August I, 1889] 



NATURE 



127 



Ix a telegram from Yokohama, dated July 30, it is stated 

 that the town of Kumamoto, on the Island of Kiou-Siou, near 

 Nagasaki, had been visited by an earthquake, causing great loss 

 of life and destruction of property. 



Some details with regard to the recent severe earthquake in 

 Turkestan have been received at St. Petersburg. The first shock 

 was felt at Vyernyi at 3.15 a.m. on July 12. Several houses 

 were damaged and a great number of chimneys were destroyed. 

 The same shock was felt at Jarkend, Pishpek, Ala-medyn, 

 Prjevalsk (Kopal), Pavlodar, Lepsa, Semipalatinsk, Kulja, and 

 on the Kashgar frontier. At Prjevalsk, all private houses on the 

 shores of Lake Issyk-kul, as also the bridges, were destroyed ; 

 the shores bear many traces of landslips. The shock was so 

 severe that people could hardly stand on their feet. At Pavlodar 

 the direction of the earthquake was from south-west to north- 

 east. At Semipalatinsk, the Irtysh was covered with heavy 

 waves. The whole of the village Malovodnoie was destroyed, 

 and in the canton of Koram seventeen men were killed. Several 

 houses were destroyed in the villages of Zaitsevskoie, Mikhailov- 

 skoie, Lugovoie, Janghyz, and Karabulak, as also at Kulja. On 

 July 14, three shocks were noticed at Jarkend, at 2, 4, and 

 10 p.m., and they were followed by several feebler shocks on 

 July 15- 



The master of the Argentina, German mail steamer, which 

 arrived at Lisbon from Pernambuco on July 19, reports that 

 north of the Cape de Verd Islands heavy cross seas were ex- 

 perienced, in which the vessel pitched heavily. For four days 

 the air was filled with reddish yellow dust, sometimes so thick 

 that the sun could scarcely shine through it, and looked quite 

 pale, although the sky was cloudless. 



Among donations received at the meeting of the Royal 

 Botanic Society on Saturday were seeds from the Parana River 

 at Rosario, South America, collected by Mr. C. W. Sowerby. 

 Mr. Sowerby announces his discovery of one of the habitats of 

 Ponttdera azurea, a very beautiful floating water-plant, which 

 flowered some nine years ago in the Victoria House in the 

 Society's Gardens, and has since been widely distributed. He 

 states that masses of the plant were found floating down the 

 river, and forming islands of one or two acres in extent, upon one 

 •of which a puma v\ as seen. 



At the monthly meeting of the Royal Society of Queensland, 

 on June 14, Mr. De Vis read a most interesting paper on 

 Prionodtira newtoniana (Meston's bower-bird) and Acanlhiza 

 sqiianiata, recent additions to the Queensland avifauna. The 

 former was minutely described. It was first found by Mr. K. 

 Broadbent in the scrubs on the Tully River, but its true habitat 

 is now ascertained to be the highlands north of Herberton, 

 where it was observed by Mr. A. Meston in the course of a 

 short visit to the top of Bellenden-Ker. Mr. Meston brought 

 down the first skin of a male bird, but not in a condition to 

 permit full recognition. Excellent specimens, male and female, 

 were afterwards obtained by Mr. Broadbent near Herberton. 

 Prionodura is emphatically a bower-bird. Both its observers in 

 nature met with its bowers repeatedly, and agree in representing 

 them as of unusual size and structure. The bower is usually built 

 on the ground between two trees, or between a tree and a bush. 

 It is constructed of small sticks and twigs, piled up almost hori- 

 zontally round one of the trees, and rising to a height of from 4 

 to 6 feet. A similar pile about 18 inches high is then built 

 round the foot of the other tree ; the intervening space is arohed 

 over with stems of climbing plants ; the piles are decorated with 

 white moss, and the arch with moss interspersed with bunches 

 of fruit resembling wild grapes. The birds, young and old, 

 male and female, play merrily under and over the archway. 

