tous alga on the glass and the surface of the water, and as it obscured our view of the anemones we decided to remove it. This we did with complete success by drawing off the water with a siphon, and then wiping the surface of the glass with a clean duster. We also removed some of the gravel, and replaced it with fresh, afterwards filtering the water into the glasses again. A short visit to Beaumaris in June afforded us an opportunity of obtaining a reserve supply of sea-water. This we did, and upon our arrival at home put the whole into glass bottles, each holding a quart. We also brought a single specimen of the smooth beadlet (Actinia mesembryanthemum). Like the daisies it soon commenced to explore its new home, but did not seem to be so satisfied, for after two days had elapsed the tentacles were retracted, and for some weeks it remained in an apparently lifeless condition, from which, at first, even food failed to arouse it. However, after several unsuccessful attempts, we at last induced it to swallow a bit of mussel, and it has since then taken food and displayed its beauties in such a way as to remove all doubt as to its healthiness.

Having been so successful in our first attempt at anemone keeping, we determined, during a holiday in September, to try what we could do with one or two less common species. A visit to Rhoscollyn, Holy Island, where the green opelet (Anthea cereus) abounds, afforded us an opportunity for collecting specimens of that beautiful species. We selected three small ones, and with two dahlia wartlets (Tealia crassicornis), and another smooth beadlet, started our second venture upon our arrival at home five days later. The glass into which we put our new captures is nearly twice the size of the two mentioned above, and having a flat bottom it affords a better view of its contents than the ordinary propagating glass. We may here remark, that we have constantly kept a close fitting glass cover upon each tank, to keep out the dust and to prevent evaporation. Our reserve supply of sea-water now proved useful, though we had filled all our spare bottles before leaving Beaumaris. The green opelets were at home in a few hours, and took food readily on the following day. About a week later, we noticed that one of them was about to undergo the process of fission.

The disk by which it adhered to the glass was divided by a constriction into two halves, and each half seemed to be trying to move away from the other. Three days later there were two distinct disks, and the constriction had extended up the column to the base of the tentacles. The next day found the two halves further away from each other, and a portion of the digestive sac was exposed, forming a sort of connecting link between the two. The final separation took place on the ninth day. The dahlia wartlets refused food for some time, but they now take it readily, and are apparently in perfect health. We recently introduced a small mussel

(Mytilus edulis), and have been much interested to observe the behaviour of the green opelets towards it. The stone to which it has anchored itself has, since its introduction, been their favourite restingplace, and we have several times seen one or other of them seated upon its shell.

SCIENCE-GOSSIP.

ACCORDING to the "English Mechanic," the passage of the electric fluid between terminal brushes of very fine platinum wire was shown under the microscope at a recent meeting of the San Francisco Microscopical Society. When films of soot of different thicknesses were interposed, "in its passage through these the current was deflected into meandering lines, around which scintillated showers of sparks. The particles of soot could be seen arranging themselves in symmetrical groupings around the terminals."

THE Darwin Medal, instituted by the Midland Union of Scientific Societies for the recognition of original research, is this year awarded to Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S., senior science demonstrator to the Birmingham School Board.

THE cholera has increased to an alarming extent in Spain, and the Spanish Government after permitting Dr. Ferran to resume his inoculation has again withdrawn its permission.

THE "Botanical Gazette," speaking apparently of a botanical club in connection with the meeting of the American Association, protests against the 66 customary practice of botanists, which is to have no paper, or something which would be better unsaid. The disjointed twaddle . . . should be reserved for the privacy of the botanical club." Every botanist should prepare a brief paper, as compact as possible, and to secure exactness and save time, it should be written and read." Excellent advice this last; which might indeed perhaps be extended even to the privacy of botanical clubs in general, not to say other of our scientific societies; and by following which the readers of the papers would be gainers, by the increased exactness which ought to result.

MR. A. R. WALLACE, in a review referred to in another column, says, "It is now generally admitted that the celebrated 'subsidence theory' of the forma-tion of atolls and barrier reefs is unsound as a general explanation of the facts; yet it so fully and plausibly explained all the details of coral structure known at the time, as to command universal acceptance and unbounded admiration."

PROFESSOR HUXLEY, it is announced, is about to retire from his various appointments under Government with a pension of £1200 a year.

PROFESSOR FLEEMING JENKINS, who occupied the chair of engineering at Edinburgh, died in June last. He was born in 1833, was at one time professor of engineering at University College, London, and was the originator of the scheme of telpherage or electrical transmission.

