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NATUR'E 



[OexoBER 13, 1921 



The members of the British Associatibn had, during 

 their recent visit to Edinburgh, an opportunity of 

 examining the remarkable hoard found in 1819 at 

 Taprain Law, a conical hill nearly midway between 

 Haddington and Dunbar. The excavations were 

 carried on by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 

 to whom Mr. Balfour, the owner of the land, gener- 

 ously presented all that was found, which is now 

 ey.hibited in the Scottish National Museum. It is 

 almost certain that this great collection of silver plate 

 was a robbers' hoard. Some of the objects are plainly 

 Christian, others pagan, with traces of Oriental de- 

 coration. The Saxons were notorious sea-raiders, while 

 the native Celts were not, and the hoard possibly 

 consists of plunder from churches or private houses 

 somewhere on the Continent. It may be assumed 

 that the cache was made about 1500 years ago, and 

 the raiders who buried it were probably inter- 

 rupted by the approach of another and stronger force, 

 leaving the treasure to be unearthed by excavators in 

 our time. 



In the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research 

 Society for March, 192 1, Dr. W. H. R. Rivers dis- 

 cusses the origin of that remarkable custom of mar- 

 riage, peculiar to the Rajputs, known to anthro- 

 pologists as hypergamy. Under this system a man 

 must take his wife from a group of equal or lower 

 rank than his own, while a woman must marry a 

 man from a group of equal or higher rank than 

 her own. He suggests that it arose as the result 

 of the influence of certain conditions operating in 

 the case of the occupation of a country by a race 

 of warriors — a sentiment among the invaders against 

 the union of their women with the indigenous 

 inhabitants of their new home ; the fact that 

 many women, but in numbers smaller than 

 those of the men, accompanied the invaders; the 

 warlike character of the invaders, and their 

 superiority in equipment over the indigenous 

 people, which allowed them to satisfy their own 

 desire for union with the indigenous women without 

 giving their own women in return. The first of these 

 conditions was probably the most important. The 

 institution became specialised among the Rajputs be- 

 cause among the other immigrant race, that of the 

 Brahmans, who had the same sentiment about their 

 women, their sanctity enforced endogamy. " It is 

 probably to this positive character of the sanctity 

 of the Brahman rather than to the negative char- 

 , acter of their unwarlike nature that we must look 

 for the clue to the development of endogamy in place 

 of the hypergamy of the Rajputs." 



In the Irish Naturalist for September the Rev. 

 W. F, Johnson continues his valuable observations on 

 the Irish Ichneumonidae and Braconidae, and records 

 more than one hundred species belonging to these ob- 

 scure and little known groups of Hymenoptera, mainly 

 from Poyntzpass. Three species are added to the 

 British and Irish list, Microcryptus femoralis, Glypta 

 schneideri, and Mesoleius fraternus. 



Annals of the South African Museum (vol, 18, 

 part 3) consists of an important illustrated monograph 

 NO. 271 1, VOL. 108] 



by Dr. F. Ris on "The Dragon-flies of South Africa." 

 It occupies upwards of 200 pages, and is prefaced by 

 a general account of those structural features which 

 are useful in classification. Both sub-orders of these 

 insects are well represented, and one genus and rather 

 more than a dozen species are described as new. The 

 work should prove valuable to resident entomologists 

 in South Africa as an aid to the identification of the 

 various species, and at the same time enable them to 

 extend our very meagre knowledge of the biology of 

 the dragon-flies of the countries concerned. 



Owing to the damage wrought by vast numbers of 

 ducks on the rice-fields of California an aeroplane 

 patrol was established, charged with the task of flymg 

 over the fields to frighten away the birds. This 

 method was inaugurated in 1919, and was so success- 

 ful that now five aeroplanes " are kept busy, makmg 

 both night and day flights to frigbten off the wild 

 ducks." But while the farmers are highly pleased, 

 the American Game Protection Association is greatly 

 perturbed, and this because of the number of birds 

 killed bv striking the propellers and guy-ropes. Thus, 

 according to the July issue of California Fish and 

 Game, the association has demanded that permits for 

 the use of aeroplanes for this purpose should be 

 revoked. 



In the August issue of the Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine Mr. E. E. Green describes two new species 

 of Coccidse from Britain, viz. Pseudococcus paludinus, 

 nov., and Riper sia scirpi, nov. The former occurred 

 on the foliage of various plants in Wicken Fen, and 

 the latter was met with at Camberley on the stems 

 of Scirpus caespitosus. Mr. L. A. Box records Grono- 

 toma nigricornis. Keef., a Cynipoid insect new to the 

 fauna of Britain. The insect was bred from the pupae 

 of an Agromyzid fly found at Blakeney Point, Norfolk. 

 In the September issue of the same journal Mr. B. P. 

 Uvarov describes a new genus and species of wmgless, 

 long-horned grasshoppers from the collection in the 

 British Museum. The species, which is named 

 Chapardina importata, was obtained from a green- 

 house at Richmond, and there is no doubt that it was 

 imported from some exotic country. The land of its 

 origin is a matter for speculation, and it may possibly 

 have come originally from some part of the Oriental 

 region. 



In La Nature (No. 2475) M. Leon Bertin reviews 

 recent work on the so-called habit of feigning death 

 which has been attributed to many animals belonging 

 to varied groups, especially to mammals and arthro- 

 pods. The phenomenon has been variously ascribed 

 to conscious action or intelligence, instinct, or an 

 extreme state of fear, and M. Bertin protests against 

 these vague anthropomorphic explanations unsup- 

 ported bv systematic study and experimental proof. 

 He cites the work of M. Rabaud, who showed that by 

 the stimulation of certain areas of the body of arthro- 

 pods, particularly the sternum and the lateral parts of 

 the thorax, a state of catalepsy or insensibility could 

 be induced, lasting for varied times according to 

 the strength of the stimulus, the particular animal 

 operated on, and even the temperature. Similarly, 



