526 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Warning Colours and Mimicry.* * * § — Mr. F. Finn has followed up his 
experiments with Babblers ( Crater opus canorus ) by a series of experi- 
ments with other birds of the babbler and bulbul groups. The birds 
were kept together, and were daily offered a choice of “ non-warningly 
coloured ” and “ protected ” butterflies. Mr. Finn concludes that there 
is a general appetite for butterflies among insectivorous birds, but that 
many, if not most, species dislike the “ warningly coloured ” Danainse, 
Acrsea violse , Pajpilio aristolochise , and Delias eucharis. The mimics of 
these are relatively palatable, and their mimicry is commonly effective 
under natural conditions, but may not stand the severe test of aviary or 
cage conditions. 
Each bird has apparently to acquire its own experience ; for young 
hand-reared birds had no instinctive knowledge of “ nauseous ” forms, 
but soon learned to avoid them. His results go, on the whole, there- 
fore, to support the theory of Wallace and Bates. 
Mr. Finn recommends future observers to make their observations 
on birds at liberty, or, if that be impossible, to use wild-caught, rather 
than hand-reared birds, confining them singly, and feeding them natu- 
rally, , that they may be neither hungry nor pampered. 
Pigments of Muscle and Ovary in the Salmon. f — Miss M. I. New- 
bigin finds two pigments, of which one is red and gives the blue lipo- 
chrome reaction, corresponding closely to zoonerythrin, while the other 
is yellow and does not give the lipochrome reaction. As the colour of 
fish changes, there seems to be a direct transference of the red pigment 
from the muscles to the ova. It is probable that this yellow pigment is 
due to excess of fatty food, and that part of it is converted in the muscle 
into the red pigment. If this be so, “it shows that a characteristic 
pigmentation may be acquired as it were incidentally in the life-history 
of the individual.” 
Division and Budding among Animals.f — Hr. F. von Wagner 
criticises a recent paper by M. von Bock.§ Wagner re-emphasises what 
he has previously maintained,- — the necessity for clearly distinguishing 
between division and budding, and the thesis that the modes of asexual 
multiplication have had independent origins in the various groups in 
which they occur. 
Remarkable Abnormality in a Frog.|| — Mr. E. Warren describes a 
vascular connection between the rectal vein of the hepatic portal and 
the apex of the lung. The blood-vessel was not attached to the me- 
sentery, but was quite free in the body-cavity. “ If the abnormality 
be not regarded as due to reversion or disease, it is a striking example 
of the potentialities of an organism.” 
Vitalism and Evolution.^ — Prof. J. T. Wilson, in an interesting 
presidential address to the Linnsean Society of New South Wales, deals 
especially with the lasting problems of vitalism and evolution. His 
* Joum. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, lxvii. (1897) pp. 613-68. 
f Gov. Rep. Fishery Board for Scotland, 1898, pp. 159-64. 
f Biol. Centralbl., xviii. (1898) pp. 130-9. 
§ Jenaische Zeitschr. f. Naturwiss., xxxi. (1897) pp. 105-52 (3 pis.). 
|| Anat. Anzeig., xiv. (1898) pp. 551-2 (1 fig.). 
1 Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xxii. (1898) pp. 812-46. 
