76 



NATURE 



\_Ncv. 28, 1878 



British Museum by the late Dr. Gray, which, being asso- 

 ciated with some British newts, were supposed to have 

 been obtained in the neighbourhood of London. Through 

 a somewhat similar error, some specimens in the collection 

 of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris were believed by Valen- 

 ciennes to have been obtained in France, near Toul, and 

 other examples were supposed to have been found living 

 at Antwerp. It has thus come to pass that naturalists, 

 copying one from another, have assigned "England, 

 France, and Belgium " as the locality of this newt. It 

 now turns out, from M. Lataste's researches, that all these 

 localities are erroneous, and that the so-called Triton 

 "vittattis is no other than the Triton ophryticus of Ber- 

 thold, an Eastern species of newt which is found in 

 Syria and Asia Minor. The British newts are now, 

 therefore, reduced to three in number — the crested newt 

 {Triton cristatus) and the smooth newt {Triton tceni- 

 atus), both of ordinary occurrence, and the rarer pal- 

 mated newt {T. palmatus). 



Sperm Whales on European Coasts. — Prof. 

 Turner, of Edinburgh, has been collecting and inves- 

 tigating a number of rare prints of sperm whales stranded 

 on European coasts at the end of the sixteenth and 

 beginning of the seventeenth centuries. One of these 

 illustrates a whale caught in the port of Ancona in 1601, 

 56 feet long, 33 feet in girth ; the scene is an active and 

 lively one, representing a landscape, fishing-boats, men 

 engaged in cutting up the whale, spectators, &c. The 

 Netherlands seem to have had numerous specimens 

 stranded. These, like those occasionally visiting the 

 Scottish coast, are all males, which, when fully grown, 

 appear to go singly in search of food. Other whales, as 

 cachalots, visit the south in larger numbers. Over thirty 

 cachalots, mostly females, were stranded in 1784 in the 

 Bay of Audierne, department of Finisterre ; and a school 

 visited Citta Nuova, in the Adriatic,. in 1853. 



American Jurassic Dinosaurs. — Prof. O. C. Marsh 

 publishes in the current number (November) of the 

 American Journal of Science and Arts the principal 

 characters of some new species of dinosaurs. On the 

 flanks of the Rocky Mountains a narrow belt can be 

 traced for several hundred miles, which is always marked 

 by the bones of gigantic dinosaurs. The strata consist 

 mainly of estuary deposits of shale and sandstone, and 

 the horizon is clearly upper Jurassic ; the dinosaurian 

 remains in this series of strata are mostly of enormous 

 size, and indicate the largest land animals hitherto known. 

 One new species {Atlantosaunis immanis) must have 

 been at least eighty feet in length and several others 

 ' nearly equalled it in bulk. With these monsters occur 

 the most diminutive dinosaurs yet found, one (Nanosaurus) 

 not being larger than a cat. Some of these new forms 

 differ so widely from typical dinosauria that Prof. Marsh 

 has established a new sub-order to receive them, called 

 Sauropida, from the general character of the feet. They 

 are the least specialised forms of the order, and in some 

 of their characters show such an approach to the mesozoic 

 crocodiles as to suggest a common ancestry at no very 

 remote period. In them the front and hind limbs are 

 nearly equal in size ; the feet are plantigrade with five 

 toes on each foot. The carpal and tarsal bones are dis- 

 tinct ; the precaudal vertebrae contain large, apparently 

 pneumatic cavities ; the sacral vertebrae do not exceed 

 four, and each supports its own transverse process. The 

 pubic bones unite in front by a ventral symphisis ; the 

 limb bones are solid. One of the species described and 

 partly figured in Prof. Marsh's paper is called Morosaurus 

 ^randis ; when alive it was about forty feet in length ; 

 it walked on all four legs, was probably very sluggish in 

 its movements, and had a brain proportionately smaller 

 than any known vertebrate. 



Zoological Station at Trieste. — It may not be 

 generally known that the University of Vienna in addition 



to having a zoological establishment in Vienna, has also 

 founded a zoological station on the borders of the Adriatic 

 Sea at Trieste. The general director of both is Prof. 

