Camelli. This botanist was a member of the Society of Jesus, and was born at Brunn, in Moravia, April 21, 1651; after a life spent for the most part in the Philippines, he died at Manila, May 2, 1706. Linnæus commemorated him in the genus Camellia, and the introduction of this well-known plant into Europe is generally attributed to him. The manuscript transmitted by Camelli to Ray was accompanied by a large number of drawings, part only of which Ray seems to have been able to afford the expense of publishing. We learn from the Comptes rendus of the Société Royale de Botanique de Belgique for October 9, 1886, that the whole of the drawings still exist in a folio volume in good preservation in the library of the Jesuits' College at Louvain. It contains 257 autograph plates, with 556 figures of plants, and three plates, with nine figures relating to zoology. It was purchased at the sale of the library of Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (February 6, 1858), in whose handwriting it is carefully annotated, and was presented to the Jesuit College by Count Alfred de Limminghe.

DR. WALTER L. BULLER, C.M.G., F. R.S., the well-known New Zealand ornithologist, has been promoted to the Knighthood of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

THE honorary degree of D.Sc. has been conferred by the Senate of the Royal University of Ireland upon the Rev. S. J. Perry, F.R.S., and Prof. John Perry, F.R.S.

THE Committee appointed by the Prince of Wales to assist in framing a scheme for the proposed Imperial Institute is ludicrously inadequate and unrepresentative. The President of the Royal Academy appears, but why is the President of the Royal Society omitted? Surely science will have far more to do with such an institute than art. The only representative of science is Sir Lyon Playfair, and he has been appointed probably more on account of his connection with the 1851 Exhibition than with science. If the Committee is to gain the confidence of the public it must be of a very different character.

In view of the progress achieved of late in the domain of celestial photography, the French Academy of Sciences has decided to propose that an International Conference be held in Paris next spring to make arrangements for the elaboration of a photographic map of the heavens to be simultaneously executed by ten or twelve observatories scattered over the whole surface of the globe.

ACCORDING to the Report of the Director of the Leander McCormick Observatory of the University of Virginia for the year ending June 1, 1886, the buildings and instruments are in excellent repair; the great 45-feet dome revolving fully as easily as when first erected. The Parkinson and Frodsham clock, formerly belonging to the Physical Laboratory, has become the property of the Observatory. It is now in Washington, in the hands of a jeweller, to be cleaned and recased. The great equatorial has been chiefly employed in the examination and sketching of southern nebulæ. The nebula in Orion and the Trifid and Omega nebulæ have received special attention. 351 observations of miscellaneous nebul have been made, resulting in 226 drawings, and the discovery of 233 nebula which are supposed not to have been hitherto detected. The features seen indicate that the performance of the instrument employed surpasses that of any of the great reflectors which have been used in the examination of nebulæ, the examination of complicated structures seldom failing to show features not noticed elsewhere. Only a few nights have been suited to the micrometrical measurement of double stars. Seventy-six observations have, however, been made of stellar pairs, nearly all of which are close and difficult. According to the Director, Mr. Ormond Stone, the past year has been, without exception, the poorest for astronomical observa

tions which he has ever known. Not only have there been an unusual number of cloudy nights, but even on clear nights the definition has been almost always extremely poor. The Observatory is open to the general public every day, except holidays and Sundays, between 2 and 5 p.m. It is also open to a limited number of visitors once each month at 8 p.m.

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By the kindness of the under-mentioned gentlemen, lectures will be delivered as follows before Christmas at the Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern :-November 16, Mr. A. T. Arundel (Madras Civil Service), Glimpses of India and its People"; November 23, Mr. Arthur Brown, "The Yellowstone Region"; November 30, Prof. A. W. Rücker, "Early History of the Earth and Moon"; December 7, Rev. W. H. Dallinger, "Plants that Prey on Animals and Animals that Fertilise Plants"; December 14, Prof. Boyd Dawkins, "Introduction of the Arts into Britain." With regard to the classes now held in the building, about eighty students have joined, many of whom are attending more than one class, and it is expected that fresh classes will shortly be started. A very satisfactory feature of the matter is that the students are genuine artisans, who would not otherwise have good teaching within their reach.

