February 15, 19 12] 



NATURE 



523 



In Man for February, Dr. C. G. Seligmann describes a 

 cretinous skull found by Prof. Flinders Petrie while ex- 

 ploring a temple of Thotmes IV. at Thebes. He dis- 

 tinguishes this specimen from others of the achondroplastic 

 type, because the arrest of the development of the nasal 

 bones is very marked. In achondroplastic skulls, on the 

 contrary, the nasal bones and the nasal processes of the 

 maxillae develop normally, though, owing to the shortness 

 of the base, the angle made with the frontal may be 

 abnormal. This specimen thus agrees in this particular 

 with undoubtedly cretinous skulls, and may be regarded 

 as that of an eighteenth-dynasty cretin. 



Mr. Thomas E. Smurthwaite sends us a booklet 

 entitled. " Practical Anthropology," in which he has ex- 

 panded his method of racial analysis. Mr. Smurthwaite's 

 method is founded on a study of the contour of the head 

 and face. In every nation or people he finds there are six 

 types of head and face, and believes, therefore, that there 

 were six original races. By a compounding of these 

 original races the various nations and tribes have been 

 evolved. We fear Mr. Smurthwaite's proposal to apply 

 his methods to a racial analysis of school children is 

 doomed to failure, because of the uncertainty in the 

 recognition of the various types he seeks to differentiate. 



We note that Dr. Robert B. Bean employs a series of 

 types in his description of the natives of the Philippine 

 Islands. In a series of papers which have recently 

 appeared in the Philippine Journal of Science, American 

 Naturalist, and American Anthropologists, he classifies all 

 men and women into three types — Primitive, Iberian, 

 and Australoid. These three forms he regards as the 

 fundamental units of mankind. He recognised them 

 amongst the Negritoes and among the various tribes to 

 be found in Luzon and Mindoro. Dr. Bean's colleagues, 

 however, will find his excellent and numerous photographs 

 more helpful than his text. It is very evident that the 

 inhabitants of the Philippine Islands represent a most 

 interesting congeries of peoples. Besides the small 

 negroids — some of them might pass as natives of Equa- 

 torial Africa — it is plain that there are, in addition to the 

 dominant Malay race, peoples who recall the Japanese, 

 the Chinese, and the Ainus. Perhaps the most interest- 

 ing discovery made by Dr. Bean is a native type of man 

 with long bushy beard and European features. It seems 

 possible that there are elements within the native tribes 

 of the Philippine Islands which may throw light on the 

 origin and distribution of the various races which are 

 found on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. 



The last number of The Bulletin of Entomological Re- 

 search (vol. ii., part iv., p. 357) contains an important 

 memoir by Mr. R. W. Jack entitled " Observations on the 

 Breeding Haunts of Glossina morsitans." A number of 

 places in which the puparia of the fly were found are 

 described, and illustrated by very good photographs. The 

 puparia were always found at the bases of trees, in the 

 soil, either sheltered by a hollow in the tree-trunk or 

 under the exposed roots. On the other hand, negative 

 results were obtained from careful search in the soil under 

 bushes, although shaded, loose, full of humus, and covered 

 with leaves ; the writer is of opinion that the instinct of 

 the parent fly is to avoid such places, where the pup.ne 

 would be in danger from the scratching of game-birds, &c. 

 Along the Gorai River great numbers of guinea-fowl, 

 " pheasant " (Pternistes), and francolin occurred, and 

 there all the ground under the bushes had been scratched 

 over and over again. The writer considers that " the 

 tsetse-fly is such a comparatively slow breeder that it can 

 scarcely afford to expose its pupae to the scratchings of the 



NO. 2207, VOL. 88] 



game-birds." The practical bearing of these observations 

 seems perfectly obvious : it is that fowls or other scratching 

 birds should be encouraged or introduced in the forests or 

 amongst the trees where the fly deposits its pupa;, especi- 

 ally in the vicinity of villages or homesteads, where the 

 wild game-birds are naturally scared away. 



Naturen for January, which appears in a new type of 

 cover, contains a portrait and biography of Prof. W. C. 

 Brdgger, the well-known geologist, and Rector of 

 Christiania University. Its contents also include the first 

 portion of the natural history results of the Danish 

 oceanographic cruise of the Thor in the Mediterranean in 

 the summer of 19 10, 



In 1909 Mr. F. F. Outes, of the La Plata Museum, 

 published the first part of what was intended to be a 

 monograph of the morphology of the early inhabitants of 

 Entre Rios, dealing in that instance with certain abnor- 

 malities in connection with the cranial sutures. The plan, 

 as we learn from a second communication by the same 

 author, published in vol. xviii. of the Revisfa del Museo 

 de la Plata, has now been abandoned. Mr. Outes accord- 

 ingly contents himself in the paper cited with describing 

 certain cranial variations and abnormalities observable in 

 the remains of these people preserved in the La Plata and 

 Buenos Aires Museums. 



No. 61 of Publications de Circonstance, issued at Copen- 

 hagen by the Conseil Permanent International pour 

 I'Exploration de la Mer, is devoted to a report on the 

 investigations on herrings in the North Sea conducted 

 during 1910, the first part, by Messrs. J. Hjort and E. Lea, 

 dealing with the whole question, and based on observations 

 extending from 1907 to 191 1, while the second, by Mr. 

 Lea, discusses the growth of herrings. An important part 

 of the investigation has consisted in the " grading " of 

 herrings, that is to say, the determination of the range of 

 variation presented by the individuals of the same age, or, 

 in other words, of particular year-groups. There were 

 from the first reasons to believe that the members of a 

 shoal belonging to the same year and spawning together 

 might represent different growth-types, and the features 

 presented by those of 1904 proved this to be the case. In 

 one lot of these herrings the growth-rings on the scales 

 were of a normal, and in another of an abnormal, type. 

 The abnormal type occurred in all the samples of what 

 are known as " fat herrings " from Nordland in that year, 

 and it served to show that by the autumn of 1909 the 

 herrings in more southern waters were largely reinforced 

 by a migration from the north. It has also been demon- 

 strated that the " fat herrings " are fish of from one to 

 seven, but chiefly of from two to four, years old, and that 

 the youngest classes of the " large " and " spring 

 herrings " are three-year-old fish, while the majority are 

 from four to eight years old, although the shoals may 

 include individuals up to sixteen or eighteen years. Ai 

 regards the economic importance of such determinations, 

 it is known that a great falling-off took place in the 

 fisheries between 1904 and 1906, and that in 1907 there 

 were no fish older than three years, and in 1908 none 

 exceeding four years, Ihis means that " fat herrings " 

 were practically absent in 190a .nnd 1903. Obviously, 

 then, detcrmii this natm fTord means of 



predicting gu. ul catchi- future when 



sufficient data are available. 



Mr. N. Mollistkr, assistant curator of the Division of 

 Mammals, U.S. National Museum, announces the discovery 

 of four new animals from the Canadian Rockies in a paper 

 just published by the Smithsonian Institution. During last 

 summer a small party of naturalists from the Smithsoniftn 



