-milar circumstances, stronger than on land; but actual comarisons, such as the author has undertaken, are not frequently made. He has chosen two stations on the coast-viz. Cherbourg and Hurst Castle-having a different position with regard to the sea, but at which the observations are made under nearly similar conditions. The results of careful comparisons under eight points of the compass, for a period of several years, plainly how that in all months the northerly and north-easterly winds at Cherbourg are considerably stronger than at Hurst Castle, and that the southerly winds at Cherbourg fall considerably -hort in strength of those at Hurst Castle. The tables show that the strong winds coming from the sea are on an average one degree of Beaufort's scale (1-12) heavier than those coming from the land, while, with lighter or local winds, the difference fen amounts to two degrees of the above scale.

Information

f this kind should be of use to fishermen and others when putting to sea.

M. PLANTAMOUR gives, in a recent number of the Archives Sciences, the results of his eleventh year's observations of periodic movements of the ground, as shown by spirit-levels. I appears that, while in general the east side sinks with lowerng of temperature, and rises with a rise, these movements do not always follow with the same rapidity. A sudden change of temperature produces at once a rise or sinking of the east side; but the maxima of the ground-positions rarely coincide with the maximum or minimum of temperature. This eleventh year is exceptional in that the extremes of temperature are but one or two ays in advance of those of the movements, whereas in previous yars the retardation has been a fortnight to four months behind minimum temperature, and a fortnight to three months behind maximum. In two years (1881 and 1885) the maximum of he was even four days before the maximum of temperature. Thus, while temperature seems to be the chief cause of the scillations, some other opposing cause must be at work. M. Plantamour compared the eleven years' mean effects with the ariations in solar intensity, but failed to detect any relation.

CARL HESS, the German naturalist, has proved by minute croscopical investigation that the eye of the mole is perfectly apable of seeing, and that it is not short-sighted, as another naturalist (Kadyi) would have us believe. Hess maintains that, in spite of its minute dimensions,-1 millimetre by o'9 millimetre-the eye of this little creature possesses all the necessary properties for seeing that the most highly-developed eye does; at it is, indeed, as well suited for seeing as the eye of any other mammal, and that in the matter of refraction it does not differ from the normal eye. In order to bear out the theory of scort-sightedness, the physiological reason was adduced that in > subterranean runs the mole is accustomed to see things at se distances, and that its eye had become gradually suited to tear objects. But to this Hess objects that the mole when under ground most probably makes no use of his eyes at all, as it would be impossible to see anything owing to the absence of ight, but that when he comes to the surface, and especially when he is swimming, he does use his eyes. In order to accomplish this, he only has to alter the erect position of the Lurs which surround and cover his eyes, and which prevent the entry of dirt when he is under ground, and at the same time to protrude his eyes forward.

It seems rather strange that, while skins and eggs of the Great Ank are so highly valued, the public rarely hear of Pallas's Cormorant, the extinction of which in the North Pacific correponds to that of the Great Auk in the North Atlantic. Only four specimens of Pallas's Cormorant are known to exist in museums: no one possesses its eggs; and no bones were found preserved until Mr. Leonhard Stejneger, of the Smithsonian Institution, was so fortunate some years ago as to rescue a few

of them. Yet this bird was the largest and handsomest of its tribe. So says Mr. Stejneger in an interesting paper—just issued by the Smithsonian Institution-in which he records how the bones referred to were found by him in 1882 near the northwestern extremity of Behring Island. In an appendix to this paper Mr. Stejneger's "find" is fully and exactly described by Mr. Frederic A. Lucas.

We have received the first two numbers of the Scottish Journal of Natural History. This monthly periodical is intended to be mainly a chronicle of the work done by the different Natural History Societies in Scotland; but short papers on subjects connected with Natural History will also be given, and we notice that articles have been promised by well known men of science, including Profs. James Geikie, G. J. Romanes, and many others. At present very few of the Scottish Natural History Societies print Transactions; so there is ample room for the new venture, and we wish it all success. Communications are to be addressed to the Editors, care of the publisher, Mr. W. B. Robinson, 194 Sauchiehall Street, and 105 New City Road, Glasgow.