IN the form of a leaflet reprinted from Humboldt (Band v. Heft 10), M. Habenicht, of Gotha, sends us a "Contribution to the Morphology of the Kosmos." Although his emendation of the nebular hypothesis can scarcely be called an improvement upon it, it is one among many symptoms of the breaking up of ideas on the subject, and their tendency to flow into new channels. M. Habenicht remarks that, in the primitive nebula, "the laws of Nature slumber." For the convenience of the

majority of speculators on origins, their awakening should be indefinitely postponed. His theory of planetary formation depends upon disparity of temperature, the inner side of the originating ring being warmed by the central body, while the outer side radiates freely into space. The result is unequal contraction occasioning rupture at the weakest place, whereupon a remarkable process ensues. Through the tightening of its outer surface, the ring coils up from the outside into two spirals containing very different quantities of matter, which eventually rush together from opposite directions, and coalesce into a planet. This dual origin is visible in the dissimilarity of the terrestrial hemispheres, as well as in certain aspects of Mars, and in some rare glimpses by Dawes of the disposition of light and shade on Jupiter's third satellite. The analogy is even carried out, we are told, in the organic world, from the tiny seed-leaves of the embryo-plant to the symmetrical yet not strictly balanced arrangement of limbs in the highest order of beings. But the planet-producing rings, to behave as M. Habenicht suppo es them to have behaved, should have possessed rather the qualities of caoutchouc than those of any known or imaginable "nebulous" stuff.

UNDER the title of "Sea-Level and Ocean-Currents," Prof. J. S. Newberry sends the following letter to Science :-" Put-in Bay Island, October 16, 1886.—At 11 o'clock Thursday evening, the 14th inst., I witnessed here a remarkable fact, the effect of the late tremendous wind-storm. This commenced about 7 a.m., and began to let up at 11 o'clock in the evening, or a little later. I then went down to the shore in front of my house, and found the lake lower than the average by fully 6 feet! This is the greatest depression from such cause I have noticed during a residence here of nearly twenty-four years. We have not, within this period, had such a high wind stea lily continued for so long a time. The captain of the steamer Chief Justice Waite, running between Toledo and the islands, reports the fall of water-level at Toledo as about 8 feet." In discussing the general question with reference to previous correspondence, Prof. Newberry says:-"The question is, not whether the

wind has the power of raising the water-level on a coast, but whether wind-friction can, in the great equatorial belt and in the track of the Gulf Stream, produce the flow of water which is there observed. The striking cases of the power of wind to heap water on coasts, and to move bodily great masses of it in lakes, are only interesting and relevant as demonstrating the sufficiency of wind-friction to produce broad and rapid surfacecurrents. This conceded, and the case is won, because, in the lakes and open ocean, like causes produce like effects. Wind of given velocity raises in both places waves of equal height in equal times against these waves the wind presses in the direction of its flow, with no opposing force. As a consequence, the roughened water-surface, from greatly increased friction, is moved bodily forward just as though impelled by the paddles of a revolving-wheel. This surface-flow is in time communicated to underlying strata, and, if the wind continue to blow in the same direction, ultimately a large body of water will be set in motion; in other words, an ocean-current will be produced. There is no escape from this conclusion. The great truth remains that wind-friction can produce ocean-currents."

A SHOCK of earthquake of a more or less severe nature was felt at noon on November 5 at Washington, Richmond, Wilmington, Raleigh, Augusta, Charleston, Savannah, Macon, and other places in North and South Carolina. At some points the seismic disturbance was the severest since August 31. A shock of earthquake was also felt at Greenville, Alabama, on Friday last. The captain of a vessel which has since arrived at Charleston reports having experienced a seismic disturbance on that day while at sea.

PROF. JOHN MILNE, of Tokio, Japan, writes with reference to Prof. Ewing's article on seismographs in NATURE, vol. xxxiv. p. 343, that the instruments therein described represent the state of general knowledge of the Seis nological Society of Japan with regard to seismometry at the time of Prof. Ewing's departure from that country. With the exception of one or two which have been modified, a set of instruments like those recommended by Prof. Ewing are, so far as Japan is concerned, quite obsolete. A very much better form of instrument is Prof. Milne states, now in use in the Government observatories and throughout the country.

