152 



NATURE 



[March 30. ifyi i 



a speciality of the pink flints, and some specimens xv- 

 semblin^ the '* pygmy " type have been recognised. The 

 finds now announced include oval or pear-shaped scrap«!rs, 

 a second type possibly used for straightening arrow and 

 spear shafts, and a curved implement, which is believed to 

 have been used as a sickle. These implements are now 

 ready for examination by archa>ologists in the Hull 

 Museum. 



In vol. ii., piirt iii., of Records of the .Albany Museum, 

 Mr. J, Hewitt gives a descriptive account of the South 

 .African Batrachia, with supplemental notes on the 

 distribution of the various species. 



The American Naturalist for March contains two articles 

 on the " genotype " theory of heredity, the one, by Prof. 

 VV. Johannsen, dealing with the conception as a whole, 

 while the second, by Prof. E. M. East, treats the hypo- 

 thesis in connection with hybridisation. After stating that 

 the genotype theory may prove insufficient, or even 

 erroneous, the former author observes that heredity may be 

 defined as the presence of identical genes in ancestors and 

 descendants, or, as Mageen says, in full accordance with 

 this definition : — " The word heredity stands for those 

 properties of the germ-ceils that find their expression in 

 the developing and developed organism." 



To the Verhandlungen schweiz. naturfor. Gesellschaft 

 for 1010 Dr. F. Sarasin contributes a note on the fauna 

 of the Galapagos Islands, in which particular attention is 

 directed to the flightless cormorant, Nannopterum harrist, 

 and the penguin, Spheniscus mendiculus ; the latter, which 

 is by far the most northern member of its kind, being 

 regarded as a relict of a former extension of the southern 

 ice. The author supports Baur's view as to the continental 

 origin of the Galapagos group, and suggests that its union 

 with the mainland lasted until North and South .America 

 were themselves connected by land, but at a period when 

 there was a temporary sundering by means of an arm of 

 the sea, thereby permitting the influx into the Galapagos 

 area of forms from the Carribean coast and the .Antilles. 



To Mr. J. D. Hamlyn, the well-known animal importer, 

 we are indebted for a copy of a circular containing refer- 

 ence to additional reports in regard to the .African " water- 

 elephant." When in French Congo, in 1905, Mr. Hamlyn 

 came across a Panguin hunter who gave an account of a 

 large water-animal inhabiting a lake in the Fernan Faz 

 (Fernand Vaz) district, unvisited by any white man, and 

 not far distant from the coast. It was described as inter- 

 mediate in size between a hippopotamus and an elephant, 

 with a thick, hairy hide, but no tusks. These animals 

 spend most of their time in the water, and can stay 

 beneath the surface for considerable periods ; they are 

 dangerous to approach, and are never hunted by the 

 natives. It may be added that rumours are current of an 

 apparently similar animal inhabiting lakes in northern 

 Rhodesia, and known to Europeans as " water-rhino- 

 ceroses," and that in the first edition of the " Elncyclopiedia 

 of Sport " Colonel F. T. Pollok, in the article Tapir, 

 stated that he had actually seen one or two of these animals 

 below the Congo, and referred to mention of them in 1894 

 by Captain H. Bailey in " Travel and .Adventures in the 

 Congo Free State." 



To the Verhandlungen schiveiz. naturfor. Gesellschaft for 

 1910, vol. i., Dr. H. Stehlin contributes observations on 

 the evolution and dental development of various ungulates 

 from the lower Tertiary Bohners of Switzerland. As we 

 proceed from the lower to the higher stages of this forma- 

 tion, a progressive increase in the size of the different 

 NO. 2 161, VOL. 86] 



species of variou<i group*, accompanied by an increasin;: 

 dental specialisation, is very noticeable. .'■ ' 

 tuetimeyeri, lor instance, passes, as p-gards - 

 cartieri into suhtilis, with a gradual incr<;i- ui iiw 

 length of the crowns of the first three premolars, and th< 

 conversion of the fourth of that series from a triangular 

 into a quadricolumnar tooth ; and a progression in th< 

 matter of general size and the complexity of the fourth 

 upper premolar is observed in species of the genera Lophio- 

 therium and Pala?otherium. In the concluding portkMi of 

 the paper the author points out that there is evidence of 

 free communication between the Old World and North 

 America during the early Eocene, after which there was 

 a sundering of the two continents, while union was once 

 more resumed in the Oligocene. Africa during the Eocene 

 seems to have had no direct communication with Europe, 

 the relationship between the European early Tertiary 

 lemuroids and the modern lemurs of .Africa being capable 

 of explanation by means of a land-connection by way of 

 Asia. 



The February number of The Quarterly Journal of 

 Microscopical Science (vol. Ivi., part ii.) consists chiefly of 

 a long memoir, by Prof. F, H. Edgeworth. on the 

 morphology of the cranial muscles in some vertebrates. In 

 this paper Prof. Edgeworth discusses the very difficult and 

 intricate problem of the segmentation of the vertebrate 

 head. He points out that the probable phylogenetic 

 relationships of the various vertebrate groups are deter- 

 mined by the total morphological evidence available, and 

 that the cranial muscles form one item only of such 

 evidence. The interpretation of this evidence is, more- 

 over, rendered very difficult by secondary modifica- 

 tions which have arisen during phylt^env, such as 

 secondary innervation, convergent evolution and degenera- 

 tion, and in arriving at any conclusion it is necessary to 

 take into account the development as well as the adult 

 structure. The conclusion at which the author actually 

 arrives is that the morpholc^y of the cranial muscles is 

 in favour of an amphibian ancestry of mammals. This 

 result, however, is only reached by considering the 

 sauropsidan features of the cranial muscles as secondarv 

 phenomena, and it appears to us that it can hardly be 

 reconciled with the evidence derived from other embryo- 

 logical characters, and, above all, from the geological 

 record. 



In describing a collection of Tertiary insects from the 

 lacustrine deposits of British Columbia, in the second 

 volume of Contributions to Canadian Palaeontologv, Mr. 

 .Anton Handlirsch directs attention to the prevalence of 

 certain groups of flies, especially those of the bibionid 

 section, which appear to have formed the chief element in 

 the insect fauna. These are represented exclusively by the 

 genus Penthetria, which at the present day includes, 

 throughout the world, scarcely more species than those in 

 the collection forming the subject of the paper. While 

 the number of fossil Canadian species is estimated at about 

 thirty-five, the existing forms of Penthetria are thirty-six, 

 the allied genus Bibio including ninety-five. " The 

 occurrence of so disproportionately large a number of 

 penthetrias in the Tertiary of British Columbia contem- 

 poraneously with the absence of Bibio indicates that the 

 beds in question belong to the early Tertiary, and are at 

 least Oligocene in age. The supposition is obvious that 

 the genus Bibio originated in the East, probably in Europe, 

 and later found its way into North .America." It is added 

 that the occurrence of Penthetria and certain other genera 

 indicates that British Columbia enjoyed a warm climate 

 in the Oligocene. 



