native Rooks or of birds of passage, or both.

the return of Rooks to Scotland in the spring.

There are a few records of

9. In the autumn of some years apparently erratic movements westwards over the Atlantic have taken place. During these many of the wanderers have been known to perish, while others have been observed returning, in an exhausted condition, on the west coast of Ireland, and of the Hebrides.

The State of Solution of Proteids.-Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor HALLIBURTON (Chairman), Professor WAYMOUTH REID (Secretary), and Professor E. A. SCHÄFER, appointed to investigate the state of Solution of Proteids.

THE test of solution employed in this research has been the production of a lasting osmotic pressure upon a membrane impermeable to the proteid when the pure solvent is exhibited on one side and the reputed solution on the other side of the membrane. A positive result by direct manometric observation is taken as indicating a condition of true solution, a negative result as indicative of a state of fine suspension of the proteid. The membrane used has been almost exclusively formalised gelatine supported in the pores of peritoneal membrane, fixed on a perforated metal support, and set in an osmometer in which continuous stirring for periods of six to eighteen days was possible.

The pressures were read daily with careful thermometric correction. Ovalbumin, serum-albumin, and various globulins have chiefly been used for experiment, though work with other proteids is still in progress. Since the molecular weights of proteids is uncertain, the results have been simply stated in the pressures in mm. of mercury for 1 per cent. concentration of the proteid in reputed solution as determined by analysis.

As the source from which all proteids are drawn must, by the nature of the case, be one heavily contaminated with other bodies, and as it is well known that proteids absorb other bodies in solution very strongly, attention has been largely directed to the purification of the material used for experiment. In some cases crystallisation may assist, but it is believed that thorough washing with salt solutions in which the crystallised or precipitated proteid is insoluble, is the best means for removal of adherent foreign substances. The purification of the material for experiment has been the most laborious part of the research.

The fact that solutions of similarly prepared samples of the same proteid (say ovalbumin) obtained from different sources (different batches of eggs) may give very different osmotic pressures per unit concentration of proteid, suggested that the pressure read in such cases is not due to the proteid in solution, but to some other body or bodies in true solution and present in variable amount.

If this is so, thorough washing of all such proteids, which in apparent solution at first give an osmotic pressure, should finally yield a fluid holding proteid, but giving no osmotic pressure.

This has been amply verified in the experiments, both in the case of ovalbumin and serum-albumin, and osmotic-pressure-free proteid 'solutions' have been prepared without great difficulty, and the proteid. obtained dry by the vacuum pan for use in other experiments.

An obvious objection to the above interpretation of the results is that the process of washing may so physically alter the proteid that, though originally in true solution, it reaches in the end a state in which it is only in suspension. This objection is much weakened by the fact that if the washings are collected, the salt removed from them, and the fluid concentrated in the vacuum pan (in which the temperature is not allowed ever to exceed 30° C.), a fluid is obtained free of proteid but giving a lasting osmotic pressure, though the washed separated proteid does not give any pressure. In other words, the substance or substances causing an osmotic pressure in the proteid 'solution' first obtained can be washed out and collected, and a solution so obtained is then found to give a pressure though containing no proteid, while the proteid from which it has been removed is no longer capable of giving a pressure.

It is interesting to observe that a plain gelatine membrane is permeable by the substance or substances in solution in the washings, and that only when osmotic-pressure-free proteid is added to the solution does the pressure stand steady for the full length of the experiment (nine days).

It is thought that this solution contains disintegration products of proteids, since bacterial action will soon cause a 'solution' of osmotic-pressure-free proteid to give a lasting pressure, and that the pressure exhibited by freshly prepared and unpurified solutions' of proteid is really due to adherent proteid metabolites in true solution.

The Zoology of the Sandwich Islands.—Thirteenth Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor NEWTON (Chairman), Mr. DAVID SHARP (Secretary), Dr. W. T. BLANFORD, Professor S. J. HICKSON, Dr. P. L. SCLATER, Dr. F. Du CANE GODMAN, and Mr. EDGAR A. SMITH.

THIS Committee was appointed in 1890 and has been since annually reappointed.

Since the last report two parts of the Fauna Hawaiiensis, published by the Committee, have appeared, viz. Vol. III. Part 2, 'Hemiptera,' by Mr. G. W. Kirkaldy, and Vol. III. Part 3, Coleoptera Caraboidea,' by D. Sharp.

The first set of the Diptera described by Mr. P. H. Grimshaw has been sent to the British Museum, Natural History.

The part of the Fauna Hawaiiensis dealing with Vertebrata is in the Press, and copy for two other parts is in hand.

