372 
Notes. 
[June, 
Says an occasional contributor to the “ Journal of Science” 
“ In England, compromise is the cardinal virtue, and consistency 
the only unpardonable sin.” 
The characters by which our predecessors sought to mark off 
one group of organisms from another are fading away. M. 
Duval (“Journal Anat. Physiol.”) shows that birds possess a 
placenta, though in a rudimentary form. 
According to MM. Pouchet and De Guerne the pelagic fauna 
of the Gulf of Finland closely resembles that of the large 
European lakes, as it contains in some parts as little as 0-073 
per cent of saline matter. 
F. Dahl, in the “ Zoologisch Anzeiger,” holds that spiders are 
very short-sighted, and judge by touch of the position of an 
objedt which falls into the web. 
[This view is supported by many fadts in the behaviour of the 
geometrical spiders.] 
The flora of Ceylon includes 3000 flowering plants and 
250 ferns : 100 genera of flowering plants found in Ceylon are 
not met with in the peninsula of India. 
At Piltown, in Ireland, the inhabitants use as drinking-water 
the drainage from an over-crowded graveyard. 
We regret having to record the death of Mr. F\ Field, our 
highest modern authority on the mineralogy of South America. 
The ovum of the Ornithorhynchus has, like that of birds and 
reptiles, a large yolk for the nutriment of the young. 
The peculiar wingless and ground-haunting birds of New 
Zealand will soon disappear, as animals of the weasel tribe are 
being imported as a remedy for the rabbit plague. 
We learn, from the “ American Naturalist,” that Dr. Wood- 
row, of the Theological School at Charleston, has been ejedted 
from the chair for the offence of displaying Evolutionist 
leanings. 
Prof. Noah K. Davis (“ North American Review”), discussing 
the moral aspedts of vivisedtion, concludes that “ whosoever 
hinders the physiologist in his duties, by exciting public odium, 
commits a trespass on him and on society at large in whose 
interest he is labouring, and so does a multiplied wrong.” 
According to “ Le Perigard ” the western coasts of Europe 
have, since January, been affedted every Saturday and Sunday 
with barometrical depressions and atmospheric disturbances. 
M. Gautier contends that the produdtion of alkaloids is a func- 
tion of every living cell, animal or vegetable. 
