 

 these reptiles during the present year, or to make any experiments 

 that may be dtemed advisable. — {Phil. Magazine, vol, v., No. 34, 

 4th Series, p. 466.) 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



ASTRONOMY. 



1. Relation between the Spots on the Sunand the Magnetic Needle. 

 — According to observations made by M. Rodolphe Wolf, director 

 of the Observatory at Berne, it appears that the number of spots 

 on the sun have their maximum and minimum at the same time 

 as the variations of the needle. It follows from this, that the 

 cause of these two chancres on the sun and on the earth must be the 



o 



same ; and consequently, from this discovery, it will be possible to 

 solve several important problems whose solution has hitherto never 

 been attempted. 



2. On the Periodic Return of the Solar Spots. — M. Wolf, director 

 of the Observatory of Berne, mentions in a letter to M. Arago, 

 that he has recently been engaged in researches on the solar spots, 

 and has arrived at some interesting conclusions on the subject. By 

 a comparison of all the observations of the spots made from the epoch 

 of their discovery down to the present time, he has discovered that 

 the number visible upon the surface of the sun in the course of a 

 year, recurs at regular intervals of time. The mean duration of the 

 period comprised between two maxima or minima, he finds to be 

 1 1*111 =b 0-038 years, which, he says, agrees much better with the 

 variations in declination of the magnetic needle, than the correspond- 

 ing period of 10 J years assigned by M. Lamont. He has also 

 ascertained that the years during which the spots have been most 

 numerous, have been also the driest and most fertile, agreeably to a 

 remark of Sir William Heischel. — (Proceedings of the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society.) 



3. Lunar Atmospheric Thd*.-*- The facta derived a few years since 