 The completion of the massive bower so laboriously attained is 

 not sufficient to satisfy the architectural impulse of the bird, for 



scattered immediately around are numbers of dwarf hut-like 

 structures — gunyahs they arq called by Mr. Broadbent, who 

 remarks that they give the spot exactly the appearance of a 

 blacks' camp in miniature. 



The current number (vol. iii. No. 4) of the Journal of the 

 Bombay Natural History Society contains a paper by Lieut. 

 Barnes, on nesting in Western India, a district which, so far, 

 appears to have been treated in an incomplete fashion in works 

 on Indian oology. The writer seeks to collect, in as concise a 

 form as possible, all information at present available on the 

 subject, as a nucleus round which collectors may record their 

 observations, and thus prepare the way for a complete knowledge 

 of bird-life in Western India. Dr. Dymock writes on the means of 

 self-protection possessed by certain plants, and Mr. Hart on 

 certain branching palms, while Mr. Aitken discourses pleasantly 

 on the natural history of a voyage from Liverpool to Bombay, 

 and Mr. Oates has a short paper on the Indian and Burmese 

 scorpions of the genus Isometrus, with a description of three 

 new species. The Journal is almost always sure to contain one 

 or two papers, half scientific, half sporting, from the pens of 

 noted shikarees, which are sometimes of vivid interest. The 

 present issue has a paper of this class on the habits of the 

 sambhur, with personal reminiscences of sport in pursuit of it, 

 by Mr. Reginald Gilbert, and a striking anonymous paper 

 ent tied " Mauled by a Panther." The illustrations, as usual, 

 are numerous and of great beauty. 



With regard to the question of the inheritance of injuries, a 

 correspondent, " P. V., ' writes to us about an Irish terrier bitch 

 which had a litter by a mongrel terrier whose tail had been cut 

 off with a hatchet. Of the litter, one dog puppy was without a 

 tail. The Irish terrier belonged to " P. V.," and he says that 

 she had had several litters before, none of which were in any 

 way deformed. 



Prof. Franz Klapalek, of Prague, has been investigating 

 the rivers of Bohemia under the auspices of a committee formed 

 for their physical exploration. In the course of his researches 

 he was able to study the full life-history of Agriotypus armatus. 

 Walker, a curious hymenopterous parasite on the aquatic larvae 

 of caddis-flies, chiefly of the genus Silo. The details are 

 published in the Entomologist'' s Monthly Magazine for August, 

 with illustrations. When these larvae are attacked by the 

 parasite, the cases have always a curious band-like appendage at 

 one end. Formerly it was considered that this appendage was 

 formed by the caddis-worm, but Prof. Klapalek proves that it 

 is due to the larva of the parasite, and consists of the secretion 

 from the salivary glands. What its precise use may be does 

 not at present seem quite clear. 



Prof. W. K. Burton, of the College of Engineering, 

 Imperial University, Tokio, writes to the "jfafan Mail that the 

 Photographic Society of Japan has now been duly constituted, 

 and that there are already nearly sixty members, of whom very 

 nearly one-half are Japanese. There are a few professional 

 photographers, but the great majority are amateurs. Viscount 

 Enomoto, Minister of Education for Japan, has consented to be 

 nominated as President. A meeting of the Society was held on 

 June 7, when Mr. K. Ogawa gave a demonstration of the 

 working of the platinotype printing process of Willis, from the 

 coating of the paper to the completion of the print. 



The last monthly part of Mr, Samuel H. Scudder's "Butter- 

 flies of the Eastern United States and Canada, with especial 

 reference to New England," will be issued on October I. We 

 have already called attention to the importance of this work. It 

 makes three volumes, and contains seventeen plates of butterflies, 

 six of eggs, eleven of caterpillars, two of the nests of caterpillars, 

 three of chrysalids, two of parasites, thirty- three of structural 

 details in all stages of life, nineteen maps and groups of maps to 



