352 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. XXI. No. 531. 



is then characterized by eleven antennal seg- 

 lUL'iits instead of the adult number, seventeen; 

 and is comparatively small in size and pale in 

 color. Large numbers of adults of the type 

 C. viridis show striking variations in the 

 armature of the swimming feet. Similar an- 

 tennae and fifth feet are correlated in one type 

 of individual with the swimming feet of C. 

 parens; in another form with G. viridis (var. 

 Americanus) and in another with C. hrevi- 

 spinosus. Occasionally serial and lateral 

 variations combine the swimming feet of C. 

 parens and C. brevispinosus in the same indi- 

 vidual. These facts, together with the fre- 

 quent replacement of setae by spines, the con- 

 stant association of the forms and their occa- 

 sional sequence in small aquaria, indicate a 

 v^ry close relationship among the species ob- 

 served and suggest that they are transitional 

 forms in the development of a single species. 



Dr. Wheeler described the structure and 

 ecology of many ' ants that raise mushrooms,' 

 giving special attention to the species of Texas 

 and Mexico, where his own studies of these 

 ants were made. Numerous lantern slides 

 illustrated this lecture; and at its close many 

 slides from photographs of ants kept in cap- 

 tivity by Miss Adele M. Fielde were exhibited. 



M. A. BiGELOW, 



Secretary. 



THE ELISHA MITCHELL SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 



The 158th meeting of the Elisha Mitchell 

 Scientific Society of the University of North 

 Carolina was held in ' the chemical lecture 

 room, Tuesday evening, February 14, at 7:30 

 o'clock. The program was as follows : 



Dr. R. H. Whitehead : ' Mode of Infection of 

 the Hookworm Disease.' 



Professor ARcniBALD Hexderson : ' The 

 Mystic Hexagram.' 



Professor C. L. Raper: 'Statistics of Cotton 

 Manufacturing in the South.' 



Alvix S. Wheeler, 

 Recording Secretary. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



ilONT PELEE SIVE MONT PELE. 



It is a curious coincidence that geologists 

 who affect the title of ' Mont Pelo ' in prefer- 



ence to the formal appellation of Pelee, should 

 have associated, so far as identity of names 

 is concerned, the tutelary divinity of volcanoes 

 amongst ancient Ilawaiians with the island of 

 Martinique. We are assured, however, that 

 the innovation has not been made with the idea 

 of reverencing the goddess, but out of regard 

 for rules of gender, Pelee being considered an 

 adjective adopted from the Spanish, as one 

 contributor to Science has it, or from Carib 

 speech, according to another. Admitting 

 either of these explanations, it is easy to see 

 that Spaniards or Caribs must also have had 

 a hand in christening an island by the same 

 name off the coast of Prance. 



In reality, Pelee has continued to be a 

 word of good and regular standing in the 

 French language since the time of the Nor- 

 man Conquest, the expression of ' une verge 

 pelee ' occurring in the ' Chanson de Roland,' 

 supposed to be of the early eleventh century. 

 Strictly speaking, the word is a past parti- 

 ciple of peler, which, with the co-derivatives 

 of pelare in Italian, pelar in Spanish, and peel 

 in English, comes from the Latin pilare. Now 

 it happens that large numbers of past parti- 

 ciples have become preserved in modern French 

 as substantives, some masculine, but the ma- 

 jority feminine — as for instance, allee, melee, 

 gelee, fumee, etc. And we have the authority 

 of La Fontaine, in his ' Fables,' to say nothing 

 of colloquial usage both in French and Ger- 

 man, for considering the word meaning bald 

 as a noun. 



Applying this principle to place names, 

 Pelee may be regarded as having acquired the 

 force of a substantive, like our own ' Rockies.' 

 It is true that Rocky and Bald may connote 

 the character of mountains, hwt the adjective 

 force of these words becomes lost when they 

 stand for geographical appellations. Indeed, 

 names like Big Sandy, Vera Cruz, Jungfrau, 

 Sacre-Coeur, and so on, are nouns pure and 

 simple. By treating Pelee as a noun, we shall 

 have the advantage of an invariable termina- 

 tion, thus doing away with a dual orthog- 

 raphj-, or the possibility of a triple, in case 

 we were writing in German. 



As regards the question of gender it may be 

 remarked that in the case of {geographical 