IN a paper by the Hon. Ralph Abercromby, reprinted from the Quarterly Journal of the Meteorological Society, on the origin and course of the squall which capsized H.M.S. Eurydice on March 24, 1878, the author concludes as follows:-"The squall which capsized H.M.S. Eurydice was one belonging to the class which is associated with the trough of V-shaped depressions. The line of this trough was curved like a scimitar, the convexity facing the front. The whole revolved round a point near the Scaw, in Denmark, like the spoke of a wheel. For this reason the portion of the squall over the east of England moved only at the rate of 13 miles an hour, while the western portion travelled nearly 50 miles in an hour. The portion which struck the Eurydice was advancing at the rate of 38 miles an hour. The length of the squall over England was more than Hence we have 400 miles, but only 1 to 3 miles in breadth.

the picture of a scimitar-shaped line of squalls, 400 miles long and about 2 miles broad, sweeping across Great Britain at a rate varying from 13 to 50 miles an hour. The V-depression was one of an uncommon class, in which the rain occurs after the passage of the trough, and not in front of it, as is usually the

case.

The weather generally for the day in question was unusually complex, and of exceptional intensity, and for this reason some of the details of the changes cannot be explained."

AT a recent meeting of the Niederrheinische Gesellschaft für Natur- und Heilkunde at Bonn, Dr. Gurlt described a fossil meteorite found in a block of Tertiary coal, and now in the

Salzburg Museum. He said it belonged to the group of meteoric irons, and was taken from a block of coal about to be used in a manufactory in Lower Austria. It was examined by various specialists, who assigned different origins to it. Some believed it to be a meteorite; others, an artificial production; others, again, thought it was a meteorite modified by the hand of man. Dr. Gurlt, however, came to the conclusion, after a careful examination, that there is no ground for believing in the intervention of any human agency. In form, the mass is almost a cube, two opposite faces being rounded, and the four others being made smaller by these roundings. A deep incision runs all round the cube. The faces and the incision bear such characteristic traces of meteoric iron as to exclude the notion of the mass being the work of man. The iron is covered with a thin layer of oxide; it is 67 mm. high, 67 mm. broad, and 47 mm. at the thickest part. It weighs 785 grammes, and its specific gravity is 775; it is as hard as steel, and it contains, as is generally the case, besides carbon, a small quantity of nickel. A quantitative analysis has not yet been made. This meteorite resembles the celebrated meteoric masses of Saint Catherine in Brazil and Braunau in Bohemia, discovered in 1847, but it is much older, and belongs to the Tertiary epoch.

DR. DOBERCK, the Government Astronomer in Hong Kong, has published a pamphlet entitled "The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas," containing the practical results of investigations of about forty typhoons, continued during three years. He divides typhoons into four classes, according to the paths which they usually follow :-(1) Those which cross the China Sea and travel either in a west-north-westerly direction from the neighbourhood of Luzon towards Tonquin, passing south of, or crossing the Island of Hainan; or, if pressure is high over Annam, they travel first westward and then south-westward. These, which occur at the beginning and end of the typhoon season, can generally be followed for five or six days. (2) The second class are most frequently encountered, and their paths can be traced farthest. They generally travel north-westward while inthe neighbourhood of Luzon, and either strike the coast of China south of the Formosa Channel, in which case they abruptly lose the character of a tropical hurricane, re-curve in the interior of China, and re-enter the sea to the north of Shang. hai, pass across or near Corea, and are finally lost to the eastnorth-east. Typhoons of this class may pass up the Formosan channel, and re-curve towards the coasts of Japan, or they may strike the coast of China north of Formosa. A third of the typhoons belong to this class; they can be followed between five and twelve days, and are most common in August and September. (3) This class is probably the most numerous of all, although not so frequently encountered. Their path is along the east of Formosa, travelling northwards and passing near Japan. (4) Typhoons of this class pass south of Luzon, travelling westward. Their dimensions are very limited, and hitherto they have not been followed for more than a day or two. When a few hundred typhoons have been investigated, no doubt complete lists of the sub-classes of these four main classes will be obtained, and exceptional cases will be better understood. The pamphlet, which is largely written for the guidance of ship-masters and others, concludes with the remark that typhoons are of simpler construction, and their paths are more regular, than the storms of Europe. Typhoons are so violent near their centre that the whole disturbance is evidently ruled thereby; whereas storms in the North Atlantic and in Europe appear to be made up of a number of local eddies, some of which are by degrees detached from the chief disturbance and form subsidiary depressions. Dr. Doberck has not been able to ascertain the existence of a subsidiary depression in the China Seas during the last three years, and it is, therefore, doubtful whether they ever occur.

