692 Notes. [November, 
Prof. Peirce, in a publication bearing the very curious title 
“ Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical Club,” maintains 
that if meteors did not fall into the sun the temperature of the 
earth would sink to -200° or — 300°. 
Dr. F. Buchanan White, F.L.S., gives, in the “ Scottish 
Naturalist,” an interesting account of the habits of Dytiscus lap- 
ponicus , a large carnivorous water-beetle, occurring in Britain 
only in the Isle of Mull, in Strathglass, and in Donegal. 
Mr. E. Wethered, F.G.S., in a memoir on the “ Formation of 
Coal ” read before the British Association, contended that coal 
was not formed from trees of the Lepidendroid type ; that the 
stigmaria found in the under clays are not the roots of the vege- 
tation which gave rise to the coal ; and that the varieties of coal 
are not due to metamorphism, but depend on the different degree 
of decomposition of the vegetable mass when submerged. He 
argues that coal must have been formed from a compact mass of 
vegetation, and could not have arisen from large trees growing 
in situ. 
Mr. T. R Jones (“ Geological Magazine ”) states that the horns 
of Cervus Megaceros obtained in Berkshire were found in the peat 
itself, and not in the underlying clays. 
Dr. E. C. Spitzka (“ Science ”) found in the egg of a turtle 
( Chrysemys picta), laid in his experimental tank, “ a live maggot, 
the larva probably of Musca vomitoria, crawling in the space 
between the half-dried yolk and the shell membrane.” He ob- 
serves that foreign bodies have frequently been found in hen’s 
eggs, as legs of beetles, straw, &c. ; but he believes there is no 
case on record of a living animal occurring in an egg. (We once 
found in a hen’s egg a small piece of printed paper.) 
The “ Medical Press and Circular ” is ably pointing out the 
permanent and serious injuries which often result from bodily 
punishments as administered in schools. 
Dr. Sharp has discovered, in the Sandwich Islands, thirty-four 
species of inserts new to Science. 
Mr. “ Stuart Cumberland ” has been enlightening the Church 
Congress on the subjedt of Spiritualism. 
Two curious fadts appear in the writings of the so-called 
Theosophists : the re-habilitation of the ancient elements, fire, 
air, earth, and water ; and the inculcation of asceticism as the 
road to superior wisdom and power. 
The eledtion of a Lord Redtor is about to take place at the 
University of Aberdeen, and we much regret that the contest will 
probably be fought on political grounds. 
Two species of Phasma are occasioning great damage among 
the cocoa-nut plantations of the Fiji Islands. 