The Committee asks for reappointment without a grant.

Coral Reefs of the Indian Region.-Fourth Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. A. SEDGWICK (Chairman), Mr. J. STANLEY GARDINER (Secretary), Professor J. W. JUDD, Mr. J. J. LISTER, Mr. FRANCIS DARWIN, Dr. S. F. HARMER, Professor A. MACALISTER, Professor W. A. HERDMAN, Professor S. J. HICKSON, Professor G. B. HOWES, and Professor J. GRAHAM KERR.

THE Committee present the following Report by the Secretary, who has had charge of the work :

1903.

X

During the past year two parts of The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes' have been published, i.e. Part IV., completing Volume I., and Part I. of Volume II. They contain reports by Mr. C. Forster Cooper on the Cephalochorda; by Mr. R. C. Punnett on Meristic Variation in the Cephalochorda; by Dr. Gadow and Mr. Stanley Gardiner on the Birds; by Mr. F. E. Beddard on the Earthworms; by Mr. W. F. Lanchester on the Stomatopoda; by Mr L. A. Borradaile on the Crabs of the groups Catometopa, Oxystomata, and Dromiacea, and on the Cirripedia; by Dr. M. Foslie of Trondhjem on the Lithothamnia, important reef-building alga; by Professor Sydney J. Hickson and Miss Pratt, two most valuable and interesting papers on the Alcyonaria of the Maldives; by Sir Chas. Eliot, K.C.M.G., on the Nudibranchiata; by Mr. F. F Laidlaw on a Land Planarian, the first recorded from an oceanic atoll; and by Sir John Murray and Mr. Stanley Gardiner on the Lagoon Deposits.

Part II. of Volume II. is in the press, and will contain, among others, papers by Mr. Edgar Smith on the Shelled Mollusca, of which 381 are recorded; and by Mr. R. C. Punnett on the Enteropneusta, fourteen species and varieties, with an account of meristic variation in the group.

Reports are shortly expected on most of the other groups which have not already been dealt with. A list of the genera and the pelagic species of Foraminifera has been given in the report on Lagoon Deposits.' In view of the accounts published or in the press on the East Indian Foraminifera, and also of the necessary limitation of space, it is not proposed to give any further report. Mr. Cyril Crossland has undertaken to work out the Polychaeta in conjunction with his own collection from Zanzibar. The group shows great variability, and the collections are both of very considerable size, similar in genera, and from two well-defined areas of the Indian Ocean, of which the physical features are known. As it is obviously greatly to the advancement of our knowledge of the group, I have agreed that the two collections shall be reported on together in a single paper, of which the first part has already appeared in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society.' I am myself at present engaged in preparing my report on the true Corals (Madreporaria), but the work is one of considerable difficulty, as at present practically nothing is known of variation in this group of animals.

Volunteers are urgently desired for the Hydroid Polyps, Actiniarians, Pteropods, Holothurians, and some other groups. It is not proposed to publish any detailed report on the whole pelagic fauna, as it would be foreign to the main objects of the expedition. The collection is of course open to specialists who desire to examine it for different groups of animals.

In addition to the papers enumerated above as published in the year 1902-03, I have concluded my article on the coral formations with a detailed description of the Maldive atolls and banks in Appendix B, and some concluding remarks on the food, life, and death of corals in Appendix C. So far as possible I have shown in the text and in a series of figures the present conditions of the Maldive atolls and reefs visited by my expedition. The surveys were made in comparison with the already existing charts. They do not pretend to strict topographical accuracy, but were such as the very limited means and time at our disposal enabled us to do. They were intended for comparison only; but being, I believe, fairly accurate, so far as specific islands, reefs, lagoons, depths,

&c. are mentioned, will be, I trust, useful for a further comparison whenever the group is resurveyed by the Admiralty.

As the results of the expedition on the question of the formation of coral reefs, the investigation of which was the main object of the expedition, have now been published, I may be permitted to briefly summarise them. I would, however, first express my very great indebtedness to Messrs. L. A. Borradaile and C. Forster Cooper and Captain Molony, of the ss. 'Ileafaee' for the very loyal and whole-hearted way in which they aided me in all the work.

