December i, 1910] 



NATURE 



147 



what of the Sampson-Delilah type, in which a strong man 

 loses his power through love of a woman. She, however, 

 atones for this by allowing herself to be buried with his 

 corpse, by which means she and her lover revive, and the 

 grave becomes an iron house in which they live happily 

 ever after. 



So much discussion has arisen on the subject of eoliths 

 that it is refreshing to find the case reviewed with good 

 sense, knowledge of the conditions under which natural 

 cleavage of flint may simulate the work of primitive man, 

 and the provision of such a complete series of illustra- 

 tions in the paper contributed to vol. xxi. of U Anihro- 

 pologie by L'Abbe H. Breuil, entitled " Sur la presence 

 d'telithes a la base de 1 'Eocene Parisien." We can only 

 direct attention to this admirable essay, a study of which 

 may be commended to certain enthusiasts on this side of 

 the Channel. The same remarks apply to another con- 

 tribution to the same magazine by M. G. H. Luquet, 

 entitled " Sur les caract^res des figures humaines dans 

 I'art paleolithique," where the styles of this primitive art 

 are illustrated by numerous well-selected sketches. The 

 author is, on the whole, inclined to question the theory 

 that a magical intention underlies the treatment of the 

 sexual characteristics which are so prominent in the cave 

 drawings. 



Dr. Friederici, in describing the distribution of the 

 sling in America (Globus, xcviii., p. 287), finds that it 

 I occurs practically everywhere if stones can be found. He 

 I seems to have misrepresented Peschel, who does not state 

 (at all events in the English edition) that " slings cannot 

 j be used in tropical virgin forest," but that they " could 

 not be used in the forest country of the Amazon," because, 

 as he had previously stated, " no shingle is to be found." 

 Slings could only be employed on the narrow paths, in 

 clearings, or by rivers, but in such a country the bow is 

 better than the sling ; the spear-thrower is impracticable, 

 as it requires so much elbow-room. He comes to the 

 fairly obvious conclusion that the sling has been independ- 

 ently invented in various parts of the world. 



In the Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital for 

 November (xxi.. No. 236) Dr. Harvey Cushing surveys 

 the present status of neurological surgery, and shows how 

 much has been accomplished during the last few years. 

 Incidentally, Dr. Cushing deals with the value of ex- 

 perimentation on the lower animals. He says : — " There 

 j is no question but that a training for neurological surgery 

 must come through laboratory experiences, and just as we 

 I are indebted to experimentation on the lower animals for 

 j almost every fact of importance which has made for the 

 j advance of this particular department, so also must we 

 I call upon them for the mere practice of hand essential to 



i success in their clinical applications. Those who oppose 

 the employmgnt of animals for such purposes would leave 

 us the only alternative of subjecting our fellow-man, as a 

 , lesser creature, to our first crude manipulations." 



Ever since it was first discovered that sleeping sick- 



, ness in Uganda was disseminated by the dusky tsetse-flv, 



I Glossina palpalis, it has been a moot point whether or 



i not other species of tsetse-flies are capable of transmitting 



')^Try^anosoma gambiense. The question is one of the 



I greatest practical importance, since upon the answer it 



I depends whether sleeping sickness is confined necessarily 



to those regions where G. palpalis is found, or whether 



It may spread over a vastly wider extent of the -African 



icontinent into regions in which other species of tsetses 



joccur. Prof. Kleine in German East Africa carried out 



NO. 2144, VOL. 85] 



some experiments with G. morsitans which led him to 

 the conclusion that T. gambiense was unable to go through 

 its development in, or be transmitted by, this species of 

 tsetse (vide Sleeping Sickness Bureau Bulletin, No. 11, 

 Appendix, and No. 18, p. 197). Recently, however, several 

 cases of sleeping sickness have been reported from north- 

 eastern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, from regions far south 

 of the most southerly point at which G. palpalis is known 

 to occur. It is believed that in these cases the trans- 

 mitting agent is G. morsitans, and, if so, it is an extremely 

 serious matter. It is to be hoped that the question will 

 be thoroughly investigated without delay. 



The seventy-fourth Bulletin of the United States 

 National Museum consists of an account of some West 

 Indian Echinoids, by Mr. Theodor Mortensen, of the 

 Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen. The 

 memoir is a short one, extending only to thirty-one pages, 

 but it contains a revised list of North American, Atlantic, 

 and West Indian Echinoids, amounting to eighty-two 

 species, which should be of great value to the systematist. 

 The work is illustrated by seventeen plates of remarkable 

 beauty. 



As we learn from a recently published guide-book, by 

 the curator, the exhibited series of British birds in the 

 Hull Municipal Museum is of unusual extent and interest. 

 It includes, for instance, a large collection made by the 

 late Sir Henry Boynton, a second formed by the late Mr. 

 H. J. R. Pease, and a third known as the Riley-Fortune 

 collection. Two at least of these collections were found 

 to supplement one another, and all three are rich in York- 

 shire specimens. The guide is illustrated by reproductions 

 from photographs of some of the groups. 



Bird-marking is being carried on as energeticallv in the 

 United States as in Europe, and, according to an article 

 by Mr. L. J. Cole in the .4ufe for April, with equally 

 satisfactory results. Open aluminium bands are now 

 employed in place of closed rings, but these, owing to 

 their hardness, are not altogether suitable for the purpose. 

 Up to December i, 1909, there were recovered 911 banded 

 birds. Special interest attaches to a number of night- 

 herons banded at Barnstable, Mass., of which a consider- 

 able proportion was recovered. After leaving the heronries 

 these birds scattered in a northerly direction, this direc- 

 tion being largely due to the circumstance that there is no 

 land to the south. The movement indicates, however, a 

 tendency on the part of all young birds to disperse from 

 the neighbourhood of the nests in which they were reared, 

 owing to food-supplies having been rendered scarce. 



The question whether bees are capable of distinguishing 

 different colours has been much discussed, one observer 

 maintaining that the varied hue of Alpine flowers is for 

 the purpose of enabling bees to remain constant to a 

 particular species of plant, so that pollination is effected 

 to the mutual advantage of the bees and the flowers. On 

 the other hand it has been argued that flowers might be 

 as green as leaves without any hindrance to pollination by 

 insects. To test the question, Mr. J. H. Lovell conducted 

 a series of experiments with glass slides of different colours, 

 rendered attractive by patches of honey, to see which par- 

 ticular kind bees would visit, a blue slide being, for 

 instance, offered first, then a red one placed alongside, 

 and, finally, the positions of the two exchanged. As the 

 result of these experiments the observer states, at the con- 

 clusion of a paper in the November number of the 

 American Naturalist, that " bees easily distinguish colours, 

 whether they are artificial (paints, dyes, &c.) or natural 

 (' chlorophyl ') colours. They are more strongly in- 