THE first part of the Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for the current session has been issued. It contains a paper by Mr. Charles Bailey, on the discovery near Ribblehead of Arenaria gothica, a plant new to Britain, the typical form of which has so far been recorded only for two Swedish localities. The Ribblehead specimens are stated to be more robust than those from Sweden. The issue also includes a paper by Mr. Charles H. Lees on the law of cooling and its bearing on the theory of heat in bars; and the first part of Mr. Faraday's "Selections from the (unpublished) Correspondence of Colonel John Leigh Philips, of Mayfield, Manchester" (1761-1814). The latter includes letters from Dr. Henry Clarke (the mathematician), James Sowerby, and a number of other persons of local eminence during the latter half of the last century.

PROF. WEISMANN requests us to state that in his article on Heredity, printed in NATURE on February 6, the sentence beginning on p. 319, line 38, should have read-" Sir William Thomson, in endeavouring to make clear the dispersion of rays of light by conceiving of a molecule as consisting of hollow spheres enclosed one within the other and in contact with one another through springs, never believed," &c.

Two gaseous fluorides of carbon, the tetrafluoride, CF4, and the difluoride, CF, have been isolated, and form the subject of two simultaneous papers contributed to the current number of the Comptes rendus. One of these communications is from M. Moissan, whose energy in this domain of chemistry appears untiring. Unlike chlorine, fluorine directly attacks carbon with varying degrees of energy, according to the form in which the carbon is presented. When a current of pure fluorine is passed over the purest form of lamp-black, which has previously been freed from hydrocarbons by digestion with petroleum and boiling alcohol, combination occurs with such energy that the whole of the finely divided carbon becomes instantly incandescent. The lighter varieties of wood charcoal also take fire spontaneously in fluorine, the gas appearing to be first condensed for a few moments, and then the mass becomes suddenly incandescent and throws off brilliant scintillations. If the density of the charcoal is greater, and there is no loose dust upon its surface, it is necessary to warm it to 50°-100° C. in order to bring about combination and its accompanying incandescence. When once the incandescence is started at any spot it rapidly extends throughout the entire mass. Ferruginous graphite requires to be heated to a temperature just below dull redness, and gas retort carbon to full redness, in order to effect combination, while the diamond may be heated for any length of time over a

Bunsen lamp without any alteration in weight being noticeable. The products of combination are generally gaseous mixtures of CF, and probably C„F. When the most readily attacked varieties of carbon are employed, and only in small quantities so as to avoid excess, the gas is almost pure CF. Carbon tetrafluoride is a colourless gas, which liquefies under a pressure of five atmospheres at 10° C. It is completely absorbed and decomposed by an alcoholic solution of potash with production of potassium fluoride and carbonate. On decomposing the latter salt with an acid the volume of carbon dioxide liberated is the same as that of the carbon tetrafluoride used. CF is slightly soluble in water, more readily in carbon tetrachloride, alcohol, or benzene. Determinations of its density gave numbers which agreed with the formula CF. If excess of carbon is heated to redness in a platinum tube, and fluorine allowed to slowly stream through, another gas is obtained on collecting over water which is not capable of being absorbed by alcoholic potash. This gas liquefies at 10° under a pressure of 19-20 atmospheres. M. Moissan does not seem to have yet determined its composition, but it appears likely to be the CF, described in the second communication by M. Chabrié. M. Moissan also states that CF, may likewise be prepared by passing vapour of carbon tetrachloride over silver fluoride heated to a temperature of 300° C. in a glass or metal tube. M. Chabrié shows that both CF, and CF, may be obtained by heating the corresponding chlorides of carbon with silver fluoride in a sealed tube to 220° C. actual experiment 5'1 grams of AgF were heated with 155 grams of CCI, for two hours, at the end of which time the tube, which itself was but little attacked, was opened, and almost theoretical yield of CF, obtained; the gas was totally absorbed by alcoholic potash in accordance with the equation CF + 6KOH = K2CO3 + 4KF + 3H2O. When CC was used instead of CCI, a gas whose density corresponded to the formula CF, was obtained. The experimental density was 3'43; the calculated value for CF, is 3'46. The spectra of the two fluorides, according to M. Moissan, exhibit the lines of fluorine very clearly, together with several broad bands, resembling the flutings of carbon.

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. OBJECTS FOR THE SPECTROSCOPE.

