Notes. 
434 
I [July. 
arrived by the route of West Australia, the Chinese and Japanese 
seas, Kamtschatka, the Aleutians and Alaska, arriving finally at 
California from the northwards. 
The Irish College of Physicians have, curiously enough, peti- 
tioned Parliament that medical practitioners should no longer be 
permitted to become coroners. Dr. Lyons, M.P., has refused to 
present it. 
A so-called “ Anti-ViviseCtion Conference ” took place at Edin- 
burgh on May 21st, under the presidence of General Grant. A 
paper bearing the inappropriate name of “ FaCt,” some little 
time ago, expressed its satisfaction that so many naval and mili- 
tary officers were joining in the anti -vivisection hubbub, and 
stated that this conduct was the result of their “ bravery.” We 
should trace it, if true, to their ignorance of the real merits of 
the question — an ignorance of which “ Honorary Secretaries " 
have not been slow to take advantage. 
Prof. Calderwood, in a leCture recently delivered at Glasgow, 
declared that anatomical structure was not in itself a trustworthy 
guide in determining comparative position in the scale of organic 
existence, and that even comparative brain-struCture could not 
be accepted as the sole standard of the measure of intelligence. 
He quoted Sir John Lubbock as declaring that, though the an- 
thropoid apes ranked next to man in bodily structure, the ants 
must claim the second place in intelligence. He considered that 
the order of ants offered exceptional difficulties for the theory of 
evolution, and also for the theory of intelligence as a function of 
brain structure. 
MM. Arloing, Cornovin, and Thomas, in consequence of the 
success of their experiments on inoculation for splenic fever, have 
applied their method on 295 cattle, and will report the result at 
the end of the season. 
There has been found at Solana de Langostura, in the province 
of Segovia, the entrance to a cavern containing a number of 
human skeletons, mixed with flint tools and coarse pottery, some 
of it ornamented with very primitive designs. The perfect skulls 
have been sent to Madrid. 
According to the “Journal of the Royal Archaeological Associ- 
ation of Ireland,” ragmen are the chief friends of the collector of 
antiquities. 
The same journal gives an account of a genuine jade celt, 
discovered at Ahoghill, County Antrim. It is the only specimen 
of the kind hitherto discovered in Ireland, or, with the exception 
of one found in Cornwall, in the whole of the United Kingdom. 
The same journal reprints a short trad, of the date 1679, giving 
an account of certain strange phenomena seen in the air at 