PROFESSOR THORPE, of the Yorkshire College, Leeds, has been appointed successor to Professor Frankland in the chair of chemistry at the Royal School of Mines.

A FEW extracts from a pamphlet entitled, "Facts Proving tilat Lightning is a Composite Force," by Mr. William Boggett, will suffice perhaps to show what it is like. He believes that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen, plus electricity, only that the voltaic current employed by the first discoverers of the gases in water united gently with the electricity and removed it without its removal being discovered. “Dynamos obtain their powerful currents from the water in the earth, which is the great reservoir of electricity." It is, of course, possible to misrepresent a writer by giving detached quotations, but Mr. Boggett certainly speaks of "the discovery that lightning is a composite force, consisting of the electric currents, emanating, one from water in the clouds, the other from water in the earth. Each of these currents are united with one of the elements of water-say, oxygen (heat)-the other combined in like manner with the other element of water--hydrogen (light)," and so on. Space is too valuable to do more than just to mention the statement that there is no heat in incandescent electric lamps ("neither combustion nor heat "); that when, at the Polytechnic, men used to point their fingers at suspended electric balls the balls moved one way, but the other way when pointed at by women, and a somewhat similar difference of effects when hats were made to move by "electric contact" of fingers. These last two statements are not on the author's personal authority. One would think he might have tried to verify them, for, speaking seriously, there can surely be no excuse for printing such things without having taken the trouble to put them to practical proof.

THERE must be a considerable amount of unselfish benevolence diffused among mankind. Else why should the Bread Reform League in two years and a quarter have received over £270 towards the expenses of inducing people to eat wheat meal bread instead of white bread? The donors and subscribers could enjoy the privilege by themselves alone if they pleased. However, a Report lately issued gives a short statement of the financial accounts from December 1882 to last March, and it further appears that the use of wheat meal bread is increasing, and that the article itself, as sold by bakers, is improving in quality. The Report is dated from 36, Coleman Street, London, E.C.

In the "American Monthly Microscopical Journal ” for June may be found a short paper, with illustrations, on the microscopical structure of tea-leaves; and a continuation of the provisional key to the classification of freshwater alga.

AT the May and June meetings of the Entomological Society of London, Mr. F. Enock, of Woking, read a most interesting paper on the life history of Atypus piceus, Sulz., the only British representative of trap-door spiders. His observations, made from 1876 to the present time, were detailed with great care and minuteness, and many interesting facts in the spider's economy established. The paper was fully illustrated by the exhibition of numerous specimens of the nests, spiders, &c., from Hampstead and Woking.

FROM a return lately issued from the Home Office, it appears that those among us who oppose vivisection have not much ground for objection on the score of painful experiments in this country in 1884. Fortynine persons held licenses during some part of the year in England and Scotland, of whom fifteen did not use them. About 441 experiments were performed under the Act, and, as regards the infliction of pain in those cases where anææsthetics were not used or only partially used, some consisted in inoculation; others, performed for medico-legal purposes, resulted in the death by tetanus of three frogs and six mice which survived only a few minutes, and others again were experiments on the infection of fish with a species of fungus very destructive in certain rivers and streams, or on the effects of the immersion of fish in distilled water which proved fatal to about thirty minnows and sticklebacks. Two other cases involving pain "of a very trifling character," are referred to, and the Report for England and Scotland ends by saying that the amount of direct or indirect suffering may be stated as wholly insignificant," while the report for Ireland says that the experiments performed there were all painless.

66

MICROSCOPY.

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY.-The June number contains papers on New British Oribatidæ, by Mr. A. D. Michael, F.L.S. on the Structure of the Diatom Shell by Dr. J. D. Cox ; and on the Structure and Origin of Carboniferous Coal Seams, by Mr. Edward Wethered, F.G.S., followed by the summary of current researches.

MICROSCOPES WITH BENT BODY TUBE.-The above journal gives a figure of a microscope intended to combine the advantages of keeping the stage horizontal, and at the same time the body of the observer in a convenient position. The tube of the instrument has a break in it, the upper part sloping towards the eye, the lower part being vertical; and a truncated equilateral prism is inserted at the junction of the two pieces of the tube.

