i88ij 
Notes. 
629 
Mr. D. V. R. Manley, writing in the same journal, calls atten- 
tion to the “midget,” a minute yellow insedt infesting the islands 
of Lake Erie. Like the chigoe ( Pulex penetrans ) of the West 
Indies, it has the habit of burrowing under the human skin, and 
setting up intense irritation. 
M. F. A. Forel, in the “ Archives des Sciences Physiques et 
Naturelles,” maintains that the advance and retreat of glaciers 
do not depend on the amount of snow in the last winter, or on 
the higher or lower temperature of the summer, but on the peri- 
odic increase or decrease of snow-fall through a number of years. 
A periodicity of ten, twenty, or in some cases of more years, is 
observed in the alternate growth or decrease of each glacier. 
According to M. H. Fayol (“ Comptes Rendus ”) the fossil 
trees found in an upright position in the coal strata have not 
grown as they are found, but have been deposited by water. 
Pfliiger and Oscar Loew (Pfliiger’s “ Archiv fiir Physiologie,” 
xxv., p. 150) conclude that living protoplasm possesses in a high 
degree the power of reducing the precious metals from their 
solutions, but loses this property when dead. The phenomenon 
known as life is probably conditioned by those reductive groups 
of atoms — probably aldehyde groups. 
M. Ph. van Tieghem (“ Soc. Botanique de France,” xxvii., 
p. 353) has observed, for the first time, fungoid vegetation in oil. 
One of the forms was incapable of cultivation in moist air, and 
could not be determined. The other was found very similar to 
Verticillium cinnabarinum. 
According to Stebler (“ Naturforscher,” xiv., 332) light has a 
greater influence in promoting the germination of certain plants 
(grasses of the genus Poa, ferns, &c.) than heat. 
The “ Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles ” (ser. 3, 
tome v., p. 516) contains a very important memoir, by Prof. A. 
Agassiz, on the palseontological and embryological development 
of the Echini . 
It is reported that the “ Colorado beetle ” ( Doryphora decem- 
lineata ) has obtained a foothold in Belgium, near the French 
frontier. 
A Curculio ( Phytonomus punctatus ) which has long been known 
in Europe, but has occasioned no injury, has, according to the 
“ American Naturalist,” made its appearance in the State of New 
York. It is doing much damage to clover. 
According to the “ American Naturalist ” a certain Dr. Jones, 
of the Concord School of Philosophy, saith — “ Of the idea of 
Evolution and of the origin of species, we must think some 
worthier thought than that of a monkey or gorilla rubbing off 
his tail, and otherwise improving his condition, until, through 
