December 29, 19 10] 



NATURE 



2%'^ 



classed under the genus Hadrocheilus, and are dis- 

 tinguished by numerous specific names. 



Mr. G. C. Crick describes a new genus and species of 

 dibranchiate cephalopod, Belemnocamax boweri, from the 

 Lower Chalk (Totternhoe Stone) of Lincolnshire (Proc. 

 Geol. Assoc., vol. xxi., 1910, p. 360). Belemnocamax 

 resembles Actinocamax generally, but has a broad ventral 

 furrow, and fine longitudinal striae near the point of the 

 guard. 



Dr. A. Till (Verhandl. k.k. geol. Reichsanstalt, 1909, 

 p. 194) establishes a new genus, Villania, for an ammonite 

 allied to Perisphinctes, found in an Oxfordian horizon at 

 V'ill^ny, in Hungary. 



Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell continues his studies of Tertiary 

 insects (.4m. Journ. Sci., vol. xxvii., 1909, p. 381), intro- 

 ducing three new genera, and Mr. H. F. Wickham (ibid., 

 vol. xxix., 1910, p. 47) compliments him by describing 

 Calosoma cockerelli, among other fossil Coleoptera from 

 the Florissant (Oligocene) deposits of Colorado. 



Mr. L. J. Wills (Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xxi., 1910, 

 p. 302), in a paper on the fossiliferous Lower Keuper rocks 

 of Worcestershire, describes in considerable detail three 

 species of Mesophonus, a new scorpion, fragmental re- 

 mains of which occur abundantly at Bromsgrove. 

 Numerous photographs of these remains are given, as well 

 as of the plants from the same strata. 



Mr. Bashford Dean's studies on fossil fishes (sharks, 

 chimaeroids, and arthrodires) forms part v. of the ninth 

 volume of the Memoirs of the American Museum of 

 Natural History (1909). The memoir is finely illustrated, 

 and deals mainly with the cladoselachians of the Devonian 

 period, which are viewed, in agreement with the opinion 

 of Dr. A. S. Woodward, as primitive sharks. The author 

 regards them as nearer the earliest fish-type than are the 

 acanthodians of the Upper Silurian epoch (p. 247). Photo- 

 graphs and descriptions of mounted skulls of Dinichthys 

 and Titanichthys are also given. 



The distribution of the Deinosauria in time and through 

 geographical areas is the subject of a memoir by Mr. 

 R. S. Lull (.4w. Journ. Sci., vol. xxix., 1910, p. i). As 

 the result of a wide range of reading, the author has 

 drawn up distributional tables, and maps illustrating the 

 probable routes of migration. The maps furnished by 

 De Lapparent for various Mesozoic periods are found to 

 supply the necessary bridges between existing lands in 

 which deinosaurian remains have been found. Incident- 

 ally, several suggestive remarks are made. On p. 5 

 bipedal movement is associated with the necessity for 

 rapidly traversing lands increasing in ariditv'. The 

 bipedal lizards of the present day occur in semi-arid areas. 

 The carnivorous and bipedal deinosaurs, the Theropoda, 

 are the most widely distributed, and appear to have 

 followed any other forms that furnished them with food. 

 Ihe armoured and herbivorous Orthopoda are regarded as 

 originating with Scelidosaurus of the English Lias, and 

 as having become sluggish and quadrupedal in the course 

 of time, when their heavy armour rendered them impreg- 

 nable (p. 11). At this period, including the epochs when 

 Polacanthus and Triceratops flourished, vegetation and 

 water seem to have been abundant. The mysterv of the 

 extinction of the deinosaurs is not lightened by the pass- 

 ing reference to geographical conditions on p. 37. 



Mr. Harold Brodrick (Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc, vol. 

 X., part v., 1909, p. 327) describes and figures footprints, 

 doubtless deinosaurian, found by him in the Inferior Oolite 

 at Saltwick, south of Whitby. It would be verv interest- 

 ing to know if the zone also contains marine fossils, in 

 view of Mr. Lull's comparison of aquatic deinosaurs and 

 hippopotamuses, the latter having been seen to move from 

 estuary to estuary through sea-water. 



Mr. A. Zdarsky contributes a memoir on the Miocene 

 Mammalia of Leoben, in St\ria, to the Jahrbuch der k.k. 

 geologischen Reichsanstalt, Bd. lix., 1909, p. 245. These 

 occur in a terrestrial sandstone above clay and brown 

 coal, the last-named stratum resting on Palaeozoic slates. 

