Societies and Academies

Abstract

LONDON Linnean Society, November 6.—Prof. Allman, president, in the chair.—Mr. W. H. Twelvetrees (of Orenburg, Russia) was elected a Fellow of the Society.—The President, in opening the session, briefly alluded to the demise of Mr. W. Wilson Saunders and Mr. John Miers, whose scientific and official labours in connection with the Society have been well appreciated.—Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer exhibited and made remarks on some photographs of vegetation, including Cinchona Ledgeriana, in the Botanic Garden of Buitenzorg, Java.—Mr. D. Morris, recently returned from investigating the coffee leaf disease of Ceylon and South India, read a paper on the structure and habit of Hemileia vastatrix. He supports the Rev. R. Abbay's statements as to the destructive character of the fungus and its evident gradual extension over the coffee-producing regions of the East; he even expresses fears of its ultimately being carried to the West Indies and Brazil;—2,000,000l., the estimated annual deficiency in Ceylon alone, is no mean sum to be debited from the revenue and interests of the planters. Mr. Abbay has described the spores as attached to the inner surface of the orange yellow sporanges (a notion opposed to received ideas respecting free cell formation); but Mr. Morris's observations are opposed to those of the former. The author explains the hitherto puzzling dark brown bodies beneath the sporanges as composed of closely interwoven threads of mycelium. During February, March, and April, both bark and leaves are everywhere covered exteriorly by mycelial filamentous threads which reproduce by germinating spores. In the wet weather these do not enter the stomata. It is in this stage that conidial growth supervenes according to Abbay (secondary spores of Thwaites), but the author has failed to substantiate this phase, though starved plants on glass slides raised conidia. It is during the filamentous stage before penetration that remedial agents-dusting with sulphur and lime, &c.—have a chance of being effective; but a serious disturbing element offers in the large area of abandoned crop still continuing to propagate the fungus.—Dr. F. Day read a paper on the instincts and emotions of fish. Biologists of late have been less attracted by the faculties of fish than of other animals, and even Cuvier's estimate of their total want of intelligence has been quite recently quoted asauthentic. Theauthor combats this notion, and, from his own experience and data afforded by other writers, claims evidence of emotions and affections. He shows they construct nests, transport their eggs, protect and defend their young, exhibit affection for each other, recognise human beings, can be tamed, manifest fear, anger, hatred, and revenge, utter sounds, hide from danger, betake themselves for protection to the bodies of other animals, and have other peculiar modes of defence, leave the water for food, and even different families combine for attack and defence. Their faculties, notwithstanding, are greatly subordinated and modified compared with those of higher races of the vertebrata.—The Rev. G. Henslow read a paper on the origin of the (socalled) scorpioid cyme. He pointed out some errors in deducing this from the dichotomous cyme: I. Opposite pairs of bracts, being successively in planes at right angles, the resulting sympode would be a volute, and not a helix. 2. The position of the bracts (when present, as in Borago) are not opposite the flowers. 3. There are always two rows of flowers, not a single one. 4. The appearance of a flower in the fork between the two branches of the inflorescence (as in Myosotis) is not usual, and is due to the adhesion between the terminal and the highest axillary raceme. This has given rise to a false impression of dichotomy. 5. Authors have hitherto confounded the “true scorpioid raceme” (Henslow) with spicate degradations of sympodial inflorescence. He refers it to the indefinite system, and explains its origin by a new principle of phyllotaxis, which he first discovered in Lagerstromia, viz., in resolving opposite and decussate leaves into alternate, instead of their lying on a continuous spiral line, the line oscillates through three-fourths of a circle, and if a line be drawn from flower to bract, it will represent the so-called scorpioid cyme of Boragineæ.