February i, 19 12] 



NATURE 



449 



Principal maximum, February 20, lah. 20m. ; secondary 

 maxima, February 20, i7h., February 22, 7h. 45m., and 

 i6h. 30m. 



Epoch February 26, 3h. 30m., approximately fourteenth 

 order of magnitude. Principal maximum, February 24, 

 7h. 50m. ; secondary maximum, Februarj' 24, 22h. 50m. 



Epoch February 26, i4h., fourteenth order of magnitude. 

 Principal maximum, February 25, 23h. 20m. ; secondary 

 maximum, February 24, gh. 50m, 



Epoch February 27, 23h., approximately sixth order of 

 magnitude. Principal maximum, February 28, 6h. ; 

 secondary maximum, February 29, gh. 



Epoch Febriiarj' 27, i4h. 30m., third order of magni- 

 tude. Principal maximum, February 29, 6h. 30m. ; 

 secondary maxima, February 27, 23h., and February 28, 

 i2h. 40m. 



There is a considerable number of meteor-showers in 

 February, but the meteoric activity of the month is, in 

 general, not so intense as in January. The most important 

 epochs in the foregoing list are the second and the last 

 five. John R. Henry. 



January 29. 



The Question of Sun-spot Influence. 



In a paper to the Meteorologische Zeitschrift (September, 

 191 1), Dr. Magelssen, dealing with sun-spot influence on 

 temperature, finds this influence, at Christiania, &x., most 

 apparent in the winter half of the year. This is borne 

 out, I think, by the data for Greenwich. 



We might approach the matter thus : Taking the six 

 maxima and six minima since 1841, and confining atten- 



/^yjl'^'y'So^Ti 'C 'Q yg-'J''^'?' V'7 '^o '3 '6 -"? '9^'f 



senting so much correspondence with each other and with 

 the undulations of the sun-spot curve. 



(The first point of the curve A I have marked as 

 doubtful, for reasons I need not here enter into.) 



Alex. B. MacDowall. 



The Occurrence of Peripatus on the North-East 

 Frontier of India. 



The following extract from a letter just received from 

 Mr. S. W. Kemp, zoologist with the Abor Expedition, will, 

 I think, be of interest to the readers of Nature, as it 

 announces the first discovery of the Prototracheata in what 

 may properly be called Continental Asia. The latter is 

 dated Rotung, December 20, 19 11 : — 



" Yesterday I toiled up to Kalek (3800 feet). ... On 

 my return Hodgart, Mr. Kemp's assistant, rushed up with 

 Peripatus in a tin, caught about 20 yards from me — one 

 adult and two young. . . . This morning we toiled for 

 about four hours and got nine or ten more adults and a 

 number of young. They occur over an area of about 

 30 square yards, and apparently nowhere else. The camp 

 is made on an old Abor clearing. Prior to our occupation 

 it was scrub jungle about 6 to 8 feet high, with a few large 

 trees, mostly jack-fruit, interspersed. The scrub has been 

 cut all round the camp, and on the north side, at the top 

 of the steep bank dropping down to the Dihong River, 

 Peripatus is found under large stones in comparatively dry 

 earth." 



Mr. Kemp has as yet no opportunity of examining his 

 specimens in a systematic manner ; it will be of great 

 interest from a geographical point of view to discover their 

 genus in a restricted sense. 



N. Annandale. 

 Indian Museum, Calcutta, January 11, 



I h-y 



A. Rainfall, Rothesay, February-March ; smoothed, with sums i 



B. Mean temp. Greenwich „ „ , 



C. Sun-spot curve. * 



tion to the groups " max. 1, 2 " and " min. i, 2," let us 

 ask how many warm Januarys, Februarys, &c., there were 

 in those years (eighteen in either case). The most pro- 

 nounced contrast (between maximum and minimum groups) 

 thus comes out in the early part of the year, and (localising 

 further) in the pair February-March. 



If, now, we take the annual values of mean temperature 

 for February-March, and smooth the series by simple 

 addition of the groups 1841-5, 1842-6, and so on, (this is 

 sufficient), we get the curve H in the diagram. 



Now, if we handle the monthly data of Rothesay rainfall 

 in the same way, a maximum contrast comes out, similarly, 

 in the early part of the year. Then, taking the annual 

 amounts for February-March, and smoothing with sums 

 of five, we have the curve A. 



Below is the sun-spot curve, and it is remarkable, I 

 think, to find things so far apart as Rothesay rainfall and 

 Greenwich temperature in the February-March group pre- 



NO. 2205, VOL. 88] 



Amphibian Faunas of South Africa 

 and Madagascar. 

 4^ In reference to the question raised by 

 ^9 C the reviewer (Nature, December 14, 

 1911) of my paper on the amphibian 

 faunas of South Africa and Madagascar 

 (Annals Transvaal Museum, April, 191 1), 

 the distribution of the genus Rana sug- 

 gests that it originated in the Old World 

 some time subsequent to the isolation of 

 Madagascar and the disruption of the 

 7o-2.<j Brazil-West African land bridge, its 

 passage to the New World being cfTocted 

 by a more northern bridge, probably the 

 Bering Straits connection. The other 

 Ranid genera of central and tropical 

 America are unknown to me, but, judg- 

 ing from the descriptions, they form quite 

 an isolated group, and if genetically 

 related to the Old World Ranida; had 

 their origin, not in the specialised genus 

 Rana, but in a more primitive Ranid 

 stock which entered the New World by 

 the Bra2il-West African bridge. 



John Hewitt. 

 Albany Museum, Grahamstown, 

 South Africa, January 4. 



A Bright Pi'eball. 



On December 17, iqii. shortly after 5 p.m., while 

 watching the dying glories of one of the loveliest sunsets 

 1 have ever seen, 1 saw a meteor fall in the west and burst 

 into about twenty most brilliant balls, like an cxplo<ling 

 rocket. I estimate that it appeared when about 20° above 

 the horizon, and traversed perhaps 5° before bursting. It 

 left a vertical and broad streak of white light on the sky, 

 which very slowlv became deflected from the perpendicular 

 to the N.W., and when at about an angle of 45° it faded 

 gradually into two patches of white cloud, which ultimately 

 assumed a horizontal position. These retained their pale 

 white colour until after the other clouds had become quite 

 dark, and they did not disappear until they were obscured 

 by some of these clouds passing over them. It was seen 

 from Bcni-Hassan on the Nile, 167 miles south of Cairo, 

 from the deck of one of Cook's steamer**. 



Aswan. Upper Egypt, January 19. J. C. C. 



