694 Notes. [November, 
Bee-keeping has this season been a failure throughout most 
parts of England. 
“ Les Mondes,” in commenting upon the devices of Lahure 
for preventing collisions at sea, remarks that “ in France the 
fantastic theories of politicians always take precedence of the 
modest but useful and practical studies of the true benefactors of 
humanity.” In France only ? 
Anisoplia austriaca, a lamellicorn beetle, has committed this 
year great ravages in the corn-fields of Southern Russia. It has 
hitherto resisted all means of destruction. 
At the recent meeting of the French Association for the 
Advancement of Science M. Ayam communicated particulars 
concerning a case of double-consciousness. A certain Felida X., 
who has been ill for twenty-three years, has two mental condi- 
tions, a normal and an abnormal. In one state she has no 
recollection of what passes whilst she is in the other. 
The death of Frederick Wcehler, for many years Professor of 
Chemistry at the University of Gottingen, breaks one of our 
remaining links of personal connection with the science of the 
earlier half of the century. He was the favourite pupil of Ber- 
zelius, and above all his other titles to honour will be remembered 
as the first chemist who produced an organic compound artifi- 
cially. 
It is strange how the merits of Dr. G. Walker, — “ Churchyard 
Walker ” as he was called,— as the father of Sanitary Reform, 
are ignored. The honour due to him is ascribed to some who 
shine only by reflected light. 
The “ Medical News ” considers that Carlyle’s philosophy 
was in a great measure the outcome of acid indigestion and 
flatulence. 
According to “L’Union Medicale ” there are no rats in the 
Polynesian Islands, though attempts have been made to accli- 
matise them, as a favourite food of the natives. Why should 
they be less able to thrive here than in Mauritius, which has a 
very similar climate ? 
The “ Boston Journal of Chemistry” notices the extreme te- 
nacity of life shown by weeds and noxious animals. 
It is said that the Zulu “ medicine-men ” who accompanied 
their sovereign on his late visit to England, when shown rhubarb 
and ipecacuana, — drugs which are not likely to grow in Zulu- 
land, — at once described them as respectively a purgative and as 
a great vomit-root.” Such instinctive knowledge, if shown, 
e.g by an ape, would have been the theme for much stilted 
declamation. 
