424 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 



from various directions. Though in the main Polynesian, more par- 

 ticularly Samoan, in general character, there is evidence in the arts 

 and appliances of affinities with Micronesian culture, while even 

 Melanesian traces are not wanting. The curious shell-bladed cocoa- 

 nut scraper, mounted upon a wooden, elbow-shaped stock, belongs to 

 a type of tool which has been recognised in Matty Island, to the 

 north of New Guinea, while Mr Hedley might have added that the 

 same is also found in the Solomon Islands, and that it crops up again 

 in Ceylon, with a metal blade substituted for the shell. In North 

 India, too, a nearly allied implement is found with a knife-blade 

 replacing the scraper. The details given regarding the various types 

 and the manufacture of fish-hooks are of importance, and point to 

 affinities with the fish-hooks, both of the eastern and the western 

 Pacific groups. The canoes are described in detail. The various im- 

 plements, toys, etc., are too numerous even to be mentioned here, but 

 all are recorded with care. It is a pity that the term 'drum' is 

 applied to the hollow trough-shaped wooden instrument of Funafuti. 

 This belongs to a very widely distributed type of instruments, which 

 belongs essentially to the gong series, and should on no account be 

 confused with the drums, which are characterised by a sounding 

 medium of tense membrane. The vague descriptions of some travel- 

 lers constantly confuse the two perfectly distinct instruments, and 

 ethnologists should studiously avoid falling into the same error. Mr 

 Hedley is wrong in supposing that the 'ploughing' method of pro- 

 ducing fire by friction is the only one employed in the Pacific Islands. 

 The simple twirling drill has been described from New Zealand, the 

 New Hebrides, and Carolines, and other instances might be men- 

 tioned. In this, as in many other instances, a specialist would, no 

 doubt, have added greatly to the information given in the paper, but 

 at the same time Mr Hedley 's contribution should prove a useful one, 

 and welcome to ethnologists. Henry Balfour. 



A Catalogue of Mammals 



Catalogus Mammalium, Tam Viventium Qxtam Fossilium, a Dr E. L. Trouessart. 

 Nova editio (prima completa). Fasciculus II., Carnivora, Piimipedia, Rodentia 

 I. (Protrogomorpha and Sciuromorpha), pp. 219-452 ; Fasciculus III., Rodentia II. 

 (Myomorpha, Hystricomorpba, Lagomorpha), pp. 453-664. Berlin : R. Fried- 

 lander & Sohn, 1897. Price, 10 marks each fasciculus. 



The second and third portions of this admirable and most useful 

 list fully bear out the promise of the first part, noticed in Natural 

 Science for May. They contain, besides the Carnivora and Pinnipedia, 

 which the author separates ordinally, the whole of the rodents, the 

 most difficult and most numerous order of mammals, and will there- 

 fore be most welcome to every working mammalogist. The list 

 seems throughout to be remarkably complete and up to date, and we 

 have scarcely been able to find a single omission. The print and get- 

 up are even better than in the first parts, and the misprints due to 

 some of the specific names being printed with capitals are reduced to 

 a minimum (though not to nil). Acting on a suggestion in our pre- 

 vious notice the original localities for the names considered to be 

 synonyms have been printed opposite the latter, so that it can be seen 



