Notes. 
376 
Says our distinguished contemporary, “ Science ” : — “ Twelve 
years ago the thorough-going policy of the British Admiralty 
in fitting out the Challenger Expedition inspired us all with a 
hope that a new kind of governmental policy, in support of 
biological investigation was being inaugurated. American as 
well as English naturalists have therefore been greatly disap- 
pointed that, since the return of the Challenger, the British 
Government has done practically nothing to forward marine re- 
search. The economists of the Manchester school are still in 
the ascendant, and the study of animal life is evidently to be 
left, like fish-culture and the prediction of the weather, to private 
enterprise. (The rewards for biological research in England are 
the shrieks and vituperations of fanatics, and the possibility of 
fine and imprisonment.) 
A movement has sprung up in Canada which deserves support. 
The Government has been requested to consider a naturalists’ 
exchange post for Canada and the other countries within the 
postal union. 
An Isaria, a fungus parasitic on Bombyx rnbi (according to 
the “ Kansas Review of Science ”), in passing from one stage of 
its growth to another, not only changes from one species and 
genus to another, but actually overleaps the chasm that separates 
one family from another, — starting as a member of Hyphomycetes, 
and ending as a member of the Ascomycetes. 
The remains of Prof. Gross, styled the “ Nestor of American 
Surgery,” have, according to his will, been cremated at the fur- 
nace ereCted at Philadelphia. 
C. Sternberg (‘* Kansas Review of Science ”) declares the 
fossil Dakota flora a wonderful disproof of the theory of Natural 
Selection. He alleges that “ the grand flora of the Dakota ap- 
peared with no intermediate species between it and the coal-plants 
of the carboniferous,” and further that the cretaceous flora is 
“ as perfeCt as any of the present day.” 
According to Prof. Riley Pyrethrum powder is poisonous to 
the higher animals as well as to the lower forms of life. 
Skw 
4.6. Sf/ 
Erratum. — In our May issue, p. 296, line 19 from bottom, 
for Bates read Belt. 