In an

an

66

Remarks.

I

14 29 +13 +932 +12 3 - 12 47

+57 40

(1) Planetery nebula; pretty bright, pretty small; extremely little elongated.' The spectrum has not yet been recorded.

(2) A star of Group II. Dunér states that the bands are very wide and dark in the red, but weaker in the green and blue. He does not, however, state what bands are present. Observations similar to those already suggested for other stars of the group are required.

(3) This is stated to have a fine spectrum of the solar type by Vogel. The usual differential observations are required. (4) A star of Group IV. (Vogel). Usual observations

required.

(5) This star has a very feeble spectrum of the Group VI. type, which has not yet been fully described.

(6) Although Cygnus is not now in the most convenient posi

PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY IN 1886 -An account of th progress of astronomy in the year 1886, by Prof. Winlock, ba been issued from the Smithsonian Institution. Although th record is primarily intended to serve as a series of notes fz those who have not access to a large astronomical library, the bibliography will be found useful to the professional astronore as a reference list of technical papers. A considerable amour of useful information is given in this extract from the Sm sonian Report for 1886-87, the section devoted to reports of Observatories being very complete. A subject-index to the review has been effected by inserting the necessary page refer ences to the bibliography.

THE MAXIMUM LIGHT-INTENSITY OF THE SOLAR SP TRUM. We have received from Dr. Mengarini his paper i the above subject (Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Monats und der Thiere, xiv. Band, 2 Heft). After reviewing the tr vious work that has been done on the varying intensity of differ ent parts of the spectrum, the author describes the three meth he used in his researches. The observations led him to concea that the maximum of light-intensity is subject to variability in position from day to day and hour to hour, just as the matas of thermal and chemical effects of the spectrum, although te sky be clear and the atmosphere steady. Using a prisma.n spectrum, it was found that the maximum light-intensity flac ated between about A 564 and D, and, generally speaking, more pronounced in the morning than in the afternoon. 201 observations made at Rome in July 1881, on clear or slight clouded days, showed that the maximum shifted from A 35473 to 584'3.

SPECTRUM OF BORELLY'S COMET, g 1889,-Mr. B house, in a letter to the Observatory, notes that he ol served the spectrum of this comet with a Browning ministr spectroscope on the 15th and 19th ultimo. The three Co bands were very vividly seen, but no other line; on the forme date there was a very faint continuous spectrum, but on th latter only a suspicion of such.

SPECTRA OF AND CENTAURI.-Prof. Pickering, in a communication to Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 2951, recor that an examination of the photographs of stellar spectra tact by Mr. S. J. Baily at the Harvard Observatory station, net Closica, Peru, shows that the F line due to hydrogen is trigi in the spectra of the stars 8 and μ Centauri.

ON THE STAR SYSTEM SCORPII.-Some elaborate researches into the orbits of the components of this system wel. given by Dr. Schorr in an inaugural dissertation at Munich Uni versity last year. All available measures of position angle and distance have been brought together and compare with those derivable from the new elements found, making computation of great value.

GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

ON Tuesday, Dr. Nansen lectured in Christiania on his pla for a North Pole Expedition. He advocates the employmen a ship built with a special view to strength, having its sides cr structed at such an angle that, instead of being crushed by the ice, the vessel would be raised by it. The Expedition, thinks, should advance through the Behring Straits, where vessel would be carried northward by a favourable current the New Siberian Island the vessel would enter the ice-floes, 1. would then proceed towards the North Pole, in which dire tion the current would probably carry it."

A

THE Colonies and India gives the last news from Cooktow relating to Sir William Macgregor's explorations in New Guinea His project was to ascend the Fly River on another voyage of discovery. It seems that Sir William and his party, in a stry. launch, dropped anchor in the river on December 14.

Trunch stranded, and fifteen canoes, carrying about 150 natives, bore down upon the explorers and commenced a savage attack. The Governor's party opened fire, and the natives promptly heil a retreat. After about half an hour, however, they returned, bringing a pig as a peace offering. Sir William consepiently went 180 miles further up the river, and on his return tated the same people again, to find them quite peaceably indinei. The Governor started again on December 26 to explore nigher up the Fly River.

