i88s.] 
Notes . 
629 
the higher animals an especial sensorial organ (where situate ?) 
for the perception of magnetic movements. This he considers 
is the faculty by which savages and animals are guided in un- 
known regions. 
M. Dufour (Soc. Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles) describes 
two remarkable hailstorms. One of these occurred on August 
2 1st, 1881, in the Pays de Vaud, and was accompanied by a 
violent wind. The quantity of ice precipitated upon the Canton 
is estimated as at least a million cubic yards. 
On July 13th, 1788, France, Belgium, and Holland were 
ravaged by a storm which discharged not less than 400 million 
cubic yards of ice. The cold produced was sufficient to cover 
the Lake of Geneva with ice to the depth of three-fourths of a 
yard. It is observed that well-wooded regions escape these 
visitations. 
The Paris Company for the Utilisation of Solar Heat supplies 
portable “ solar furnaces,” likely to be very useful in tropical 
countries. 
W. H. Ballon (“ American Field ”) communicates some inte- 
resting observations on the migrations of birds of prey in 
America. He gives a list of nine species which are true mi- 
grants, and of twelve species which migrate irregularly. All 
these migrations, the author considers, are based on a food- 
supply. 
MM. Van Tieghem and Gaston Bonnier find that of a hundred 
peas preserved in the free air, ninety afterwards germinated ; of 
a hundred enclosed with air in a sealed tube, only forty-five ; 
whilst of a similar lot shut up in carbonic acid none proved 
fruitful. With other seeds the numbers varied, but the propor- 
tions were substantially the same. 
According to a recent death-bed confession the splendid Mas- 
todon at Albany is a forgery ! This is deplorable, as palaeonto- 
logical specimens generally will be viewed with suspicion. 
M. de Comberbusse, in a discourse pronounced at the funeral 
of the late Henri Giffard, made this significant admission : — “An 
intimate friend of Giffard told me yesterday that he carried to the 
tomb the secret which he had long sought for, and which had 
revealed itself to his eyes during his last years. He added that 
our colleague shrunk back from his own discovery, and, filled 
with horror, put an end to his existence.” In other words he 
saw at length that aerial navigation must prove the suicide of 
civilisation. 
A specimen of Rafflesia Arnoldi was in flower last month at 
the Berlin Botanical Gardens. The Berlinese boast that this 
establishment will soon surpass the Kew Gardens* 
