A set of Drosophila melanogaster was generated, all derived from a common isogenic base stock and each with a single new P element insert on the second or third chromosome. The lines were scored for their body size, measured as thorax length. P inserts were associated with highly significant effects on body size, although the genotypes of the construct and of the control prevented deduction of the direction of mutant effects. In addition to mutant effects on the thorax length of both sexes, there were also highly significant sex-specific effects. Pleiotropic effects of inserts affecting body size on viability and bristle number, as ascertained in a separate study of these lines (Lyman et al., 1996), were weak. Insertional mutagenesis is potentially a powerful tool for investigating the genes involved in size-control in Drosophila, but the technique requires fine tuning for use on polygenic and fitness-related traits.

1. Liver biopsies were performed through laparotomy wounds in six baby baboons during the development of a kwashiorkor-like illness induced by low-protein, high-carbohydrate diets similar to those consumed by many East African children. Up to six biopsies have been performed successfully in one animal within a period of 1 year. This material has been studied by light and electron microscopy.

2. A similar study was carried out in two healthy animals fed on an adequate diet. A description is given of liver ultrastructure in normal baby baboons, based on examination of these biopsies.

3. The hepatocytes of the malnourished animals contained excessive amounts of glycogen and showed a reduction in rough and smooth endoplasmic reticulum. Even at the height of an illness indistinguishable clinically from marasmic kwashiorkor, there was no excess of liver fat except in those animals whose diet contained sucrose. This may have been the result of stimulation of hepatic triglyceride synthesis by fructose.

4. In no specimen from the experimental group were there signs of serious progressive and irreversible liver cell damage which might have been expected if liver dysfunction were an important component of kwashiorkor.

5. Biopsies performed in one malnourished animal during recovery showed a return of liver ultrastructure to normal.

The Bibliothèque Nationale, and its predecessor, the Royal Library, have had in their manuscript collections since 1710, a beautiful volume emanating from the University of Orléans. It is a collection of statutes, all prior to 1400. Since the volume had no title, it was not recognized as having belonged to any of the “nations” at Orléans, and had come to be thought of as a Liber Rectorum. This supposed Liber Rectorum, B.N. MS. Lat. 4223 A, has been described for the catalogue of Latin manuscripts now in preparation:

(Quoted in part) Parch. A-C et 67 ff. plus les ff 20 bis et 51 bis, 285 × 190 mm. Rel. XVIIIe, mar. citron aux armes royales. D'une seule main jusqu'au f. 51 v. d'une deuxième main un peu postèrieure, a continuè la transcription à partir de ce feuillet. Initiales bleues et rouges, une initiale peinte au f. 6. Rubriques. Deux figures aux ff 4 et 5 v. Le 67 est mutilé -Au f. A, d'une main du XVIIIe: Statuta Universitatis seu Studii Aurelianensis in utroque jure una cum privilegiis a Summis Pontificibus Regibusque Francorum concessis. Codex scriptus circa finem XIV seculi. — (Ant. Faure, Regius 9866)

Close acquaintance with the geographical situation of the ancient sites of Iraq, and also of the Indus Valley, inevitably leaves two questions to haunt the mind. C Why did early man choose such inconvenient and inaccessible places, as many of them now are, for his settlements when he gave up nomad life ? And why after a site had been deliberately chosen for a city was it so frequently abandoned, though its occupation might already have extended through several centuries ?

These questions were first brought home to the writer in vivid fashion by a visit twenty years ago to the lonely and insignificant little mounds of Jemdet Nasr, some twenty-five miles from the ruins of Babylon and about halfway across the wide unin- habited desert between the lower Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

This volume is a beautifully written eleventh-century copy of seven works of Saint Ambrose on parchment without illustrations. When Léopold Delisle studied this manuscript, he learned nothing of its provenance, except that it had once been the property of an unidentified Scot named John Gordon. Gordon's signature, the date 1568, and the word ‘Scotus’ appear in the upper margin of the first page. The manuscript was part of the Bibliothèque du Roi when the catalogue was made in 1622.