THE Survey Department of Burmah has in preparation a new nap containing all the latest information derived from the arties sent out by the Department. A preliminary issue minting all the mountain ranges has recently been published.

SIGNOR G. B. SACCHIERO, Italian Consul at Rangoon, sends the Bollettino of the Italian Geographical Society for December an interesting notice of the savage Chin tribes who cupy the hilly region in the north of Burma about the headsters of the Irawady. The collective tribal name is variously sitten Chin, Kyen, Kiyin, Kachin, Kakyen, &c.; but they call Femselves Sihu, and according to Signor Sacchiero they eviantly belong to the Burmese branch of the Mongol stock. it the districts brought under British rule many have already dopted the Burmese dress, and these can with difficulty be dinguished from the Burmese themselves. But the language more allied to that of the widespread Karen race, and the Karen alphabet composed by the American missionaries in Lower Barma is well suited for expressing the sounds of the Chin ihom. The Chins themselves have no knowledge of effers; nor have they made any progress beyond the rudest state 4 social culture. They still go nearly naked, and the women on riving at the age of puberty are tattooed all over the face with - black pigment, being thus disfigured for life, either to prevent the furmese or the neighbouring tribes from kidnapping them,

be to distinguish them from the women captured by the uns from the surrounding peoples. They marry early, the le requiring the consent, not of her parents, but of an elder rother, and the husband promising not to beat her too much, or to cut her hair if she behaves well. The family yields bedience to the father alone, who recognizes no authority rept that of the village chief, this authority passing in both es to the youngest son. The men always carry firearms, and make their own gunpowder, using instead of sulphur a seed lled aunglak, first roasted, and then pounded up with charcoal saltpetre, three parts of the two first to twenty of the 35, and mixing the whole with alcohol, or tobacco juice. Both tus smoke little Indian hookahs, and their favourite drink is In a kind of beer extracted from fermented rice. They ire mainly by the chase, and when a boar, stag, or other big he is captured, there are great rejoicings in the village. The ury is covered from neck to tail in a red cloth, and preied to the temple," or abode of the nat (spirit); then the fment of the nat" (priest) pronounces a blessing on the successhunter, after which all join in the feast, with much tamming, shoating, drinking, and dancing through the village. When they descend to the plains, the Chins are Buddhists, but in their villages spirit-worshippers. Not only every village and ry district, but every person has his special nat, mostly a alevolent being who requires to be pacified by propitiatory herings. The vendetta is a universal institution, feuds being therited from family to family, from tribe to tribe, and thus Texting to constant bloodshed. If a man is drowned, his son tra vengeance on the water where he perished by piercing_it wh spears or slashing it about with long knives. Many of the hins have already tendered their submission to the British #harities, and arrangements are now in progress for extending Serly government over the whole territory.

if he does not thankfully welcome anecdotes of the creatures he wishes to study, when these anecdotes are the result of patient and accurate observation. For it is precisely such information, that is conspicuously absent from many scientific memoirs and monographs; the author generally spending his main space and strength in examining the shape and structure of his animals, and in comparing one with another, but giving the most meagre details of their lives and habits.

Which, then, is the more scientific treatment of a group of animals-that which catalogues, classifies, measures, weighs, counts, and dissects, or that which simply observes and relates? Or, to put it in another way, which is the better thing to doto treat the animal as a dead specimen, or as a living one?

Merely to state the question is to answer it. It is the living animal that is so intensely interesting, and the main use of the indexing, classifying, measuring, and counting is to enable us to recognize it when alive, and to help us to understand its perplexing actions.

But, it may be objected, that because the study of the living animal is the more interesting, it is not necessarily the more scientific; indeed, that the amount of entertainment, which we may get out of the pursuit of natural history, has nothing to do with the question at all; that by science we mean accurate knowledge presented in the most suitable form; that shape, structure, number, weight, comparison are the fundamental notions, with wnich sciences of every kind have to deal; and that scientific natural history is more properly that which takes cognizance of a creature's size, form, bodily organs, and relation to other creatures, than that which concerns itself with the animal's disposition and habits.

I can fancy that I already hear some of my audience say: "But why set up any antagonism between these two ways of studying a creature? Both are necessary to its thorough com. prehension, and our text-books should contain information of both kinds; we should be told how an animal is made, where it ought to be placed among others of the same group, and also how it lives, and what are its ways."