In the first place, an accurate knowledge has been obtained of the largest and most extraordinary series of coral formations in the world, one situated too at the present time quite outside the influences of continental conditions. The physical features of the region have been examined, especially in respect to currents, while the biological conditions have been exhaustively studied both of the encircling reefs and of those within the banks, and both towards the ocean and the enclosed waters of the lagoons and banks. Owing to specially favourable circumstances it has been possible to throw considerable light on the rate of growth of corals and hence also of reefs. Special work was undertaken to investigate the seaward slopes of the reefs, the formation of lagoons, the action of boring and sand-feeding organisms, and the conditions affecting the land. Owing to this examination it has been possible to ascertain the changes in progress in the different atolls and banks, and so by deduction to infer the later stages in the formation of the coral reefs of the region.

Unfortunately the means available for the expedition were not sufficient to allow of detailed work being undertaken below 50 fathoms, which was shown to be the extreme limit in depth of the so-called reefbuilding corals, those forms which at present are found living on the surfaces of the reefs. A few deeper soundings were nevertheless made, showing in the centre of the Maldive group a comparatively shallow (200 fathoms) table on which the majority of the atolls and banks have arisen. A subsequent expedition by that renowned American investigator Professor Alexander Agassiz has further elucidated the greater depths, and its full report, when published, will probably be found to give a very complete idea of the whole topography of the Maldive Archipelago.

While a fair knowledge has now been attained of the conditions and life on the floor of the deep sea, there has unfortunately been little work done in oceanic areas on the shallower bottom down to 500 fathoms. The evidence from the Maldive group shows how peculiarly interesting would be such a knowledge of the conditions between 50 and 200 fathoms. Indeed, an expedition undertaken mainly for this object would certainly do more to elucidate the probable and possible methods of the formation of coral reefs than any other mode of investigation. Further, such an expedition would undoubtedly throw an immense flood of light on the bathymetrical distribution of animals and plants. It would also make possible a proper examination into the questions relating to the geographical distribution of marine animals and plants, a subject at present untouched,

See also 'The Origin of Coral Reefs as shown by the Maldives,' by J. Stanley Gardiner, Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. xvi., Sept. 1903, pp. 203-213.

2 These forms depend mainly on their commensal algæ for their nutrition, but the existence of a perfectly distinct coral fauna living at intermediate depths, having its maximum luxuriance at about 40 fathoms, and not depending on commensal algæ, was discovered.

but one which, I venture to predict, will throw more light than even that of land animals on the past changes of land and sea on the earth. The further investigation of the interesting question of the formation of coral reefs in my opinion calls for such an expedition. From several areas might be expected important results on which a host of questions at present depend. A well-equipped steamer would be essential, but the equipment of such an expedition is beyond private enterprise.'

The publications of the Results of the Funafuti Expeditions' and of Professor Agassiz's Maldive expedition may shortly be expected. The time for such an investigation as I have indicated above will not perhaps be ripe for one or two years, but I venture to hope that the question will be considered by the Committee.

The Committee ask for reappointment without a grant.

Investigations in the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the West of Scotland at Millport.-Report of the Committee, consisting of Sir JOHN MURRAY (Chairman), Dr. J. F. GEMMILL (Secretary), Professors BowER, COSSAR EWART, W. A. HERDMAN, and M. LAURIE, and Messrs. ALEX. SOMERVILLE and J. A. TODD.

Of the grant of 257. given in 1901 the greater part was expended during 1902 in enabling Mr. Alexander Patience to investigate the Crustacea of the Clyde sea area, and Dr. Jas. Rankin, B.Sc., to investigate the Compound Ascidians of the same area. Reports by these workers were submitted in 1902, that of Mr. Patience being an interim one. Mr. Patience has now presented his report to the Committee, which is as follows :—

Report on the Crustacea collected during the Dredging Cruise of the Millport Marine Biological Association's Steamer Mermaid' since May 1902. By ALEXANDER PATIENCE.

Investigations were carried out, on various dates since May 1902, in all the Northern Clyde Lochs, in Kilbrennan Sound, in the vicinity of the Great and Little Cumbraes, and from the Little Cumbrae to Ailsa Craig. In all, dredgings were taken from 140 stations. The depths ranged from 5 to 107 fathoms. This is the greatest depth within the Clyde sea-area, and is found in Lower Loch Fyne, off Skate Island.

The chief object of my investigations was to study the distribution of the Malacostraca within the Clyde sea-area.

Apart from the new species discovered and the new records made, the distribution of many of the Malacostracan species has been extended, especially among the Schizopoda, since the publication of Dr. Scott's list in 1901.2 In this short report I cannot deal with this part of my investigations, but hope to publish, at an early date, an extended paper giving details.

I estimate the cost at about 12,000l. for a well-equipped expedition.

2 B.A. for Adv. of Science, Glasgow, 1901, Fauna, Flora, and Geology of Clyde Sea-area,' p. 328.