MOTION IN DIATOMS.-On examining some Spirogyra obtained from one of the fresh-water canals to the east of Calcutta, my eye caught a diatom, which in form resembled the figure of Bacillaria paradoxa given in the Micrographic Dictionary. The bacillaria is, however, described as a marine diatom; the water in the canal from which this specimen was taken is fresh; and the object was associated with Spirogyra, a fresh-water conferva. The phenomenon to which I would draw attention is the curious motion of the frustules. Forming at the outset a raft (A in the diagram, which is not a picture) composed of six frustules, the outermost diatom on the left slid out along its neighbour, which in its turn glided along the third frustule of the series, and so on, until the raft was arranged as at B B'. The diatoms then slipped back to their first position, and as soon as it

was attained, the outermost diatom on the right-hand started off, to be followed by the whole series, until the position C C' was attained, when they slid back to the first position B C, and then glided off to the left, and so on, during the whole time the diatom was under observation. This see-saw motion was kept up with a regularity that suggested the working of the shafts and rods of some well-regulated engine. I notice in the pages of that exhaustless mine, the Micrographic Dictionary, that Thwaites described some strange motion in Bacillaria paradoxa. Did he observe the same phenomenon I have attempted to describe, or a different one? My diagram is very rough, the spaces between the frustules are exaggerated, for the diatoms were apparently in contact. I could not notice any investing membrane, or gelatinous envelope, and I only hope I shall be able to resume my acquaintance with the object. It was very beautiful.-W. J. Simmons, Calcutta.

HELIX ASPERA, VAR. SINISTRORSA. It will be perhaps interesting to the readers of SCIENCE-GOSSIP to hear, that I have lately found another reversed Helix aspera near Bristol. It is a young specimen, and will not attain maturity for two years. I intend to carefully rear it.-Jessie Hele.

ZOOLOGY.

CONCHOLOGICAL AND MALACOLOGICAL NOTES. -In SCIENCE-Gossip, 1885, p. 163, Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell notices two varieties of Limax flavus which I was fortunate enough to find near Middlesborough. I refer to var. colubrina, Pini, and var. virescens, Fér., and, as Mr. Cockerell seems to be under some misapprehension with regard to the latter, which is possibly due to my not having stated the authorship of the variety, I hasten to make amends. The variety virescens, Fér., is distinguishable by its greenish glassy appearance, with the usual markings scarcely conspicuous. The original description runs: Limax virescens, maculis parum conspicuis. This does not agree with the variety virescens of Moquin-Tandon, as quoted by Mr. Cockerell, The specimen found by me agreed fairly well with Férussac's description, and I have since taken a highly characteristic specimen in the same locality as the first. With regard to the new variety of Helix nemoralis (Studeria, Moq.), which Mr. Cockerell proposes to add to the British list, I may say that I have recently been visiting on the borders of Wales, and near Oswestry, Salop, have taken the variety which Mr. Cockerell describes as lilac and bandless. This form is moderately abundant in that locality, associated with vars. Libellula, Risso, Rubella, Moq., and Castanea, Moq., into the latter of which it seems to almost insensibly merge. My Oswestry shells are at present in the hands of the Recorder of the Conchological Society, but on their return to me I shall be happy to send Mr. Cockerell a specimen for comparison. Though the colour renders this shell a beautiful cabinet object, yet I am loath to accord it varietal rank-in fact, without expressing any decided opinion, I am inclined to believe that the present mode of making colour varieties is merely provisional, as, so far as my experience goes, one colour merges into another by such gentle grades that it is next to impossible to say where one begins and the other leaves off, and the student is lost when he seeks to give place, in its rank, to his specimen. I am not, however, prepared to suggest a way out of the difficulty, unless we revert to the division proposed by Sheppard, viz. H. nemoralis, Shepp., the plain unbanded form; var. Cintra, Shepp., the one-banded, or, according to the present system, 00300, and var. fasciata, Shepp., the five-banded form. I do not, however, agree with all his reasons for such separation, but rather because the many varieties of banding and colour are readily referable to one or other of these three. My own observation of H. nemoralis leads me to believe that the one-banded form breeds most true, whilst the plain unbanded form generally interbreeds with the other two. As to varieties having such banding as the following, 10345, 02345, 00045, &c., I believe them all to be referable to

the five-banded kind. So far as I have been able to observe, it is the lower bands which are more rarely absent and generally the upper ones which are so, and my attention has recently been considerably drawn to this in the case of H. hortensis. Near Oswestry the type form is common, but of the unbanded I did not take one specimen among many hundreds observed. The band variation in these shells was entirely confined to the upper bands, which were sometimes thinned out, sometimes altogether absent. In conclusion, I may say that I have never taken a specimen of either H. nemoralis or H. hortensis possessing the upper and lacking the lower banding.-Baker Hudson.

