256 



NATURE 



[April 20, lyi 



ance to communities of tropical countricti, and, con- 

 sequently, of our national commerce, to draw their own 

 conclusion!*. Keaderb of this very valuable statement of 

 work fuHilled and observations made by a keen and prac- 

 tical sanitarian will find no dilVuulty in recognising that 

 the '' marked rise of subsoil water," which coincided with 

 the increased incidence of malarial fevers, was the " special 

 influence" at work in Klang ; that this occurred in an 

 already malarious town in constant communication with 

 surrounding malarious areas, with the result that transfer 

 of infected inhabitants to the swamps of Port Swettenham 

 found ready-made conditions for the continuance, if not 

 aggravation, of epidemic malaria ; and, consequently, the 

 increased incidence was not due to the ephemeral effect of 

 importation of ill-fed coolies, but primarily to local physical 

 conditions remediable, and actually remedied, by judicious 

 engineering operations. 



This record shows that in Klang and Port Swettenham 

 the abolition of pools by drainage (without th« aid of 

 quinine prophylaxis in the former case, even as a tem- 

 porary measure) rapidly rendered possible commercial 

 undertakings of groat monetary value, which had been 

 interrupted on account of disability of th^ available labour ; 

 thiit whilst there obviously is no desire on the part of the 

 autluii to belittle the utility of quinine prophylaxis, he 

 found that to secure maintenance of coolie labour upon 

 estates the daily consumption of quinine necessary, under 

 careful supervision of the subjects, was in quantities that 

 a free Indian population could neither alTord nor be per- 

 suaded to take ; that the survivors of this temporising 

 effort remained at the end of two and three years of daily 

 administration of quinine the bearers of malaria parasites, 

 and therefore were a danger to themselves and their neigh- 

 bours ; and that by effectual removal of surplus moisture 

 of the soil, there is excluded fear of epidemic malaria 

 following the introduction of malaria-parasite bearers — an 

 " influence " which, in the absence of drainage, certainly 

 cannot be ignored. Nor is it only in Klang and Swetten- 

 ham that these results have been illustrated, but in several 

 planting estates, where previously the loss by coolie labour 

 paid for, but unavailable from sickness and death, was of 

 grave moment ; here also has been gathered valuable 

 information as to the necessary radius of protective zones. 



Seeing that, in accordance with the policy of the sanitary 

 expert advisers of the Government of India, the Punjab 

 •Government has recently inaugurated an anti-malarial 

 campaign by purchasing a ion of quinine, it is not likely 

 that the amount of this drug found necessary by Dr. 

 M.iKuIm Watson for the mitigation — not eradication — of 

 mail!;.! in a free population will surprise them. The 

 Guvcrinncnt of Eastern liengal and Assam has, however, 

 adopted a method more likely to be grasped by the people ; 

 whilst assigning drug prophylaxis to the millennium, it, in 

 the meantime, asks its malaria-stricken populations to 

 indulge in the so-called quinine " treatments " at three 

 annas per head per attack — or a sum exceeding the total 

 average annual taxation per head on account of district 

 boards serving under it.' In this case, presuming two 

 attacks per annutn per head in a population of 15,421, 

 there would be spent (in one sense) " unproductively " 

 aj^ninst a preventable disease sufficient to meet the sink- 

 iiiij; fund and interest, by annual instalments, of a loan 

 for thirty years of one lakh of rupees. Yet the chances 

 are that were a lakh sunk in any well-designed anti- 

 malarial drainage scheme, there would be illustrated the 

 truism that " prevention is better than cure " — both for 

 commercial and humanitarian reasons. 



W. G. King. 



SOME PAPERS ON INVERTEBRATES. 

 JN the report of the Government entomologist, issued bv 

 the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for 1910, will 

 be found a full account of the work accomplished during 

 the year under review, and a scheme for future work. 