)

THE additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the past week include two Rhesus Monkeys (Macacus rhesus from India, presented respectively by Col. J. M. McNeile and Mrs. E. White; a Rose-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua moluccensis) from Moluccas, presented by Miss Townshend Wilson; twelve Barbary Turtle Doves (Turtur risorius) from Africa, presented by Mr. E. L. Armbrecht, F.Z.S.; four Copper-head Snakes (Cenchris contortrix), two Rattlesnakes (Crotalus durissus), a Hog-nosed Snake (Heterodon platyrhinos) from North America, presented by Mr. W. A. Conklin, C. M.Z. S. ; a Long-nosed Snake (Heterodon nasicus) from Indiana, U.S.A., presented by Miss Catherine Hopley; a Fire-bellied Toad (Bombinator igneus) from Germany, presented by Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.Z.S.; a Bactrian Camel (Camelus bactrinus 8), bred in England, two Eleonora Falcons (Falco eleonora) from North Africa, a Macaque Monkey (Macacus cynomolgus 8) from India, deposited; two Mantchurian Crossoptilons (Crossoptilon mantchuricum & Q), two Bar-tailed Pheasants Phasianus reevesi 8 ?) from Northern China, purchased; ten Barbary Turtle Doves (Turtur risorius), four Ring Doves (Turtur communis), bred in the Gardens.

OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN STELLAR PHOTOGRAPHY AT HARVARD COLLEGE.-Prof. Pickering has recently presented to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences an important memoir on the work in stellar photography which has been carried on at Harvard College, mainly by aid of an appropriation from the Bache Fund. The memoir commences with a brief sketch of the history of stellar photography, from its origination in 1850, when Mr. J. A. Whipple succeeded in obtaining a satisfactory daguerreotype of Vega with the Harvard 15-inch equatorial, the first stellar photograph ever secured. In 1857, the collodion process having then been introduced, Prof. G. P. Bond resumed the investiga tion, and showed that photography was capable of doing real work in the observation of double stars. In 1882 some preliminary experiments with a lens of 24 inches aperture were made, and with such satisfactory results that in 1885 the work was resumed with a Voigtländer lens of 8 inches aperture, and about 45 inches focal length, that focal length having been selected that the photographs might correspond in scale to the maps of the "Durchmusterung." Of the three departments into which stellar photography may be divided, viz. star-charting, photographing star-trails, and spectrum photography, Prof. Pickering has chiefly interested himself in the two latter. Star-trails-the images, that is, produced on a plate when the telescope is stationary, or is not following the star with precision-are made exceedingly useful. It furnishes the best method of determining the magnitudes of stars photographically, and the average deviation of the measures of the brightness of circumpolar stars on different plates proved to be less than a tenth of a magnitude, a greater accordance than is given by any photometric method. It is Prof. Pickering's intention to obtain determinations of the brightness of all stars north of 30° S. decl. by this method, and the work is now nearly completed. One of the plates taken on November 9, 1885, incidentally affords conclusive evidence that Mr. Gore's Nova Orionis was then much less bright than it was on the night of its discovery, some five weeks later. By photographing on the same plate circumpolar stars near their upper and lower culminations, the means for determining the atmospheric absorption on the nights of observation have been secured. Prof. Pickering has also made some experiments on the applicability of photography to the transit instrument, and concludes that the position of a star may be determined from its trail with an average deviation of only o'03s. Prof. Pickering also shows how star-trails may be made useful in determining the errors of mounting of the photographic instrument. Photographs of stellar spectra have been obtained by simply placing a large prism in front of the object-glass. The spectra of all the stars over an extended area are thus obtained at a single exposure; an exposure of five minutes giving the spectra of all stars down to the sixth magnitude in a region 10° square. The entire sky north of 23° S. decl. is to be examined in this way, and the work is now far on the way to completion. An exposure of an hour shows the spectra of stars down to the ninth magnitude. A photograph of the Pleiades in this manner brings out the in