RANA MACROCNEMIA.-In the lately issued number of the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London" is a figure of a new species of frog from Asia Minor. Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.Z.S., proposes to give the name of Rana macrocnemia to this frog, whose nearest ally is R. temporaria, and from which it differs in the longer hind limbs and in a few other respects.

ABDOMINAL LEGS OF CATERPILLAR.-The "American Naturalist" for July contains a note by A. S. Packard on the caterpillar of Lagoa crispata, Pack., which possesses the unusual number of seven pairs of abdominal legs, and which was first described by him in 1864. It is believed to be the only caterpillar which has more than the normal five pairs of abdominal legs. Two pairs out of these seven pairs are rudimentary, and as the embryology of Sphinx has shown that it has ten pairs of abdominal legs, of which five pairs disappear before hatching, it is supposed that these rudimentary ones in Lagoa may be the survivals of ten pairs of embryonic legs.

Henslow contributes an article on this subject to the "Gardeners' Chronicle," in which he refers to a paper read at the Linnean Society last December, on "Contrivances for Insuring Self-fertilisation in some Tropical Orchids," by Mr. H. O. Forbes. Mr. Forbes called attention to the general fact that, in Portugal and the Tropics, Orchids, especially adapted for insect agency, are to an enormous extent utterly barren (not two per cent. of the flowers in one case being fertilised), and described several species which exhibit remarkable adaptations for close-fertilisation, thereby more or less preventing cross-fertilisation, and which yet produce abundant seed. Mr. Henslow takes the opportunity of questioning the necessity of cross-fertilisation. He thinks there is no à priori ground for assuming that Nature abhors self-fertilisation, and alludes to the large number of cleistogamous

flowers, including one in orchids, described by Mr. Forbes. He holds that there is no experimental verification of the theory that close-fertilisation brings about physical weakness, and leads to the extinction of the plant. He refers to his paper on "SelfFertilisation," in Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. i. p. 17, 1879, as showing that,-keeping in view the only two ends of plant life which he thinks can be recognised, viz. self-preservation and the production of numerous healthy offspring,-self-fertilising plants are incomparably the better off. Species adapted for crossfertilisation are generally larger plants than allied species adapted for self-fertilisation, and have finer foliage and more handsome flowers, being thus of more value to the horticulturist. Mr. Forbes described Phaius Blumei, which was self-fertilising. In Spathoglotiis plicata and another case the flower was self-fertilised before it opened, an approximation to cleistogamy-Plocoglottis (?) being absolutely cleistogamous. From these and other cases, both of orchids and other plants, Mr. Henslow says that all degrees of transition may be found between flowers, apparently well adapted for inter-crossing, yet also adapted for self-fertilisation, and cleistogamous flowers, many exhibiting adaptations for both purposes. Wherefore he traverses Mr. Darwin's conclusion with respect to the Bee Ophrys, when Mr. Darwin says that the survival in it of the apparatus for cross-fertilisation, though the flower is mainly self-fertilised, points to the fact of cross-fertilisation at long intervals. Apropos of this subject, some very interesting remarks by Mr. A. R. Wallace may be found in a review by him, in "Nature," of a book of travels in the Eastern Archipelago by Mr. H. O. Forbes. Mr. Forbes remarks, that the cross-fertilisation of orchids is by no means so universal as has been supposed. (This is probably the sense, though concealed by an apparent misprint.) He mentions a plant related to Chrysoglossum in which, though the labellum is beautifully marked with lines of purple, carmine, and orange, and the column also, the flower fertilises itself without ever opening at all.

GEOLOGY, &c.

GEOLOGY OF THE HIGHLANDS.-In the first part of his paper on the Age of the Malvern Hills (p. 126), Mr. J. Walter Gregory seems to attribute the changed view of the nature of the rocks of the Highlands of Scotland to the investigations of Dr. Geikie. Of this question a somewhat detailed account may be found in the presidential address of Professor T. G. Bonney to the Geological Society last February. Having mentioned the important event of the abandonment by the director general and other Survey officers of the Murchisonian hypothesis, Professor Bonney shows that, before the end of the year 1883, in the summer of

which a detachment from the Geological Survey took the field in Sutherlandshire, Dr. Hicks, Dr. Callaway, and Professor Lapworth had all thrown light upon the subject; while Dr. Geikie was prevented, by want of space, in his paper which appeared in the following year in "Nature," from indicating the share which previous writers had had in producing the result.