 Various rhinoceroses and Suidae occur. Among the latter, 

 the author places a new genus and species, Xenochoerus 

 leohensis (p. 264), represented by part of a mandible and 

 a row of teeth from the upper jaw. Mastodon and Deino- 

 therium are both present, and the deposit appears (p. 287) 

 to be of Middle Miocene age. 



Mr. Franz Toula, in the same journal (Bd. lix., 1910, 

 NO. 2148, VOL. 85] 



p. 575), records the results of an investigation of a pre- 

 glacial or interglacial bone-deposit near Kronstadt, in 

 Transylvania. The mammalian remains collected from 

 this in recent years have become somewhat scattered ; 

 but the author has examined most of them, and especially 

 describes the teeth of a new form, Rhinoceros kron- 

 stadtensis (p. 580). Among the bones of Cervus there is 

 a phalange that suggests the presence of the giant deer 

 of Ireland. 



The Sitsungsberichte vom naturhistorischen Verein der 

 preussischen Rheinlande und Westfalens for 190S (pub- 

 lished in 1909) contains numerous abstracts of papers read 

 before its component societies. Dr. Elbert described at 

 Miinster (Section C, p. 51) his expedition to Java in search 

 of the predecessors of the human race. It may be well 

 to recall that he found traces of hearths in deposits that 

 showed the existence of man side by side with Stegodon. 

 He believes that primaeval man entered Java with the 

 Siwalik fauna at the close of Cainozoic times, and that 

 Pithecanthropus was entombed during a cold " diluvial " 

 epoch, when floods were caused by the action of lavas on 

 the snows. The evidence for this colder epoch is furnished 

 by the fossil plants of the Kendeng beds, which represent 

 species that now live at much higher elevations. Dr. 

 Elbert considers that Pithecanthropus was forced to re- 

 treat before primaeval man, while a land-connection was 

 still open with Celebes, and that various pigmy races may 

 have descended from this genus. 



Without entering seriously on the literature of primitive 

 man as a branch of palaeontology, we may perhaps direct 

 attention to the spirited description by the late Com- 

 mandant Molard of the prehistoric drawings of animals 

 in the cave of Niaux, in Arifege (Spelunca, tome vii., p. 3), 

 and to Dr. Florentino Ameghino's illustrated account, 

 previously promised, of stone implements found near Mar 

 del Plata. The latter paper (Anales del Museo Sacional 

 de Buenos .Aires, tomo xx., April 22, p. 189) maintains 

 that the pebbles with chipped ends are in some ways more 

 primitive than eoliths, and attributes them to Homo 

 pampaeus of the Tertiary era. G. A. J. C. 



.4 MOXOGR.APH OF THE JELLYFISHES."^ 



A NY attempt to arrange the Medusae of the world in 

 "^ a natural and convenient zoological system is beset 

 with so many exceptional difficulties that the author of 

 this very fine monograph must at least be congratulated 

 on the courage he has shown and the patience he has 

 exhibited in preparing and publishing his work. 



Since Haeckel wrote his famous " System der Medusen " 

 in 1879 there has been no other standard monograph on 

 the group for systematic zoologists to consult, and the 

 need for a comprehensive revision of his classification has 

 been acutely felt. In many cases the forms which Haeckel 

 described as distinct genera have proved, in the light of 

 more modern research, to be but stages in the develop- 

 ment of one genus ; many new genera and species have 

 iieen described, and our knowledge of the life-history, 

 anatomy, and physiology of many of the old species has 

 been very widely extended. To bring together the results 

 of all these investigations into one great monograph, to 

 criticise, and to rearrange the genera, is the task which 

 Mr. Mayer has attempted, and, it may be said, with no 

 small measure of success. 



The principal difficulty in the systematic arrangement 

 and nomenclature of the Medusae arises from the fact that 

 in some cases, but not in all, the free-swimming, bell-like 

 and sexually mature organism represents only a stage in 

 the life-history of an individual, or the detached sexual 

 organ of an individual which has an altogether different 

 form, and there are many examples of the sedentary or 

 h}droid stage of a species being known by one generic 

 name and the free-swimming or medusoid stage by 

 another. It may have been an ideal of the earlier writers, 

 which they themselves could not hope to attain, that 

 ultimately the sum total of the life-histon.' of a single 

 sp>ecies would be united under one generic and one specific 

 name. But this ideal appears to be in these days not only 



1 " Medusae of the World." By Alfred Goldsbcrongh Mayer. 3 Vols. 

 Vol. i., pp. iv+2;o+xv; Vol. ii., pp. iv+23i-4c8+xv ; Vol. iiL, pp. iv-f 

 493~735- (Carnegie Insiitution of Washington, 1910.) 



