( i8o ) 
[March, 
NOTES. 
The Colorado beetle ( Doryphora decemlineata ) has been found 
by J. D. Forbes (“ Amer. Journ. Pharmacy”) to contain a vesi- 
cating principle. Whether it is identical with cantharidine is 
not decided. 
Dr. P. H. Clarke (“ Detroit Lancet ”), after studying the de- 
termination of sex in offspring, concludes that the union of the 
sperm and germ-cells is a complete union, molecule by molecule. 
Sex is a condition of external force engrafted subsequent to the 
union of the cells, this force depending upon nutrition and other 
conditions independent of sexual potence. An important source 
of sexual determination is nutritive. 
According to Hogbom (Adfa Reg. Societ. Scient. Upsala) the 
advantage of an insular and the disadvantage of a continental 
climate is more marked in autumn than in spring. 
Herr Keller (“ Schweiz. Gesell. Naturwissenschaft ”), studying 
the interchange of animal forms between the Red Sea and the 
Mediterranean by way of the Suez Canal, remarks that the mol- 
lusks form the main contingent of emigrants, worms, crusta- 
ceans, and fish hold a middle rank, whilst the echinoderms and 
ccelenterates are little disposed to wander. Pelagic forms are 
of course excluded from this way of emigration. No littoral 
cephalopods have been found to travel by this route. 
According to Col. H. C. Tanner the Indus between Bowanji 
and the Darel district flows at the bottom of a ravine 17.000 feet 
in actual depth. 
The “ American Naturalist,” in noticing a memoir of Dr. H. 
A. Hagen, considers that the North American species of Colias 
may be reduced to three, — Eurydice, Ccesonia, and Chrysotheme, 
with perhaps thirty local and seasonal varieties. 
A certain Prof. Johnson, residing at Ontario, maintains that 
« the interior of the earth is a vast mass of electricity in one 
portion, and a great sea of fire in another. Before fifty years 
these two will come together, and there will be an awful col- 
lision.” 
A Japanese, Isac Tijima, has received the gold medal offered 
by the University of Leipsic for the best original work on the 
embryology of fresh-water planarians. 
According to S. L. Ricciardi plants growing on the lava-soils 
of Etna contain appreciable quantities of vanadium. 
