1897] NOTES AND COMMENTS 231 
FUNAFUTI 
THE third part of the Memoir of the Australian Museum on the Atoll 
of Funafuti contains further interesting additions to knowledge of the 
zoology of that island. Mr E. R. Waite has described the collection 
of mammals, reptiles and fishes made by Mr Hedley. The most 
interesting part of Mr Waite’s memoir is an account of the habits 
of the fruit-eating Pacific rat, for which, following Thomas, he 
adopts Peale’s name of Jnus exulans. An interesting fact is recorded 
in reference to the edibility of fishes: at the time the expedition was 
on Funafuti the natives would only eat fish caught in the lagoon, 
all those from the reefs being condemned. The native explanation 
is that the pumice which was then being washed on to the beach ren- 
dered the fish poisonous; but as the pumice is harmless, Mr Hedley 
concludes that some marine organism arrived with it which rendered 
the fish unwholesome. Mr Waite quotes a remark of Wyatt Gills 
that good food fish become poisonous by eating the worms of the 
genus Vereis. The two species of Enteropneusta collected are 
described by Mr J. P. Hill; one of the two is a new species 
(Piychodera hedleyi). Mr Whitelegge’s account of the Alcyonaria 
includes a description of four new species and a redescription of 
several previously very imperfectly known. We regret to find that 
some remarks concerning the publication of this Memoir, made in 
reference to Part II. (Natural Science, July 1897, Vol. xi., p. 5) 
were based on a misunderstanding. 
THE GREAT INDIAN EARTHQUAKE 
AT five o’clock in the afternoon of June 12, 1897, Calcutta and 
north-eastern India were startled by an earthquake which is re- 
garded as having exceeded even the famous Lisbon earthquake 
in the area affected. The Geological Survey of India immedi- 
ately set to work to collect the data for a complete investigation. 
An immense amount of information has already been obtained, 
which it will take considerable time to digest. Sufficient has, 
however, been done to enable Mr R. D. Oldham to contribute a 
preliminary note to the Records of the Geological Survey. The 
area affected by the shock included more than a million and a 
quarter square miles, while its effects appear to have been felt 
even in Edinburgh and Rome. The shock was most destructive 
in Assam: at Shillong in the Khasi Hills it is said that hardly 
one stone has been left standing on another. Heaps of road metal 
have been scattered into layers a few inches deep. All masonry has 
been shattered into pieces, so that the roofs fell bodily down on 
to heaps of ruins. A cylinder seismometer had fortunately been 