Precisely; that is just what memoirs and text-books ought to do; but what, too often, they do not. We read much of the animal's organs; we see plates showing that its bristles have been counted, and its muscular fibres traced to the last thread; we have the structure of its tissues analyzed to their very elements; we have long discussions on its title to rank with this group or that; and sometimes even disquisitions on the probable form and habits of some extremely remote, but quite hypothetical ancestor-some "archirotator" (to take an instance from my own subject) who is made to degrade in this way, or to advance in that, or who is credited with one organ, or deprived of another, just as the ever-varying necessities of a desperate hypothesis require :-but of the living creature itself, of the way it lives, of the craft with which it secures its prey or outwits its enemies, of the home that it constructs, of its charming confidence or its diabolical temper, of its curious courtship, its droll tricks, its games of play, its fun and spite, of its perplexing stupidity coupled with actions of almost human sagacity-of all this, this which is the real natural history of the animal, we, too often, hear little or nothing. And the reason is obvious, for in many cases the writer has no such information to give; and, even when he has, he is compelled by fashion to give so much space to that which is considered to be the more scientific portion of his subject, that he has scant room for the more interesting. Neither ought we to be surprised if a writer is "gravelled for the lack of matter," when he comes to speak of an animal's life; for the study of the lives of a large majority is a difficult It requires not only abundant leisure, but superabundant patience, a residence favourably situated for the pursuit, and an equally favourable condition of things at home. The student, too, must be ready to adopt the inconvenient hours of the creatures that he watches, and be indifferent to the criticisms of those that watch him. If his enthusiasm will not carry him, without concern, through dark nights, early mornings, vile weather, fatiguing distances, and caustic chaff, the root of the matter is not in him. Besides, he ought to have a natural aptitude for the pursuit, and know how to look for what he wants to see; or if he does not know, to be able to make a shrewd guess and, above all, when circumstances are not favourable, to have wit enough to invent some means of making them so. And yet when the place, the man, the animals, and the circumstances all seem to promise a rich harvest of observations, how often it happens that some luckless accident, a snapt twig, a

one.

lost glass, a hovering kestrel, a sudden gust of wind, a roving dog, or a summer shower, robs the unlucky naturalist of his due; nay, it sometimes happens that, startled by some rare sight, or lost in admiration of it, he himself lets the happy moment slip, and is obliged to be contented with a sketch from memory, when he might have had one from life.

But I have not yet got to the bottom of my budget-the heaviest trouble still remains; and that is, that the result of a day's watching will often go into a few lines, or even into a few words; and so it happens, that the writer of the history of a natural group of animals is too frequently driven to fill up his space with minute analysis of structure, discussions on classification, disputes on the use of obscure organs, or descriptions of trifling varieties; which, exalted to the rank of species, fill his pages with wearisome repetitions; for were he, before he writes his book, to endeavour to make himself acquainted with the habits of all the creatures he describes, his own life-time might be spent in the pursuit.

We will now take a different case, and suppose that many years have been spent in the constant and successful study of the animals themselves; and that the time has come, when the naturalist may write his book, with the hope of treating, with due consideration, the most interesting portion of his subject. He is now beset with a new class of difficulties, and finds that pub. lishers and scientific fashion alike, combine to drive him into the old groove for the former limit his space, by naturally demurring to a constantly increasing number of plates and an ever lengthening text; while the latter insists so strongly on having a complete record of the structure, and points of difference, of every species, however insignificant, that it is hardly possible to do much more than give that record-a mere dry shuck, emptied of nearly all that makes natural history delightful.

And so we come round again to the point that I have already glanced at, viz. "Ought natural history to be delightful?"

Ought it to be delightful! Say, rather, ought it to exist? What title has the greater part of natural history to any existence but that it charms us? It is true that this study may help-does help many to worthier conceptions of the unseen, to loftier hopes, to higher praise; that it gives us broader and sounder notions of the possible relation of animals, not only to one another, but also to ourselves; that it provides us with the material for fascinating speculations on the embryology of our passions and mental powers; and that it may even serve to suggest theories of the commencement and end of things, of matter, of life, of mind, and of consciousness-grave questions, scarcely to be dealt with successfully by human faculties, but in a condition to be discussed with infinite relish.

