Notes . 
iSS 
3°5 
the appearance of the northern lights— those especially in the 
northern region of the skies. 
H. G. Baur (“ Morpholog. Jahrbuch,” viii., p. 417) has under- 
taked a special study of the tarsi of birds and deinosaurians, and 
finds that this part in embryonal birds is closely similar to that 
of the deinosaurians, a faCt which renders it extremely probable 
that the latter are the progenitors of birds. 
According to the “ Scientific Proceedings of the Ohio Me- 
chanics’ Institute ” the average weight of man at Boston is 
154*02 lbs.; that of woman 130*87 lbs. In Kentucky — men, 
158*43 lbs.; women, 133*52 lbs. 
According to “ Der Techniker ” a Breslau hotel is now lighted 
up with gas distilled from human excrement. Should there occur 
in the gas-fittings a hiatus valde deflendus, and a consequent 
escape, — what then ? 
Mr. Jabez Hogg (“ Medical Press and Circular”) states that 
he has observed myriads of living baCteria in water filtered 
through spongy iron. 
According to the “ Medical Times and Gazette ” the deplorable 
custom of making the Lord ReCtorship of Scottish Universities 
a political question still continues. For Edinburgh the “ Liberal ” 
candidates are Earls Granville, Rosebery, and Selborne, Viscount 
Sherbrooke, Mr. Trevelyan, and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, whilst 
the “Conservative” nominee is the Duke of Albany — all, in 
our opinion, unsuitable. 
Our attention has been drawn to a biographical sketch of Prof. 
Ernst Haeckel, which Dr. E. B. Aveling contributes to the 
“ National Reformer.” Curiously enough Haeckel has been — 
of course accidentally — ignored by “ Men of the Time,” and 
other English authorities, on the lives of eminent contemporary 
characters. 
The same journal, in comment upon the experiments of Mr. 
C. Lloyd Morgan, remarks : — “ The defence for vivisection is 
that by means of it, all animals, including man, are saved from 
disease and pain.” This defence we must repudiate altogether, 
since it merely covers experiments made for direCt medical pur- 
poses, and leaves purely biological experimentation out in the 
cold. Owrdefence — though we pass no opinion upon Mr. Morgan’s 
experiments — is that if it be permissible to infliCt pain and death 
for any purpose whatever, this may be done for the sake of 
discovery. 
Messrs. Irving Bishop and “Stuart Cumberland,” the thought- 
readers, are quarrelling in face of the public, and putting ques- 
tions as to each other’s antecedents. 
A writer in “Light” records an instance of the spirit of a 
