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NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
MUSEUM EXHIBITS. 
The American Museum Journal for January contains an 
illustrated article by Dr. F. A. Lucas, in which he points out 
that the late E. T. Booth, whose well-known collection 
of British Birds is now the property of the Corporation of 
Brighton, has the best claim to be the founder of the plan of 
exhibiting in museums, groups of animals mounted amid 
artificial imitations of their natural surroundings. He was 
followed by Mr. Montague Brown, then curator of the Leicester 
Museum, and soon after by the lafe Dr. R. B. Sharpe, in the 
Natural History Branch of the British Museum, where a group 
of coots formed the commencement of the splendid series of 
exhibits which is now the delight of the visitors to the bird 
gallery. The rise and progress of the practice — especially in 
America — are fully described in the article, of which a con- 
tinuation is promised. 
ACTION OF LIGHT OX CHLOROPHYLL. 
At a recent meeting of the Royal Society, Mr. Harold 
Wager, F.R.S., read a paper on the action of light on chloro 
phyll. When chlorophyll is decomposed by light, at least two 
distinct substances are formed, one of which is an aldehyde or 
mixture of aldehydes, and the other an active oxidising agent 
capable of bringing about the liberation of iodine from potas- 
sium iodide. The decomposition of chlorophyll appears to be 
due directly to the action of light, and is not an after effect 
of the photo-synthesis of carbon dioxide and water. It takes 
place only in the presence of oxygen, and it appears to be a 
case of photo-oxidation, for oxygen is used up so completely 
in the process that chlorophyll can be used instead of pyro- 
gallol and caustic potash to determine the amount of oxygen 
in a given amount of air. In the absence of oxygen no bleach- 
ing takes place. Carbon dioxide is not necessary to the photo- 
decomposition of chlorophyll and is not used up in the process 
even when present in considerable quantities. 
THE NESTS OF PSEUDOSCORPIONES. 
At a meeting of the Zoological Society recently, Mr. H. 
Wallis Kew read an interesting paper on the nests of Pseudo- 
scorpiones with historical notes on the spinning-organs and 
observations on the building and spinning of the nests. The 
paper described the nests in which these animals enclose 
themselves for moulting for brood purposes, and in some 
cases for hibernation. They are closed cells of spun tissue, 
with or without a covering of earthy or vegetable matters. 
The tissue is of innumerable threads crossed and coalesced 
irregularly, without interspaces, and almost like silk-paper. 
With regard to the spinning-apparatus, confusion has existed ; 
1914 May]. 
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