When I speak, then, of the pleasure we derive from the study of natural history, I include these graver and higher pleasures in the word.

Here and there, too, no doubt, the knowledge of the powers and habits of animals is materially useful to us; and, indeed, in the case of some of the minuter organisms, may be of terrible importance; but, in that of the large majority of creatures, we might go out of the world unconscious of their existence (as, indeed, very many people do), and yet, unlike the little jackdaw, not be a penny the worse." For what is a man the better for studying butterflies, unless he is delighted with their beauty, their structure, and their transformations? Why should he learn anything about wasps and ants, unless their ways give him a thrill of pleasure? What can the living plumes of the rock-zoophytes do for us, but 'witch our eyes with their loveliness, or entrance us with the sight of their tiny fleets of medusa-buds, watery ghostlets, flitting away, laden with the fate of future generations? When, at dusk, we steal into the woods to hear the nightingale, or watch the night-jar, what more do we hope for than to delight our ears with the notes of the one, or our eyes with the flight of the other? When the microscope dazzles us with the sight of a world, whose inhabitants and their doings surpass the wildest flights of nightmare or fairy tale, do we speculate on what possible service this strange creation may render us? Do we give a thought to the ponderous polysyllables that these mites bear in our upper world, or to their formal marshalling into ranks and companies, which are ever being pulled to pieces, to be again re-arranged? No! it is the living creature itself which chains us to the magic tube. For there we see that the dream of worlds peopled with unimagined forms of life-with sentient beings whose ways are a mystery, and whose thoughts we cannot even guess at-is a reality that lies at our very feet; that the air we breathe, the dust that plagues our nostrils, the

water we fear to drink, teem with forms more amazing than u with which our fancy has peopled the distant stars; and that the actions of some of the humblest arouse in us the bewildern suspicion, that, even in these invisible specks, there is a iz foreboding of our own dual nature.

If, then, we make some few exceptions, we are entitled to that the study of natural history depends for its existence on the pleasure that it gives, and the curiosity that it excites vi gratifies and yet, if this be so, see how cruelly we often re it. Round its fair domain we try to draw a triple rampan uncouth words, elaborate, yet ever-changing classifications, exasperatingly minute subdivisions; and we place these f culties in the path of those whose advantages are the least, this who have neither the vigorous tastes that enable them to de such obstacles at a bound, nor the homes whose fortunate poin enables them to slip round them. For modern town life four a constantly increasing number of students to take their natin history from books; and too often these are either exper volumes beyond their reach, or dismal abridgments, which havz shrunk, under examination pressure, till they are little ele the a stony compound of the newest classification and the ore. woodcuts.

But the happier country lad wanders among fields hedges, by moor and river, sea-washed cliff and shore lear ing zoology as he learnt his native tongue, not in parad gr and rules, but from Mother Nature's own lips. He knows d» birds by their flight, and (still rarer accomplishment) by the cries. He has never heard of the (Edionemus crebitans, Ve Charadrius pluvialis, or the Squatarola cinerea, but he can tu a plover's nest, and has seen the young brown peewits pet" at him from behind their protecting clods. He has watchest cunning flycatcher leaving her obvious, and yet invisible your in a hole in an old wall, while it carried off the pellets that mi have betrayed their presence; and has stood so still to see is male redstart, that a field-mouse has curled itself up on hi warm foot and gone to sleep. He gathers the delicate bands of the wild rose, happily ignorant of the forty-odd names unk. which that luckless plant has been smothered; and if, perchanc his last birthday has been made memorable by the gift of a microscope, before long he will be glorying in the transpare: beauties of Asplanchna, unaware that he ought to crust living prize, in order to find out which of some half-dozen equally barbarous names he ought to give it.

The faults, indeed, of scientific names are so glaring, and t subject is altogether so hopeless, that I will not waste eit.. your time or my patience by dilating on it. But, while adm that distinct creatures must have different names, and very re luctantly admitting that it seems almost impossible to alter the present fashion of giving them, I see no reason why these, well as the technical names of parts and organs, should not kept as much as possible in the background, and not suffere bristle so in every page, that we might almost say with "There are thistles growing instead of wheat, and cockle insitof barley."

