1884.1 
( 437 ) 
NOTES. 
The Royal Microscopical Society, after careful deliberation, have 
decided upon admitting ladies to all the privileges of fellowship, 
attendance at the ordinary meetings excepted. The large col- 
lection of microscopic objects, amounting to some thousands of 
slides, will during the winter months be examined and arranged 
by a committee of experts, and rendered available for consulta- 
tion by the Fellows. Owing to the absence of a catalogue the 
treasures in the possession of the Society are almost unknown, 
but the cabinet contains many specimens — the work of Quekett’ 
Bowerbank, and other pioneers— which, apart from their intrinsic 
merits, must always possess considerable historical value. 
Dr. B. Placzek (“Popular Science Monthly”) has colledted 
citations from the Talmud to show that the old Jewish writers 
were keen observers of Nature, and had ideas akin to Darwinism. 
Joseph Albo, in the fifteenth century, suggested the thought of 
compensation, or interchange of relations, in a hypothesis that 
cattle are defedtive in teeth because so much of the tooth-stuff 
goes to horn. Other writers noticed that the integrity of the 
comb of the cock had much to do with its masculine potency, 
and that other birds suffer in spirit and vigour when deprived of 
their ornamental appendages. Passages are quoted that point 
to the thought that the difference in mental gifts between man 
and (other) animals is only quantitative. 
(Those who assert that the Semitic mind is radically unscien- 
tific will do well to reconsider their position. Altogether the 
scientific attainments of antiquity were much greater than we 
commonly suppose. They would have been greater still had it 
not been for Socrates and his school.) 
Dr. H. Macnaughton Jones, in a recent work, declares : 
“ After nearly twenty years of constant teaching in a large school 
of medicine, and some years of experience as a University 
Examiner, I have come to the conclusion that for future success 
in life the test of examinational proficiency is a most fallacious 
one ” : and again, “ I can conceive no more certain plan for the 
physical ruin of thousands of the youths of a country than the 
system of capitation fees from results of examination.” 
In North America the cold during the past winter has been 
exceptionally severe. At Knoxville, lat. 36° N., the minimum 
was — 267° C. ; whilst at Malta, in the same latitude, it was +5 0 . 
