1885.] 
Notes. 
3i 1 
It spears t ha t during- last year both the death rate and the 
Dirtn rate in London were exceptionally low. 
A Bestiarian clergyman declared not long ago that “the 
meanest dewl in hell knew more than the entire British Associa- 
tion We can only congratulate the reverend gentleman on his 
evidently intimate acquaintance with the “meanest devils.” 
The “ Medical Press” quotes with evident and justifiable 
scepticism certain alleged experiments made by “a physician at 
Lenver on revitalisation. A dog and a calf after being bled to 
death, and after remaining in that state respectively for three and 
twelve hours, were resuscitated by the transfusion of fresh blood, 
artificial respiration, and the injection of hot water into the 
stomach . It will be time enough to discuss the bearings of 
these results when they have been verified. 
Lord YValsingham in his late Presidential Address to the 
Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union proposed an explanation of the 
melanism prevalent among the Lepidoptera of high mountains, 
i hose males whose colour enabled them to absorb the heat of 
transient gleams of sun most rapidly would be first on the win°- 
and would thus have the best chance of finding mates and con- 
sequently of transmitting their colour by heredity. The shorter 
the gleams of sunshine the greater would be the advantage of 
dark individuals. 
. Dr - Gerlach finds (Physik. Med. Soc. Erlangen) that an 
increased admission of air to eggs, effected by the careful removal 
of 3 part of the shell or rendering it thinner by filing ac- 
celerates the development of the embryo. 
The Entomological Society of France has awarded the Dollfuss 
prize to M. Leon Fairmaire for a work on the Hemiptera of 
France. 
. S. V. Clevenger is endeavouring to work out the proposi- 
tion that “mental phenomena are modes of chemical energy.” 
M. H. Deslandres (“ Comptes Rendus ”) finds that the spec- 
trum of incandescent water presents bands similar to the absorp- 
tion-bands of oxygen at low temperatures ; moreover there are 
two series of bands and not a single one, and these bands in the 
vapour of water are considerably broadened. 
The inscriptions chalked up on the walls of our streets, if not 
more refined than heretofore, are at least in better handwriting. 
Who, in face of such a faCt, can question the success of our 
national “ system ” of education ? 
M. E. Verrier studies polydaCtylism, and the infranormal 
number of fingers, for which he has coined the horrible word 
“ eCtrodaCtylism.” He is in doubt whether the occurrence of six 
fingers is to be considered as a progressive or a retrograde 
anomaly. 