teresting fact that, with very few exceptions, all have spectra of the same class-a circumstance which seems strongly to confirm the idea of a community of origin. The exceptions may not improbably lie at a considerable distance on this side or the other of the group, and should, as Prof. Pickering suggests, receive attention in any study of the parallax of the Pleiades. Prof. Pickering also here discusses several theoretical points of interest, one being the relation between the dimensions of the lens employed and the light of the faintest star that can be photographed with it. He concludes, on the whole, that, where the telescope follows the star with exactness, the limiting amount of light may be assumed as proportional to the aperture divided by the square root of the focal length. Three photographic plates accompany the memoir: the first showing the photographic instrument, the second the trails of a number of close circumpolar stars, and the third several specimens of photographs of stellar spectra, those of Vega, Altair, and of the Pleiades being amongst the number.

rendered to the country by Mr. J. B. Redman, who had given much attention to the question of coast erosion, and to whom the British Association Committee was greatly indebted. The speaker then proceeded, by the aid of diagrams and drawings on the blackboard, to describe the mode in which the sea acts on coasts of various kinds, and stated the rate at which erosion is taking place in different parts of the country. It was greatest along the coast of Holderness and Norfolk, where the sea gained on the land at the average rate of from 2 to 3 yards per year. But locally and during exceptional gales the rate was much higher. On January 30, 1877, parts of Norfolk lost an average of 3 yards for several miles, and near Bacton the loss was 15 yards. Typical instances of erosion were cited, among the places mentioned being Folkestone, Brighton, Worthing, Bournemouth, Westward Ho! and Pembrokeshire. The speaker then went on to describe the shingle beaches and their changes, and to discuss the effects of natural and artificial groynes. On the south coast of England the shingle travelled from west to east, and if left to itself it would form a natural protection along the greater part of the coast, and the average amount of erosion would be small. But in certain places land-owners, towncouncils, and other corporations desired that there should be no loss of land, and they erected groynes to collect the shingle, and so robbed the coast to the east of its natural protection. Worthing was heavily groyned and the shingle largely collected, but just east of the town the coast was rapidly receding. Folkestone pier was a large groyne which had collected an extensive area of shingle on its west side; Copt Point and Eastwear Bay, once protected by a continuous band of shingle, were now nearly bare, and the coast was rapidly going. At Copt Point land was laid out for building, and roads were made; but the notice-board advertising "this desirable freehold building land," was seen half-way down the cliff. Natural groynes were sometimes recklessly destroyed, and this was the case at Hengistbury Head, where ironstone was quarried from the cliff and foreshore; the reef had held back sufficient shingle to protect the land to the west, but when the reef was removed, the shingle travelled on, and the land rapidly receded. Great damage was done by taking shingle for road metal, ballast, or other purposes. The amount so taken appeared small and unimportant because a single storm might throw up as much as might be taken in many months, but the aggregate amount so removed was enormous, and must tell in time. It had been estimated that the shingle removed near Kilnsea in twenty years represented a bank 3 miles long, 31 yards wide, and 6 feet deep. It was interesting to note that the erosion of that part of the coast averaged only from three-quarters of a yard to a yard and a half per year for some time before the shingle trade was so largely developed; but later on, owing to the loss of the shingle, the rate of erosion rose from 3 to 6 yards per year. The change might not be entirely due to the cause mentioned, but it clearly was so to a large extent. Although the Board of Trade had now stopped the practice at that part of the coast, it was still in full action in a large number of places. The speaker then passed to the consideration of the land gained from the A great part of the material worn from the coasts of Holderness and Norfolk was carried into the estuaries of the Humber and the Wash, and there formed banks of sand and silt of great hindrance to navigation, but when reclaimed of great agricultural value. Recent estimates showed that the area of land thus made in the Humber and Wash was far in exce-s of that lost. Taking the whole coast-line of England, it was probable that the total area of land was as great now as it was 500 years ago. Although the general result of a survey of this question was less serious than was generally supposed, it was evident that greater control was requisite over the action of The powers land-owners and public bodies along the coast. now vested in the Board of Trade might be more rigorously This was and systematically applied, or fresh powers obtained. especially desirable along the south coasts, as there the damage done by reckless groyning was enormous, but the area of land now gained was small.

sea.

