September 22, 192 1] 



NATURE 



113 



south African Mammals: A Short Manual for the 

 Use of Field Xaturalists, Sportsmen, and 

 Travellers. By A. Haagner. Pp. xx + 248. 

 (London: H. F. and G. W itherby ; Capetown: 

 T. Maskew Miller, 1920.) 205. net. 

 There is no lack of works on the subject of 

 African mammals. Some of them are of a purely 

 sporting character; others appeal more particu- 

 larly to the naturalist; Mr. Haagner 's book on 

 South African mammals claims to be a short 

 manual for the use of field naturalists, sportsmen, 

 and travellers. 



Xo other country of equal size possesses so 

 large and so varied a mammalian fauna as South 

 Africa, and it is quite a feat to describe all the 

 species occurring there in so short a compass, and 

 to illustrate the text with more than 140 photo- 

 graphic reproductions. Some of the latter no doubt 

 might, with advantage, have been omitted, as 

 they give but a poor idea of the animals alluded 

 to, and this would have left a little more, room for 

 the text. Many of the illustrations, however, are 

 good, particularly those of the zebras. 



The author, as he says in his introduction, has 

 purposely adopted a more or less "note-book" 

 stvle, and this has resulted sometimes in rather 

 loose and inadequate descriptions. For example, 

 all the information he can give us about the small 

 grey mongoose is that it is a small edition of the 

 grey mongoose, and about the same size as the 

 slender mongoose. All naturalists must dis- 

 approve of the actions of what Mr. Haagner 

 justly styles "game-butchers." It is therefore 

 all the more surprising that he should reproduce 

 as a frontispiece to his book a photograph of a 

 heap of skulls, referred to as the hunting trophies 

 of the "good old days." 



As we should expect, the book appeals more 

 directly to managers of zoological gardens 

 and to dealers in livestock. The author's unsuc- 

 cessful experiences in endeavouring to rear the 

 young of Cape hunting-dogs are shared by many 

 others. Only the Dublin Gardens have been more 

 fortunate in their efforts, and have contrived to 

 breed and rear the pups. 



Letters to the Editor. 



{The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to 

 return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manu- 

 scripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 1^0 notice is taken of anonymous communications.'] 



Communism and Science. 



In view of the article on "The Proletarisation of 

 Science in Russia " in Nature of September i, the 

 following extracts from a letter I have just received 

 from a well-known Russian professor of chemistry 

 may be of interest. I have omitted personal refer- 

 ences and a few other matters. J. \V. Mellor. 



Pottery Laboratory-, Stoke-on-Trent, 

 September 5. 



"You doubtless know the old adage, ' Primo vivere, 

 deinde philosophari. ' I do this last, but the first part, 

 * vivere, ' is more than uncertain for us who have the 



NO. 2708, VOL. 108] 



misfortune to be a little civilised, as one never knows 

 what our wild, wild taskmasters are going to do next. 

 The higher schools of Petrograd are under the control 

 of a former apprentice of the dockyards of Cronstadt, 

 who has learned to talk glibly and to sign his name 

 with an appropriate flourish. He has not the remotest 

 notions as to what is a seat of high learning ; but 

 that does not trouble him in the least, he just governs 

 according to his lights, and actualh' does his best to 

 destroy all culture, all real science, in our institutes. 

 It is just the same everywhere, and the results are 

 glaringly apparent in the utter failure of crops in 

 the east and south of Russia, due not so much to 

 exceptional climatic causes as to the countless requisi- 

 tions of ' surplus ' wheat, ' surplus ' bullocks and 

 horses, and other kindred measures of the reigning 

 proletariat. The population of some twenty provinces, 

 which supplied once upon a time almost all Russia 

 with bread and exported thousands of tons of wheat to 

 foreign lands, is now leaving their houses and fleeing 

 to the east, the north, and the west of Russia, where 

 there is still something to eat ; they spread desolation 

 wider and wider — also cholera and other diseases ; tens 

 of thousands perish daily. Almost nothing is left in 

 the devastated provinces ; they must now be colonised 

 anew. We are fortunate for the nonce in being 

 sufficiently far from these places, but the outlook for 

 us is anything but reassuring. 



" Up to now we receive a ' ration of scientists,' which 

 during 1920 was comparatively good, but is now 

 reduced to the following items, received, for instance, 

 in June : — 14 lb. of bread (made principally out of 

 sova beans) ; 1 1 lb. of soya beans (it is not generally 

 known that they contain poisonous constituents, and 

 many were the cases of poisoning) ; 19 lb. of herrings ; 

 4 lb. of tallow (the first fatty substance received since 

 February) ; 9 lb. of wheat (we eat it boiled in the 

 form of gruel) ; 3 lb. of macaroni made out of soya 

 beans ; i lb. of salt ; i^ lb. of sugar ; 3 lb. of lean pork 

 — bones and hide, no lard, and very little meat ; 5 lb. 

 of tea (surrogat) ; £ lb. of tobacco ; some matches ; 

 and I lb. of washing soda (there is no soap). During 

 the same month I received — only a few days ago — as 

 salarv for my lectures, etc., the stately sum of 21,000 

 roubles ; but as bread costs about 4000 roubles and 

 butter 30,000 roubles per lb., this sum is the equiva- 

 lent of 5 lb. of bread, or some 20 kopeks (==5^.) of 

 pre-war days. You will thus appreciate the muni- 

 ficence of my salary ; the meanest mechanic or 

 plumber gets from 250,000 to 500,000 roubles and 

 more monthly, and it is nothing unusual to pay i lb. 

 of bread or 5000 roubles for one hour of manual 

 work, whereas I, as a full-fledged professor and 

 doctor of chemistry, receive for one hour of lecture 

 450 roubles. Consequently, to nourish the members 

 of the familv (I have, fortunately, neither wife nor 

 children, but Irve with my old mother). I work in 

 kitchen-gardens, sell the few things that are still left, 

 etc. The prices for a new suit range up to 1,000,000 

 roubles ; a pair of old high boots, which I could not 

 wear and which cost originally some fifteen years 

 ago 14 roubles, fetches now 700,000 roubles, as boots 

 are verv scarce ; for a shirt you get 2 lb. of butter. 

 During the first six months of 192 1 my mother and I 

 have eaten different foods to the value, of about 

 6,000.000 roubles. 



"Needless to sav that, in spite of these millions, we 

 are now paupers in the strict sense of the word. All 

 mv savings, made little by little during more than 

 twentv-five years of professorship, were p'aced in 

 State loans and annulled in 1917; our small landed 

 estate not far from Petrograd was taken from us in 

 1918, and is now completelv devastated, all the woods 

 having been cut. It would be now utterly impos- 



