COMMUNICATING to the American Association the results of experiments in fig-raising in California, Dr. L. O. Howard said that the trees produced from imported Smyrna cuttings dropped most of their fruit, whence it seemed that something was wanting. This was found to be the fertilizing insect, _Blastophora psenes_, which inhabits the wild fig trees or caprifigs of the Mediterranean countries, and which the fig-growers procure by bringing down twigs of these trees from the mountains at the fertilizing season. Artificial fertilization of figs has been tried in California with considerable success; but it is thought that if the caprifig and its insect can be naturalized in California, there will be no difficulty in raising figs the equal to those of Smyrna. DISCUSSING at the meeting of the American Association the position of the trilobites in classification, Prof. A. S. Packard referred to the discovery of Beecher that certain genera of them have antennæ together with biramose legs, essentially the same for the head and trunk, and double, so that one portion is available for swimming and the other for crawling. He then showed that this uniformity of appendages does not occur in the _Crustaceæ_, to which the trilobites have been referred heretofore. For this reason, and because the young have a different form from crustacean young, zoölogists are inclined to refer the trilobites to a separate class and to regard them as an older, more primitive group. From certain obvious affinities, the _Limulus_, or king crab, may be regarded as a descendant from the trilobites. ON Thursday, September 15th, Mr. Stanley Spencer and Dr. Berson ascended from the Crystal Palace, near London, in a balloon inflated with pure hydrogen to the remarkable height of twenty-seven thousand five hundred feet, only fifteen hundred feet below the highest ascent of Coxwell and Glaisher. Numerous scientific instruments were carried, and also a cylinder of compressed oxygen for inhaling at great heights. It was found necessary to use the oxygen at twenty-five thousand feet. IN the discussion in the British Association of a communication by Professors E. B. Roser and W. O. Atwater recording their experiments (American) on the amount of energy supplied to and obtainable from the human body--which are found to be equal--Prof. W. E. Ayrton, presiding, pointed out that the energy of muscular action is probably capillary or electrical, the human machine being more analogous to an electric battery or motor than to a steam engine. IN the list of officers of the American Association for 1899, published in our last number, the name of L. O. Howard, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, should have appeared as permanent secretary.