useful for bacteriological study. These insects will be distributed in the special laboratories "de l"Institut Pasteur, de l'École d'Alfort, de la Faculté de Médecine ou du Muséum."
Undismayed by the daily Monday to Friday performances of the Press Band in the Embankment Gardens, a pair of Sparrows have built a nest in the ornamental ironwork of the band stand, immediately over the conductor's head, and within a few feet of his bâton. Here a young family is being reared, with apparently healthy appetites; for the old birds, taking no notice of the performers, even in the loudest passages, nor of the big crowd of listeners surrounding them, come every few minutes to their untidy nest and feed the youngsters. ('Westminster Gazette,' May 27th.)
At Mearbeck, near Settle, the beautiful residence of Mrs. Preston, a large rookery, which has been there for a very considerable number of years, has unexpectedly been abandoned. Mr. Wooler, the gardener, says that in February last a large number of Rooks came to their old nests and, he thinks, took out the linings of the nests, which can be seen on the ground. Afterwards every Rook disappeared, and the place is now unusually quiet for this time of the year. ('Craven Herald,' Skipton, April 30.)
Lieut.-Colonel H.W. Feilden and Mr. H.J. Pearson, who made a successful expedition to Novaya Zemlya in 1895, are about to proceed to the Petchora river and the coasts of Siberia. The start will be made from Norway, and the explorers will study the geology and zoology of the North Russian shores, and make collections for the British Museum. Some years ago Col. Feilden spent an entire winter in Grinnell Sound—the most northern portion of the globe in which fossil remains have been brought to light—and there obtained ample proof that animals were on the move the whole time.
In 'Nature' for May 27th, Grassi and Calandruccio, supplementing their last announcement on the larva of the Common Eel, that they had succeeded in following the transformation of Leptocephalus brevirostris into Anguilla vulgaris, now supply figures of a specimen of L. brevirostris with its larval teeth still intact, and also of another specimen captured by Dr. Silvestri in the Straits of Messina, which is described as follows:—"Its total length is 71 mm. The anus is about 29 mm. from the apex of the snout, the anterior extremity of the dorsal fin being about 25 mm from the apex of the snout. The head and the point of the tail have already noticeably acquired the known special characteristics of the Eel. The larval teeth