 Dr. Claus. The assistant at Vienna is Dr. C. Grobben, 

 and the inspector at Trieste is Dr. Ed. Graeflfe. As a 

 first fruits of these two excellent establishments Prof. 

 C. Claus has published Part i of a handsome Svo 

 volume entitled "Work Done at the Zoological Insti- 

 tute of the ' Vienna University and at the Zoological 

 Station in Trieste." The work done consists of i. A very 

 exhaustible memoir, by Dr. Claus, on a new species of 

 Halistemma {H. tcrgestinum), with remarks on the minute 

 structure of the Physophoridae. This memoir is illus- 

 trated by five folding plates, 2. Contributions to our 

 knowledge of the male reproductive organs in the Deca- 

 pod Crustacea, with remarks on their comparative 

 anatomy as compared with the same organs in the rest 

 of the Thoracostraca, by Dr. C. Grobben, with six folding 

 plates. 3. On the origin of the nervous vagus in the 

 Selachians, with special regard to the electrical lobes in 

 Torpedo ; this is illustrated with woodcuts and one plate. 

 The University of Vienna and Prof. Claus are indeed to 

 be heartily congratulated at these first results from their 

 new institution. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



At the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 

 Monday last, a paper on " Usambara, East Africa, and 

 the Adjoining Country," was read by the Rev. J. P. 

 Farler, who has spent the last three years there in con- 

 nection with the Universities' Mission. Usambara is de- 

 scribed as the Switzerland of Africa, and forms a link in 

 the great East Coast range, which extends from Abys- 

 sinia to Natal; roughly speaking, it lies between S. lat. 

 4° 20' and 5° 25', and E. long. 38^ 20' and 39° 10'. The 

 mountains form four detached lines running due north 

 and south, and rising in the higher peaks to about 6,000 

 feet above the sea-level. The range was evidently thrown 

 up by volcanic action, and consists of granite mixed with 

 spar, with sandstone in the lower spurs containing plum- 

 bago. Mr. Farler describes the scenery as varied and 

 beautiful, now soft valleys and hill-sides with hanging 

 woods, now again wild ravines with precipitous 

 cliffs of bare granite. Usambara is drained by four 

 rivers : the Zigi, with its affluent, the Kihuwi, the 

 Mkulumuzi, the Ukumbini, and the Luari, the two first- 

 named emptying into Tanga Bay ; none of the four, how- 

 ever, are navigable. Trees are found in the region in 

 great variety, but mostly of stunted growth ; euphorbias, 

 fan -palms, and mimosa thorns are seen everywhere, and 

 occasionally baobabs, tamarind-trees, and clusters of the 

 Borassus palm ; there is also a kind of wild palm-tree. 

 Various animals are found in the Mjika, or wilderness — 

 antelopes varying from the size of a cow to that of a 

 small goat, gazelles, lions, leopards, hyaenas, and large 

 apes. Mr. Farler mentions a noteworthy peculiarity in 

 regard to the River Mkulumuzi, which in the rainy 

 season becomes a torrent : " The stream has cut a 

 deep bed for itself in the granite sides of the mountain, 

 I and exploring this bed in the dry season, I have found 

 j perfectly round, well-like basins in the rock, varying 

 i from a foot in diameter and depth to 10 feet in diameter, 

 i and from 8 to 12 feet in depth. There is always a stone 

 I at the bottom of these basins, and they must have been 

 j formed by the torrent giving, during the rainy season, 

 I a rotary motion to the stone." The soil throughout 

 I Usambara is a red disintegrated clay upon a granite and 

 i sandstone foundation, and covered with a rich vegetable 

 j loam ; the bottoms of the valleys contain beds of alluvial 

 i clay. Probably no more fertile soil could be found in the 

 world, and it is capable of producing every tropical plant. 

 The flora of the region is extensive ; in the forests are 

 found ebony, copal, teak, acacia, the india-rubber tree, 



