i88 3 .] 
Notes . 
501 
The facfts collected by Miss Ormerod prove the alarming extent 
of the injury occasioned by insedts even in this country. The 
loss last year, due to Aphides, comes close upon two millions 
sterling; whilst the damage wrought by wireworm, weevil, &c., 
to wheat, barley, peas, beans, and tares seems to range from £2 
to £3 per acre. 
We learn that the introduction of “ many English birds ” into 
Tasmania is projected. We should advise here great caution. 
The English native fauna and flora number very few species 
worth introducing. 
Prof. Simon Newcomb (“ Monthly Notices Roy. Astr. Soc.”) 
refutes the charges of falsification which have been brought 
against Hell as regards his observations of the transit of Venus 
in 1769. 
The “ St. Petersburg Med. Wochenschrift ” reopens the ques- 
tion of the sanity and legal responsibility of Guiteau. It holds 
that the assassin, though not formally insane, was all his life on 
the margin of insanity, and advocates the dodtrine of a gradu- 
ated responsibility. 
It is asserted in some quarters that the discovery of electro- 
magnetism is due not to Oerstedt, but to Giovanni Romagnosi, 
an Italian. 
Prof. Owen (“ Geolog. Mag.”) having received the outline of 
an entire skull of Thylacoleo points out the expansion of the 
temporal fossae as being additional evidence for the carnivorous 
character of this extinct species. 
Mr. Searles V. Wood (“ Geolog. Mag.”) argues that the cause 
of the glacial period was a diminution in the heat-emitting power 
of the sun. He shows, in opposition to Dr. Tyndall, that de- 
creased evaporation does not imply a diminished snowfall. This 
view is necessarily at issue with the dynamical theory of the 
sun’s heat, a doctrine which harmonises badly with the teachings 
of geology and biology. 
It is insinuated that eminent men of Science who ten years 
ago leaned to the materialistic interpretation of the universe are 
now “ hedging ” very judiciously. 
The Concord Summer School of Philosophy is at work, and 
will doubtless prove fruitful in remarkable sayings. 
Herr Munk (“ Verhand. Physiol. Gesell. Berlin ”) proves expe- 
rimentally that neutral fats can be formed synthetically in the 
animal system from free fatty acids. 
At the July meeting of the Entomological Society a paper, by 
Mr. Lewis, on the Lucanidse of Japan was read. The author 
