86 



NATURE 



[March 17, 192 1 



no coUections have yet been made. The biological 

 phenoniena concerning these insects are of great 

 interest, especially those bearing upon gall-production, 

 parthenogenesis, and alternation of generations. In 

 article v, the author adds sixteen species to those 

 already known, and eight plates are devoted to por- 

 traying the particular types of galls produced by them. 

 Article vi. is devoted to a summary of our knowledge 

 of the life-histories of gall-wasps, together with notes 

 on those of a number of American species. We hope 

 the author will see his way at a future date to study 

 their larvae and the development of the galls in which 

 the latter live. In article vii. are many interesting 

 observations on the phylogeny and general biology of 

 the family. The author tells us that 86 per cent, of 

 the known species of gall-wasps affect Quercus, and 

 are confined to that genus. .Another 7 per cent, are 

 confined to species of Rosa. The remaining 7 per 

 cent, are found in plants belonging to various natural 

 orders, and it is evident therefrom that 93 per cent, 

 of the known Cynipidae are restricted to two genera of 

 plants only. Among other features a table is given 

 of the proportions of the sexes which obtain in the 

 various species. In some cases males are unknown, 

 and in others the proportion of this sex to females 

 varies from 1-5 per cent, in Rhodites rosae to 55 per 

 cent, in Aulacidea podagrae. The author concludes 

 that alternation of generations is a more or less 

 extreme type of seasonal dimorphism, and is primarily 

 due to seasonal environmental conditions. 



.'\ccoRDiNG to the annual report on the Forest 

 .Administration of Nigeria for 1919, out of a total 

 estimated forest area of 218,000 square miles only 

 3143 square miles have so far been permanently 

 reserved as forest, though an additional area of 

 2558 square miles is in process of reservation ; this 

 will bring the area of reserved forests to 26 per cent, 

 of the total estimated forest area and less than 17 per 

 cent, of the total area of Nigeria. The Director of 

 Forests urges with good reason the necessity for 

 more rapid progress in the reservation of forests up 

 to at least 25 per cent, of the total area of the country, 

 the urgency being the greater from the fact that the 

 forests are otherwise threatened with destruction by 

 shifting cultivation. Scientific forest management is 

 still in its infancy. There are no working plans, and 

 meanwhile the forests are worked under a crude form 

 of selection fellings regulated by a minimum-girth 

 limit, this being the only method of treatment possible 

 with the present small staff. Artificial regeneration 

 has made some slight progress, and the Director of 

 Forests is alive to the possibility, under suitable 

 conditions, of raising plantations with the aid of 

 shifting cultivation — a system found so successful in 

 Burma. The chief timbers extracted are described 

 as mahoganies and cedars, together with Terminalia 

 superba, Mitragyna macrophylla, Scottelia kamerun- 

 ensis, Lophira procera, and Uapaca Staudtii. Ex- 

 ports consisted almost entirely of mahogany, to the 

 extent of 8516 logs valued at 115,820^ 



A MEMOIR on "North-Western Queensland," issued 

 as. Publication 265 by the Queensland Geological 

 Survey (1920), describes a region of metamorphosed 

 NO. 2681, VOL. 107] 



sediments, possibly Silurian, unconformably overlain 

 by Jurassic strata with artesian water, and including 

 important mines of copper and iron. A feature of 

 the memoir is the use of colour in the geological 

 sections, which adds very agreeably to their clear- 

 ness, as Portlock and the earlier geologists realised 

 in the palmy days of publication. 



Now that the question of the relation of kame- 

 mounds and eskers to ice-margins has been once 

 more raised in the British Isles, attention may be 

 directed to the study of the Newington Moraine of 

 New England, extending across Maine, New Hamp- 

 shire, and Massachusetts, by F. J. Katz and A. Keith 

 (U.S. Geol. Surv., Prof. Paper 108-B). The gravels 

 are sometimes bouldery and unsorted, sometimes well 

 stratified, and the long ridge represents material 

 graduating south-eastward into an outwash-plain of 

 clay and deposited from an ice-front in the sea. Leda- 

 clay sometimes overlaps the moraine material. 



It is to be hoped that the nev;' Egyptian Govern- 

 ment will continue the series of informing publica- 

 tions now issued by the Geological Survey of Egypt 

 under the Ministry of Finance. In Palaeontological 

 Series No. 4 M. R. Fourtau describes the Neogene 

 Echinoderms, and is able to assure us that, thanks 

 to collections made by Messrs. Madgwick and Moon 

 and Hassan Effendi Saddek during the recent explora- 

 tion of the petroliferous zone, this echinodermal fauna 

 is now completely represented in the Cairo Museum. 

 While the genera as a whole are of Mediterranean 

 types, interesting additions occur which have hitherto 

 been regarded as exclusively Indo-Australian. In the 

 lithographed plates, executed in Paris, the large flat- 

 tened or domed genera so characteristic of Miocene 

 times are handsomely represented. 



The report of the proceedings of the fourth Inter- 

 national Meteorological Conference held in Paris 

 from September 30 to October 6, 19 19, has been 

 rendered into English by the Meteorological Office, 

 and is now published by the Air Ministry as Paper 

 M.O. 239. As the last International Conference 

 met so long ago as 1905, there was a wealth of new 

 material to discuss. The meeting dealt with inter- 

 national meteorological organisation in all its 

 branches ; the present position of the science with 

 regard to aviation, artillery, transport, and the physics 

 of the air was reviewed, and codes for the trans- 

 mission of observations on climatology and aerology 

 were discussed. A number of commissions were 

 deputed to report on the preparation of an inter- 

 national meteorological vocabulary and to supervise 

 scientific investigations. Included in the report are 

 nine appendices giving the minutes of meetings of 

 the commissions appointed at the conference, a list of 

 the sources from which the Meteorological Office in 

 London has received data during the past ten years, 

 and a note by M. Bjerknes on the projection and 

 scale of charts. 



The January issue of the Proceedings of the Cam- 

 bridge Philosophical Society contains a summary by 

 Dr. E. H. Hankin of the papers on flight which he 

 has contributed to the Aeronautical Journal during 