CONE-IN-CONE STRUCTURE. In a paper read before the Geological Society of Glasgow in March, Mr. John Young, F.G.S., described the structures known as Cone-in-cone, and gave an account of results arrived at by him after a careful study of numerous specimens. This structure is found in sedimentary strata of various formations, being, in the Carboniferous rocks of West Scotland, often associated with beds of clay-carbonate of iron of probable shallow lacustrine deposition. Cone-in-cone consists of a series of cones one within the other, arranged vertically with their apices downwards, the broad ends of the upper cones in the case of the larger examples terminating upon the upper surface of the bed in which they occur. Mr. Young thinks the effect, which had been ascribed by previous observers to various causes, to be due to the upward escape of gases generated in the deposit by the decomposition of organisms present in it. An abstract of his paper, with other conclusions arrived at by him, may be found in the "Geological Magazine" for June.

CARBONIFEROUS SHARKS.-A recent issue of the Glasgow Geological Society's Transactions contains an interesting contribution to our knowledge of one of the Carboniferous Selachians, Psephodus magnus, Agass., by Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S. Slowly, yet surely, the progress of paleontological research is tending to reduce the number of provisional names with which the difficult study of fossil relics is necessarily encumbered, and the present paper is one more instalment towards bringing about this very desirable result. After reviewing the work of previous writers on the subject, the author proceeds to describe a remarkable specimen from a shaly bed in the Carboniferous Limestone Series of East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, which not only exhibits two large teeth of the kind named Psephodus magnus, by Agassiz, but also shows forty-four others in intimate association, with portions of the cephalic cartilage and jaws, and the more or less obscure remains of a series of vertebral spinous processes. The dental group, undoubtedly belonging to a single mouth, comprises forms hitherto referred to no less than three genera and four species, and as the series is evidently incomplete, there may possibly have been more of these provisionally-named types. The two teeth of Agassiz' Psephodus magnus seem to belong respectively to the upper and lower jaws, and would thus imply the deficiency in the present example of at least two other corresponding forms: more than twelve of the smaller teeth are referable to Agassiz' Helodus planus, which

had been previously identified with Psephodus by Captain Jones; another is probably Helodus rudis, McCoy; while the remainder, in advance of those just mentioned, belong to the so-called Lophodus, and were originally designated specifically by Agassiz as L. didymus and L. lævissimus. Helodus and Lophodus, therefore, can henceforth have only a conventional existence," and the discovery of this Scotch specimen is an interesting confirmation of what had already been ascertained in regard to an allied genus, Cochliodus, from the Lower Carboniferous of the United States, namely, the presence of small Helodusshaped teeth on the symphysial portion of the jaw, in front of the main crushing plates, exactly as is the case in the living Port Jackson Shark (Cestracion) of the Australian Seas. (See article in these pages last December, Vol. XX. pp. 269-271.) Dr. Traquair's specimen, moreover, indicates that some of the flattened Helodoid forms were placed posteriorly,— again analogous to Cestracion; but neither the Scotch nor the American examples of Cochliodonts are sufficiently perfect to allow of a complete restoration of the dental armature of the mouth, and it will thus be necessary to remain content with these partial glimpses of the facts until further research has provided more ample materials.-A. S. W.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

FUNGOID DISEASE IN FISHES, &c.-In reply to the query of "Hal,” p. 166, SCIENCE-GOSSIP, it may be generally insisted that fish in captivity, sooner or later, suffer; generally from sudden and injudicious changes of water, but even under the best conditions of aeration and the growth of plants they wither. Of the Axolotl (Siren pisciformis), the writer can offer reliable information from actual experience. In a tank holding about five gallons, situated in a cool corner of an ordinary domicile, have lived, for eight or more years, Axolotls. At the present time, the survivor (by right of age, for he cannot be less than ten years old) is perfectly happy, and growing grey in the service of admiration, fed once a week (generally Sunday morning) on strips of beef; the secret of his health and longevity the outcome of the simple lesson which may be applied to tank management in general: never change the water; supply evaporation from good ponds, and regulate as far as possible the balance of animal and vegetable life. Axolotls, under such circumstances, not only escape the ravage of "fungoid growths," but encourage the development of a world of microscopic beauty, seemingly keeping the balance of life even. Except when running water or artificial aeration can be secured, fish are not desirable occupants of an aquarium; at least, they should never be included in a tank devoted to microscopic developments ; and although fish in this sense are foes, it can be confidently and emphatically stated that an Axolotl in a tank of prosperous permanence not only encourages, but assists and develops an amount of microscopic life rarely seen under any other circumstances.-E. T. D., Crouch End.