We laughed at the droll parody in which the word changTM wi defined as "a perichoretical synechy of pamparallagmatic porroteroporeumatical differentiations and integrations," ye would not be a difficult matter to point out sentences, in rece works on our favourite pursuits, that would suggest a simu travesty. No doubt, new notions must often be clothed in new language, and the severer studies of embryology and develo ment require a minute precision of statement that leads to the invention of a multitude of new terms. Moreover, the idea th the meaning of these terms should be contained in the nast themselves is excellent; but I cannot say that the result is happyI might almost say that it is repulsive; and if we suffer this lang angT to invade the more popular side of natural history, I fear th we shall only write for one another, and that our scientit. treatises will run the risk of being looked at only for the plates, and of being then bound up with the Russian and Hungarian memoirs.

The multiplication of species, too, is a crying evil, and the exasperating alterations of their names, in consequence d changing classifications, is another. The former, of course, mainly due to the difficulty, no doubt a very great one, of demining what shall be a species, and what a variety. How widely experts may differ on this question, Darwin has shown by pointing out that, excluding several polymorphic genera 1 many trifling varieties, nearly two hundred British species, wha are generally considered varieties, have all been rankel by

anists as species; and that one expert has made no fewer n thirty-seven species of one set of forms, which another nges in three. Besides, even in the cases where successive

ists have agreed in separating certain forms, and in coning them true species, it happens now and then, as it did sell, that a chance discovery throws down the barriers, and half-a-dozen species into one.

nder these circumstances one would have expected that the ency would have been to be chary of making new species, ao doubt this is the practice of the more experienced rasts; but, among the less experienced, there is a bias in opposite direction; and all of us, I fear, are liable to this when we have found something new; for, even if it is what insignificant, we are inclined to say with Touchstone, or thing, sir, but mine own!" Now, were this fault :d, much would be avoided that tends to make monographs expensive and dull; for, though the needs of science re a munute record of the varieties of form, which are ames of high importance from their bearing on scientific , yet the description of them, as varieties, may often be wed in a line or two, when nothing further is set forth thetr points of difference; whereas, if these forms are to the rank of species, they are treated with all the spacedquities of titles, lists of synonyms, specific characters, &c., and so take up a great deal of valuable room, weary the tat with repetitions, and divert his attention from the typical Cat when everything has been done that seems desirable, ames and classincation have been made both simple and 2, and the number of species reduced to a minimum, there stul remain the difficulty that monographs must, from the r of the case, generally be grave, as well as expensive of reference, rather than pleasant, readable books, within Each of the majority. I would suggest then, that, if it be e, each group of animals should be described not only by benbracing monograph, to be kept for reference on the *ul societies like our own, but by a book that would deal with a moderate number of typical, or very striking forms; • would describe them fully, illustrate them liberally from and give an ample account of their lives and habits.

- à book should give as little of the classification as ar; it should avoid the use of technical terms, and above should be written with the earnest desire of so interesting ader in the subject, that he should fling it aside, and rush bind the animals themselves. By this means we should aly get that active army of out-of-door observers, which so greatly needs; but, by bringing the account of each 1. into a reasonable compass, we should enable students of story to get a fair knowledge of many subjects, and so widen their ideas and multiply their pleasures.

< why should we be content to read only one or two try of Nature's book? To be interested in many things3 almost said in everything-and thus to have unfailing sole occupation for our leisure hours, is no bad receipt for But life is short, and its duties leave scant time for pursuits; 50 that to acquire a specialist's knowledge of one - would often be to exchange the choice things of many -13 for the uninteresting things of one. And how unintermany of them are! How is it possible for any human to take pleasure in being able to distinguish between a tmuar creatures, that differ from one another in some matter; that have a spike or two more or less on their or a varying number of undulations in the curve of their - differently set clumps of bristles on their foreheads? should we waste our time, and our thoughts, on such en The specialist, unfortunately, must know these things, a hundred others equally painful to acquire and to , and no doubt he has his reward; but that reward is not the Lenght that is to be found in the varied study of the humbler ls; of those beings whom we do but see, and as little their state, or can describe their interests or their destiny, e can tell of the inhabitants of the sun and moon; . . crea

who are as much strangers to us, as mysterious, as if they -tie labulous, unearthly beings, more powerful than man, is slaves, which Eastern superstitions have invented."

