4$l6 



NATURE 



\_March 6, 1879 



Stylaster, previously unknown (or nearly so) in the living 

 state, although familiar as dry and bleached museum 

 specimens. These, when freshly dredged by the 

 Challenger, were treated by Mr. Moseley with those 

 subtle devices known only to trained histologists, and as 

 a result, he has been able to give the full anatomy of the 

 soft parts of these corals, to show that they are com- 

 pound organisms with variously differentiated "tentacular 



Fig. I. — The bird and the rat living together in the same hole. 



polyps" (dactylozooids) and "mouth polyps" (gastro- 

 zooids), and that they constitute a new group of hydroids, 

 and do not belong to the Anthozoa or ordinary coral- 

 producing class of polyps. The results of this elaborate 

 investigation, forming the Croonian lecture for 1878, 

 have been recently published, illustrated with twelve 

 quarto plates by the Royal Society. 



Whilst thus actually producing the chief zoological 



Fig. 2. — Periophthalv.us Kolreitteri (on land ; in the act of leapir. 



results of the expedition, Mr. Moseley had specially 

 undertaken the collection of plants, since no professed 

 botanist was attached to the Challenger . The Journal of 

 the Linnean Society, vols, xiv., xv., xvi., xviii., contain a 

 large series of papers by Professors Oliver and Dickie, 

 the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, and others, on the plants thus 

 collected by Mr. Moseley' s own hands on the islands 

 visited by the Challetiger. Not content with zoology 



Fig. 3. — Peripatns capensis (natural size). 



and botany alone, or rather, one should say, bringing his 

 powers to bear on selected samples of the whole range of 

 biology, Mr. Moseley has published the only anthropo- 

 logical memoir which has come to us from the Challenger 

 staff— namely, an elaborate and careful account of an 

 undescribed people— the inhabitants of the Admiralty 

 Islands. 



The results of all these researches are hghtly sketched 

 and often illustrated by woodcuts in the pages of the 

 present volume, of which, however, they form but a limited 

 portion. A still further development of biological science, 

 namely, sociology— the history of civilisation, of manners, 

 customs, and beliefs, is what the reader will find largely 

 occupying Mr. Moseley' s note-book, now published. And 

 indeed, most entertaining and striking notes they are; 

 the sayings and doings, the clothes and the amusements, 

 the religions and the physical surroundings of Polyne- 

 sians, Malays, Brazilians, Japanese, Chinese, seal-fishers, 

 and English colonists, being set down as they impressed 

 the observant mind of the author, accompanied by most 

 trenchant comparisons and ingenious reflections which 

 are characterised by a singular humour peculiar to him. 

 Mixed with these, according to locality, we have, literally 

 innumerable observations and suggestions with regard 

 to such matters as basaltic columns, antarctic glaciers,, 

 flying-fish, fur-seals, phosphorescence, penguins, cock- 

 roaches, Kerguelen cabbages, land-crabs, and whales. 



A few extracts will suffice to show that, whilst Mr. 

 Moseley's note-book will have special value for the pro- 

 fessed naturalist, it is also eminently readable, and is 

 likely to obtain great popularity amongst all those who 

 have imaginations sufficiently vivid to allow their pos- 

 sessors to experience that intense form of pleasure which 

 a good book of travels can generate. An enumeratiori 

 of the titles of the chapters, to begin with, will show 

 something of the distribution of matter in the book. 



We have — I. Teneriffe, St. Thomas, Bermuda ; II. 

 Azores, Madeira, Cape Verdes ; III, St. Paul's Rocks 

 and Fernando do Norhona ; IV. Bahia ; V. Tristan da 

 Cunha, Inaccessible Island, Nightingale Island; VL 

 Cape of Good Hope; VII. Prince Edward 

 Island, the Crozet Islands; VIII. Kerguelen's 

 Land ; IX. Heard Island ; X. Amongst the 

 Southern Ice ; XI. Victoria, New South Wales ; 

 XII. New Zealand, the Friendly Islands, Matuku 

 Island; XIII. Fiji Islands; XIV. New He- 

 brides, Cape York, Torres Straits ; XV. Aru, 

 Ke, Banda, Amboina ; XVI. The Philippine 

 Islands; XVII. China, New Guinea; XVIII. 

 The Admiralty Islands; XIX. Japan, the Sand- 

 wich Islands ; XX. Tahiti, Juan Fernandez ; 

 XXI. Chile, Magellan' s Straits, Falkland Islands, 

 Ascension; XXII. Life on the Ocean Surface 

 and in the Deep Sea, Zoology and Botany of the 

 Ship, Conclusion. 



Take the following description of a Penguin 

 rookery at Tristan da Cunha(p. 120) as an example 

 of Mr. Moseley's style. " It is impossible to con- 

 ceive the discomfort of making one's way through a big 

 rookery, haphazard, or ' across country,' as one may say. 

 I crossed the large one here twice afterwards with seamen 

 carrying my basket and vasculum, and afterwards went 

 through a larger rookery still, at Nightingale Island. You 

 plunge into one of the lanes in the tall grass, which at once 

 shuts out the surroundings from your view. You tread on a 

 slimy black damp soil composed of the bird's dung. The 

 _: stench is overpowering, the yelling of the birds per- 

 fectly terrifying; I can call it nothing else. You 

 lose the path, or perhaps are bent from the first on. 

 making direct for some spot on the other side of the 

 rookery. In the path only a few droves of pen- 

 guins, on their way to and from the water are 

 encountered, and these stampede out of your way 

 into the side-alleys. Now you are, the instant 

 you leave the road, on the actual breeding-ground. The 

 nests are placed so thickly that you cannot help treading 

 on eggs and young birds at almost every step. A parent 

 bird sits on each nest with its sharp beak erect and open 

 ready to bite, yelling savagely ' caa, caa, urr, urr,' its red 

 eye gleaming, and its plumes at half-cock, quivering with 

 rage. No sooner are your legs within reach than they 



