144 



NA TURE 



[July 28, 1923 



Research Items. 



The Scottish Taboo of Pokk. — In the memoirs 

 of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 

 (vol. 6O1), Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie investigates the 

 Scottish objection to the use of pork. He remarks 

 that while the Celts, the medieval clergy, Angles, 

 Saxons, Vikings, and P'lemings settled in Scotland 

 reared swine and ate their flesh, the prejudice against 

 this meat was perpetuated by the descendants of the 

 indigenous races, the common folk. The prejudice in 

 the Hebrides has been acquired from them, and 

 James VI. of Scotland and some contemporary lords 

 likewise succumbed to the taboo. Mr. Mackenzie 

 doubtfully traces the belief to Egypt, where Set, the 

 slayer of Osiris, " was the prototype of the Satanic 

 pig demon," and the cult of the pig was associated 

 with that of the Great Mother. 



Primitive Stone W^eapons from Uganda. — In 

 the publication of the Geological Survey of Uganda 

 (Occasional Paper No. i) Mr. R. A. Smith of the 

 British Museum and Mr. E. J. Wayland, director of 

 the Geological Survey, Uganda, describes a collection 

 of stone implements made in that province. A report 

 on some of the implements, resembling the rostro- 

 carinate type from below the Suffolk crag, has been 

 already published by Mr. Reid Moir (Nature, July 21, 

 1921, p. 649) . As only a selection of those implements 

 has come to Europe, Mr. Smith believes that " it would 

 be premature to use these types as evidence of date, 

 in reliance on parallel forms elsewhere ; but the palaeo- 

 lithic character of thousands of flints from Egypt is 

 now generally admitted, and the publication of a new 

 series from Uganda may throw light on the Stone Age 

 of Africa in general." 



Rugby and Hockey in Ancient Greece. — In the 

 April issue of Discovery, Mr. Stanley Casson directs 

 attention to one of the most remarkable finds of 

 Greek sculpture in the city wall of Atticus, near the 

 so-called Theseium. These have been already pub- 

 lished in the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1922. la 

 one of the reliefs, the players are grouped round an 

 imaginary central line which divides the relief into 

 two equal parts. The six players thus form two 

 teams of three. The foremost on each side is moving 

 at a moderate pace, the central figures at a faster 

 pace, and the figures at the back of each team at a 

 slow pace, almost a walk. To use modern Rugby 

 terms, they might be called " forwards," " three- 

 quarter-backs," and " full-backs." The team that 

 appears to be advancing has possession of the ball, 

 which is a small one, and is held in the hand of the 

 " full-back." Mr. Casson goes on to show that four 

 games of ball, one the Athenian form of Rugby, are 

 described in the " Onomasticon " of Julius Pollux 

 dedicated to the Emperor Commodus, about a.d. 177, 

 which may be described as a " young man's guide to 

 University life." The relief depicting the Athenian 

 equivalent of hockey is of equal interest. 



Anatomy of the Shield-urchins. — Prof. Koehler 

 of Lyons has taken the opportunity presented by 

 his account of the Echinoidea in the Indian Museum 

 (Calcutta, 1922) to study, so far as the state of the 

 material permitted, the internal anatomy, particu- 

 larly that of the gut, in the Clypeastroida or shield- 

 urchins. He has discovered a composite gland, lying 

 along the front part of the ventral coil of the intestine, 

 and presumably pouring into it some digestive 

 secretion. This intestinal gland was found in all 

 those of the Clypeastroids examined that had the 

 auricles for the attachment of the jaw-muscles 

 separate, but not in those where the auricles were fused 

 into inter-radial processes. The classification based 



NO. 2804, VOL. 112] 



on that skeletal feature thus receives confirmation ; 

 but the correlation is no doubt primarily physio- 

 logical. The arrangement of the intestinal siphon 

 (or by-pass) is also found by Prof. Koehler to vary 

 according to the families already recognised. The 

 relation of the internal calcareous pillars of the 

 Clypeastroids to the soft parts is patent : it can be 

 detected even in the fossils. Prof. Koehler has 

 therefore little difficulty in showing the importance 

 of this so-called " endoskeleton " for cl^sification. 

 The only difficulty that might arise, namely, the 

 reluctance to break open a rare specimen, is, as his 

 excellent photographs prove, easily overcome by 

 radiography. This important memoir on recent sea- 

 urchins will thus strengthen the student of their 

 fossil relatives in his conviction tHftt he is proceeding 

 on safe lines when he bases his genealogies on minute 

 differences of skeletal structure. 



Myxosporidia Parasitic upon Japanese Flat 

 Fishes. — In the Journal of the College of Agriculture, 

 Hokkaido Imperial University, Sapporo, Japan, 

 T. Fujita shows that the fiat fish of Hokkaido are 

 more highly susceptible to the infection of myxo- 

 sporidian parasites than the allied forms in the North 

 Sea, the infecting ratio of the parasites being 94 per 

 cent, in the species of the hosts, and 68 per cent, in 

 453 fishes examined. Observations were made on 

 the gall bladder, this being the most favoured site 

 of the parasites. The species of parasites found are 

 of three genera and eleven species — three of Leptotheca 

 and four of Ceratomyxa and of Myxidium. All are 

 new species. Usually only one was found in a species 

 of the host, though Myxidium was found existing with 

 Ceratomyxa or Leptotheca ; the two latter rarely 

 associated together. Ceratomyxa gives the greatest 

 infection and predominates on the east coast. The 

 other genera named are found mostly on the west 

 coast. There appears to be some relation between the 

 occurrence of the parasites and the geographical 

 position of the locality from where the fish are taken. 

 There is an increase in frequency the farther south 

 the fish are found. The author concludes that some 

 parasites seem to prefer a certain depth as their 

 proper abode, Leptotheca attacking mainly the fish 

 in shallow seas while Ceratomyxa abounds mostly 

 in deeper waters. 



Bark Canker of Apple Trees. — Part IV. of 

 volume 8 of ttie Transactions of the British Myco- 

 logical Society contains a paper of considerable 

 economic interest by Grace G. Gilchrist upon bark 

 canker disease of apple trees. This disease, due to 

 the fungus Myxosporium corticolum Edgert., produces 

 large longitudinal scars upon the branches. It has 

 been described by American workers, who regard 

 the damage it produces as negligible. Miss Gilchrist 

 points out that the two outbreaks recorded for 

 England both show severe damage produced as a 

 result, the wood as well as the cortex of the trees 

 being affected. 



The Structure of the Plant Cell Wall. — 

 The Journal of the Textile Institute, vol. 14, No. 4, 

 April 1923, contains a long paper by H. J. Denham 

 upon the structure of the cotton hair, which deals 

 with the problem of the formation of the plant cell 

 wall. Recent papers by Dr. W. L. Balls have 

 suggested that the thickening of the wall follows 

 by regular deposition of cellulose upon a plan pre- 

 determined by the structure of the primary wall 

 which is deposited during the period of extension 

 in length of the hair. Mr. Denham seems unable to 

 agree with this view, as he finds that the striation 