 Certain points connected with the life-history of the brown- 

 tail and the gipsy moth engaged attention during the 

 year, more especially the presence of isolated colonies of 

 1 In Italy, under 1,-iw-s passed 190103, the poor and all workers have the 

 ri^ht^to receive quinine for treatment and prophylaxis gratuitously from 



NO. 2164, VOL. 86] 



the latter in woodland districts. A» the result ' 

 inve.stigation«, it was found that newly hatched ca: 

 may be carried by wind to a distance of nearly i' 

 Of late years the .Argentine ant has cau.sed such 



f" • plantations m l^ouisiana that - ' ' 



but it is believed that a pi 

 i- . ii-> pest in check has now be«;ii . ^ 



.New species of artificially reared ichneumon-flies and 

 new South American parasitic Ilymenoptera form the sub- 

 ject of two articles, respectively by Mr. H, K. N'tereck 

 and Mr. J. C. Crawford, in the Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 

 (Nos. 1789 and 1786J. 



It seems soinewhat strange that it should be left to a 

 Japanese naturalist to describe new cicalas from lMir<«... 

 and the Mediterranean countries. Nevertheless, ;■ 

 bwn the case, and in the Journal of the College oi 

 of Tokio University, vol. xxvii., art. 18, Prof. S. .\lai=.. 

 mui^a, who writes in German, concludes his paper on tli - 

 subject, describing as new no fewer than forty-two speci' 

 together with two new genera. 



In Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift of Febr>' •" 

 Prof. J. Meisenheimer records the results of exp' 

 for testing the power of regenerating their w 

 insects, the moth Lymantria dispar being the su 

 these experiments. The first traces of the wings <• 

 minijte outgrowths from the sides of the last l\\ 

 bearing segments of the caterpillar, and in the lari, 

 of specitnens submitted to experiment these were cu; ..,».: 

 on one side. In a few instances the wings on the injup i 

 side were represented by mere knobs, but in mo^t . .i- 

 more or less well-developed wings were grown, .-: 

 very generally smaller than the normal ones. So:, 

 one wing on this side may be fairly well grown, and t!. 

 other quite small. Details on this point, and also in re- 

 gard to variation in the colour-pattern, are given in th-.- 

 paper. 



The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine for March con- 

 tains two papers — one, with a coloured plate, by Miss 

 E. M. Alderson, and the other, by Mr. E. A. Atmore — on 

 the beautiful little lace-wing fly, Chrysopa dorsalis, first 

 added to the British list in 1900 on the evidence of speci- 

 mens taken in Surrey, but subsequently found in Norfolk. 

 The species, which frequents the needles of Scots fir, has 

 been bred in confinement by Miss Alderson. 



A synopsis of the true crabs inhabiting Monterev Ba\ 

 California, forms the subject of an article by Mr. F. M 

 Weymouth, issued as No. 4 of the Leland Stanford Juni.- 

 University Publications. This communication, which 

 very fully illustrated, is to form one of a series of 

 of similar scope dealing with the fauna of .Mont« : 

 for the purpose of rendering the local forms of 1... .. 

 brates easily identifiable by the students at the .Marin- 

 Biological' Laboratory of the University. 



The structural arrangements in the females of th-- 

 decapod crustaceans of the family Peneidae for receiving 

 and storing the sperm are described and illustrated bv Mr". 

 E. A. .Andrews in No. 1791 of the Proc. U.S. Nat.' Mus. 

 The females of this family present the comparatively rare 

 feature of having special receptacles, or spermatotheca, for 

 this purpose on the ventral aspect of the bodv, and the 

 different degrees of complexity of these structures in the 

 various species and genera are illustrated by sections. 

 The alleged existence of receptacles of the same type- in 

 the females of the deep-sea prawns of the group Ervonidea 

 is considered by the author to be improbable. 



North .American parasitic copepods of the familv 

 Ergasilidas form the subject of No. 1788 of the same 

 serial. The family, according to .Mr. C. B. Wilson, in- 

 cludes ten genera, three of which are described for tht 

 first time, while the definition of a fourth is revised. iUI 

 its members live almost entirely on the gill-filaments or 

 within the gill-cavities of fishes, but whereas adult females 

 become more or less fixed, the males remain free- 

 swimmers, and in the case of one genus do not appear 

 to be parasitic at all. Hence males are much scarcer in 

 collections than females, and after the breeding season 

 can only be taken in the tow. The genera may b<- 

 arranged in the three subfamilies, of which one is topically 

 fresh water, while the other two are marine. 



No. 1783 of the Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. is devoted to 

 the ninth portion of Mr. C. B. Wilson's memoir on North 

 American parasitic copepods. the author dealing in thi« 