OBSERVATIONS ON HEREDITY IN CATS WITH AN ABNORMAL NUMBER OF TOES

IN 1883 I contributed an article to NATURE (vol. xxix. p. 20) upon this subject, giving an account of my observations from 1879 up to the date at which the paper was written. The last observation was concerned with a family of four male tabby

In

partially coalesced with A, and has but one pad in common with it (Fig. 2). . . . There is seen to be an extra pad behind the additional toes, of which there is no trace in the normal foot." In some families to be described, and also in two previously noted, the large extra toe, A, is present, while the insignificant pollex (Fig. 1, 1) is absent, and thus the paw appears extremely broad, although with only the normal number of toes. the hind-paws (Figs. 5 and 6) "there is little doubt that the innermost toe I is the hallux lost in the normal foot. . The second extra toe is that labelled A. . . On the under side (Fig. 6) all the toes have separate pads, and there is an additional pad behind the extra toes," which is sometimes fused with that behind the normal toes.

This cat produced her first family, described in the previous paper, on July 10, 1883. Continuing the observations from that date, the next family (of four tabby kittens) was born in June 1884. (1) and (2) were normal-a male and a female. (3)—a female-possessed six toes on the fore-paws, each toe with a separate front pad, and a bifid hind pad (distinct from that for the other toes) to the two inner toes (I and A in Figs. 1 and 2); the toe shown in the figure and absent in this kitten is of course that marked B-the last to be added in all cases. The hind-paws possessed six toes each, as in the mother, and with the same arrangement of pads as in her left hind-paw, i.e. with separate front pads to each toe (as in Fig. 6), but with the hind pads for the extra toes I and A continuous with those for the four normal toes (unlike Fig. 6 in this respect). (4), a female, possessed seven toes on the right fore-paw; the front pads separate except in the case of those for the toes A and B, Fig. 2, which were slightly fused. The hind pad for the three innermost toes was quite separate from that for the others. This paw, in fact, almost exactly resembled that of the mothercat on the same side, shown in Figs. 1 and 2. The left forepaw possessed six toes, the small one marked B in Figs. 1 and 2 being absent. The pads were in other respects similar to those of the right paw. Thus the relative amounts of abnormality on the two sides are as with the mother, the preponderance being on the right side in both cases. But the difference is here greater in both directions, the right paw having rather more abnormality than in the mother, because of the less complete fusion between the front pads of the toes A and B, while on the left side the abnormality is much less than in the mother, in the complete suppression of the toe B. The hindpaws were as in the last kitten, and similar to the left hind-paw of the mother.

The next family (of three) was born September 22, 1884. (1), a female tabby kitten, was normal. (2), a female tabby kitten, possessed seven toes on the right fore-paw, with separate front pads to each toe and the hind pad as in Fig. 2. The innermost claw was double, the two divisions being arranged vertically one above the other, the lower being small and incomplete. In this respect, and in the separate front pad to the toe B, this paw is far beyond the mother's paw of the same side in abnormality. The left fore-paw possessed six toes, that marked B being absent. Otherwise the arrangement of pads was similar to that shown in Fig. 2. Hence this paw is more normal than that of the mother on the same side, and both fore-paws compare with those of the mother in the same manner as those of No. 4 of the last family, the only difference being the even greater abnormality of the right paw in the present instance. The hind-paws possessed six toes with separate front pads and continuous hind pads, as in the left hind paw of the mother. (3), also a female tabby kitten, possessed seven toes on both fore-paws. The arrangement of pads on both paws was similar to that on the left fore-paw of the mother, except that the toe B could not be said to possess a front pad at all. The hind-paws were as in the last kitten and the left hind-paw of the mother.

