Notes. 
[August, 
502 
points of Italy, at Paris, and at Honfleur. Its reappearance is 
considered not in harmony with the Krakatoa hypothesis. 
A statue of Nicolas Leblanc is being ererted in the Conserva- 
toire des Arts et Metiers, at Paris-eighty years after the great 
inventor perished of want. The stone given in place of bread is 
sometimes rather late. 
On a recent occasion much wonder was expressed what could 
have induced the Metropolitan Board of Works to mvite t e 
Society of Chemistry down to Crossness, there to see a teaiiui 
squandering of public money.” The few visitors who c °ntnve 
to see the experimental works describe the odour as most un 
pleasant. 
The “ American Naturalist” says— “ People who are opposed 
to what is popularly known as ‘ Vivisection ’ may be divided into 
two classes, the reasonable and the unreasonable. With all 
due respert to the writer, we, at least, never met with a reason- 
able ” Bestiarian. 
The same journal raises the interesting question, Upon what 
did the early scorpions — e.g., of Gothland prey . 
Anent the dog-nuisance, we are informed that in the suburban 
village of Crouch End twelve persons went in one day to a cne- 
mist there to have bites cauterised. 
Dr Auer v. Welsbach has succeeded in decomposing didy- 
mium— not unfortunately into two known elements, but into two 
new bodies, praseodym and neodym. Thus the number of 
elements is increased. 
From all sides we hear accounts of the swarms of green flies 
—winged Aphides. Their coincidence with the unusual predo- 
minance and prolongation of the; polar current (which is still 
blowing in this last week of July) is attracting notice. 
Mr R H Govett (“ Transactions of New Zealand Institute ) 
describes the bird-catching tree, Pisonia Brunomana. The seed- 
vessels secrete a very sticky gum, in which not merely inserts, 
b“ btds eC arJ entangled and perish, Whether the tree utilises 
the animal matter thus conveyed to it is not stated. 
The Observatory of Harvard College has recently become en- 
titled to a bequest of nearly 300,000 dollars, under the will o 
the late Robert Treat Paine, of Brooklyn. 
M. Leloir (“ Comptes Rendus ”) has studied leprosy in Nor- 
wav The disease is confined to the coasts and the neighbour- 
hood of the fjords, and it is altogether becoming much less 
prevalent : if contagious, it is in a very slight degree. 
M. Kourbassoff finds that the bacilli of splenic fever jare al- 
ways transmitted from the mother to the foetus, and that if a 