, then, who are blest with a love of natural history never dull their keen appreciation of the wonders and -- of living things, by studying minute specific differences; undertaking the uninteresting office of finding and record

male, that may indeed be rare, but which differ from those

already known in points, whose importance is due solely to arbitrary rules of classification.

This eagerness, to find something new, errs not only in wasting time and thought on matters essentially trivial and dull, but in neglecting things of the greatest interest, which are always and everywhere within reach. Take, for instance, the case of Melicerta ringens. What is more common, what more lovely, than this well-known creature? And yet how much there remains to be found out about it. No one, for example, has ever had the patience to watch the animal from its birth to its death; to find out its ordinary length of life, the time that it takes to reach its full growth, the period that elapses between its full growth and death, or, indeed, if there be such a period. And yet even these are points which are well worth the settling. For, if Melicerta reaches its full growth any considerable timebefore the termination of its life, it would seem probable that, owing to the constant action of its cilia, it would either raise its tube far above the level of its head, or else be constantly engaged in the absurd performance of making its pellets and then throwing them away. Who has ever found it in such a condition, or seen it so engaged? yet the uninterrupted action of the pellet cup would turn out the six thousand pellets, which form the largest tube that I am acquainted with, in about eight days, and those of an average tube in less than three; while the animal will live (according to Mr. J. Hood) nearly three months in a zoophyte trough, and no doubt much longer in its natural condition. It is true that the creature's industry in tube-making is not continuous. It is often shut up inside its tube, when all ciliary action ceases; and, moreover, when expanded, it may be seen at times to allow the formed pellet to drift away, instead of depositing it; but, allowing for this, there is no little difficulty in understanding how it is that, with so vigorous a piece of mechanism as the pellet-cup, the tube at all ages, except the earliest, so exactly fits the animal. I am aware that it has been stated that the whole of the cilia (including those of the pellet-cup) are under the animal's control, and that their action can be stopped, or even reversed, at pleasure. But this, I think, is an error. Illusory appearances, like those of a turning cog-wheel, may be produced by viewing the ciliary wreath from certain points, and under certain conditions of illumination; and these apparent motions are often reversed, or even stopped, by a slight alteration either in the position of the animal, in the direction of the light, or in the focussing of the objective. When, however, under any circumstances, the cilia themselves are distinctly seen, they are invariably found to be simply moving up and down; now turning sharply towards their base, and now recovering their erect position. Even the undoubtedly real reversal of the revolution of the pellet in its cup, which is constantly taking place, can be easily explained by purely mechanical considerations, and consistently with the continuous up and down motion of the cilia. Moreover, of the actual stoppage of the cilia, in the expanded Rotiferon, I have never seen a single instance. In all cases, on the slightest opening of the corona, the cilia begin to quiver, and they are always in full action, even before the disk is quite expanded; while, should a portion of the coronal disk chance to be torn away, its cilia will continue to beat for some time after its severance: so that there is good reason for believing, that the ciliary action is beyond the animal's control.

It is possible, indeed, that Melicerta may continue to grow (as Mr. Hood says that the Floscules appear to do) as long as it lives; or it may adopt the plan of some species of Ecistes, which, to prevent themselves from being hampered by their ever-growing tubes, quit their original station at the bottom of the tube, and attach themselves to it above, creeping gradually upwards as the tube lengthens. At any rate it would be interesting and instructive to watch the growth of a Melicerta, and the building of its tube, from the animal's birth to its death. An aquarium, in which Melicerta would live healthily and breed freely, could easily be contrived, and a little ingenuity would enable the observer to remove any selected individual to a zoophyte trough and back again, without injury; and his trouble perhaps would be further repaid by such a sight as once delighted my eyes at Clifton, where I picked, from one of the tanks of the Zoological Gardens, some Vallisneria, whose ribbon-like leaves were literally furred with the yellow-brown tubes of

Mr. Hood, of Dundee, has kept in his troughs Melicerta ringens for 79 days, Limnias ceratophylli for 83 days, Cephalosiphon limnias for 89 days: the Floscularie usually lived about 50 days; but F. Hoodii died, before maturity, in 16 days.