The next family (of three) was born in September 1885. (1), a female tabby and slight tortoiseshell kitten, possessed the normal number of five toes on the fore-paws, but the foot appeared almost as broad as in the abnormal kittens. This was because the large extra toe (A in Figs. 1 and 2) was present while the much smaller pollex I was absent. The front pad of the large abnormal toe was also slightly bifid, so that there was some indication of the next small toe B. The hind-paws possessed five toes with separate front pads and fused hind pads. (2), a female tortoiseshell and tabby kitten, possessed fore-paws like those of the kitten just described. The right hind-paw was also similar, with five toes, but the left possessed six like the mother. The front pads were separate, as usual, on the hind

paws. (3), a female tabby and slight tortoiseshell kitten, with fore-paws having seven toes like the mother, and also resembling her in the difference between right and left. The right paw possessed most abnormality, and was more advanced than the mother, as all the toes-even that marked B-possessed separate front pads. On the left side, however, the toe marked B possessed no separate pad. The hind-paws were like those of the mother, possessing six toes with separate front pads. This kitten was given to a friend, and will be again referred to.

The next and last family (of four kittens) up to the present time was born about July 1, 1886. (1), a female tabby kitten, was normal. (2), a female tabby kitten, possessed five toes on the fore-paws, but the feet were very broad, because the large abnormal toe (marked A, Figs. 1 and 2) was present instead of the small pollex. The hind-paws possessed six toes like those of the mother. (3), a male sandy kitten, possessed seven toes on the left fore-paw, the innermost (pollex) being exceedingly small and rudimentary, while the right paw possessed only six toes, the pollex being absent, although both abnormal toes (A and B, Figs. 1 and 2) were present. In this kitten the difference between the sides is therefore the reverse of that in the mother. The hind-paws possessed six toes like those of the mother. (4), a male tabby kitten,-by far the most abnormal form which has yet come under my personal notice. Both fore-paws have seven toes, each possessing a separate front pad, while the claw of the small toe B is well formed and large, and its pad is large and quite distinct and separate from that of A. The claw of the pollex I on both sides is partially divided (towards the apex) into a large upper, and rather smaller lower, division. This tendency towards a vertical proliferation has been already described in one of the kittens of the family born September 22, 1884. In the hind pads this was also the most abnormal form yet seen, for, interior to the normal fused hind pads for the four normal toes 2, 3, 4, and 5, were arranged three pads forming an almost continuous series with each other and with those belonging to the four normal toes. These three pads diminished in size from within outwards, and the one behind the toe B was very small, and was somewhat separated from the others, and especially associated with the internal side of the fused normal pads. The hind pads for the toes I and A were fused, but a distinct furrow indicated the line of separation. There was no practical difference between the fore-paws of the right and left side. The right hind-paw possessed seven toes, or three more than in the normal animal. This is the first time that I have come across so great an abnormality in the hind-paws, although Mr. Vaughan remembers it on both right and left sides in two individuals. All the seven toes are large and distinct, and have separate front pads. Interior to the normal fused hind pads, and continuous with them, is an ill-defined series of three pads, irregularly diminishing in size towards the interior, and crowded together so that the innermost is not behind the innermost toe. The foot is somewhat deformed. The left hind-paw possesses the usual six toes with separate front pads and fused hind pads.

I now return to (3) of the family mentioned before the lastthe highly abnormal female tabby which was given to a friend in Oxford. This cat produced a family (of four) on July 10, 1886. (1) and (2), both sandy male kittens, were normal; (3) and (4), both tabby female kittens, were like the mother, possessing seven toes on the fore-paws and six toes on the hind-paws. These two kittens were given to Prof. Meldola and Mr. W. White, and I trust that they will be frequently referred to in some future number of NATURE. I am now able to give a somewhat longer account of these two kittens. In Prof. Meldola's kitten the left fore paw is somewhat less abnormal than the right, because the toe B is very small, although it possesses a front pad separate from that of A. Of course the pollex I has a distinct front pad. There is a single, although somewhat divided, hind pad for the three inner toes, separate from the normal pad behind the four outer digits. On the right side the toe B is large, but the arrangement of front and hind pads is the same as that on the left side. The hind-paws have large and distinct front pads on all the six toes of both sides, and the hind pads of the abnormal toes form a continuous series with those behind the normal digits.

The fore-paws of Mr. White's kitten are precisely similar in every respect, the toe B being much larger on the right side, and the arrangement of pads being exactly the same. The hind-paws only differ in the fused hind pads for the abnormal toes being somewhat separated from those behind the normal