August ii, 1921] 



NATURE 



757 



supposed to be the direct descendants of the Crusaders. 

 Their dress consists of gazelle skins, and they have a 

 cross marked on their backs. "They have no religion 

 and no marriage laws : very poor and peaceable. It 

 IS considered unlucky to kill one of them, and they 

 "help the wounded." The Mohammedan Arabs despise 

 them and call them "wild dogs." They are known 

 for the shortness of their stature and the great length 

 of their spears. They are the carpenters, blacksmiths, 

 and doctors for man and beast among the Bedouin, 

 and live in tents made, not of hair, but of skins. They 

 ■ may possibly be connected with the Negrito race which 

 Sir Percv Sykes describes in the recently published 

 second edition of his valuable "History of Persia." 



In the Museii^n Journal for March last we find an 

 account of an interesting series of marble vases from 

 Ulua Vallev, Honduras, which are of such an unusual 

 type that thev have given rise to much speculation. 

 The Ulua culture, like other ancient American cul- 

 tures, is without date, but it was certainly contem- 

 porary with the ancient Maya Empire, as well 

 as with other cultured races that flourished in 

 Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica. The tech- 

 nique and ornamentation of these vases are cer- 

 tainly remarkable. Attempts made by Mrs. Zelia 

 Nuttall to interpret the symbolism are sharply 

 criticised by the writer of this paper, who re- 

 marks : — " It would be as useless to speculate con- 

 cerning the symbolism of all this ornament as it would 

 be to guess at the service for which the vessel -was 

 designed. We are at liberty to assume that so elaborate 

 and refined an object had a ceremonial function, and 

 that its symbolism corresponds to ideas associated with 

 Its use, but its interpretation is quite beyond our 

 reach." 



The issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 

 for July 15 is devoted to a lucid paper on the develop- 

 ment of Bombay by Sir G. Curtis. The position of 

 the city, including originally seven islands, had long 

 exposed portions of the site to inundation, and the 

 enormous commercial development necessitated exten- 

 sion. These difficulties are being met in various ways, 

 the principal being the reclamation of the area known 

 as Back Bay. The chairman. Sir W. Sheppard, com- 

 mented on the magnitude of the proposed series of 

 undertakings : — " With regard to cost, there were few 

 works in India — indeed, none of the precise kind 

 described — which had cost, or been expected to cost, 

 so immense a sum as thirty millions. Even in 

 Europe so large a scheme would be considered wonder- 

 ful, and he believed the renovation of Paris cost only 

 about half the proposed expenditure on Bombay." 

 But this has not deterred the Governor, Sir G. Lloyd, 

 from pressing on the work, and the people of Bombay 

 evidently believe in the project, as they showed by 

 raising a local loan of nearly ten millions. 



Dr. D. F. Curjel has obtained records of the 

 weights at birth of 1849 normal Indian infants; the 

 average is 65 lb. This compares not unfavourably 

 with that of European infants. The conclusion is that 

 the high infantile mortality which prevails among 

 Indian children is largely due to unfavourable post- 

 natal conditions. The same author has also inquired 



NO- 2702, VOL. 107] 



into the duration of reproductive life of Indian women. 

 The average age of the onset of puberty was 13-63 

 \'ears, and the average duration Of reproductive life 

 32- 14 years, both of which do not differ materially 

 from the limits for European races (Indian Journ. of 

 Med. Research, vol. viii.. No. 2, pp. 36^ and 366). 



Experiments have been conducted by Major J. C. G. 

 Kunhardt and Asst.-Surg. G. D. Chitre on the eradica- 

 tion of plague infection by rat destruction. The ob- 

 servations made strongly support the view that the 

 reduction in the rat population, resulting from plague 

 itself (which attacks rats), is the main factor in bring- 

 ing infection to a natural end, and that it yet remains 

 to be seen if the destruction of rats bv any artificial 

 means is capable of producing or accelerating the 

 same result. A number of rat poisons was tested, 

 but none was found better than barium carbonate, of 

 which three grains is a fatal dose for the rat. It is 

 best made into a bait with dough of some grain- 

 flour (the best grain was found to be bajri, Pennisetum 

 typhoideum), and without any addition in the form 

 of fat, sugar, condiments, etc. (Indian Journ. Med. 

 Research, vol. viii.. No. 3, 192 1, pp. 409, 446). 



In the July issue of The Fight against Disease, the 

 organ of the Research Defence Societ)% excerpts are 

 given from an address bv Sir John Rose Bradford at 

 Oxford on " The Place of Experiment in the Science 

 and Art of Medicine." Dr. Drury communicates notes 

 on an "experiment," made by Nature herself eighteen 

 years ago, on the protection against smallpox afforded 

 by vaccination. In a school at Ossett there were 

 169 children, of whom 92 were vaccinated and 

 77 unvaccinated. Smallpox was introduced by a 

 scholar, and no fewer than 37 of the 77 unvaccinated 

 contracted the disease. Onlv 5 of the 92 vaccinated 

 contracted it, all of whom had been vaccinated ten or 

 more years previously. None of the 14 scholars who 

 had been re-vaccinated took the disease. In the class 

 into which the disease was first introduced (Standard 

 IV.) all the vaccinated escaped and every one of the 

 unvaccinated promptly took the disease. 



Dr. Perkins gives in the Journal of the Torquay 

 Natural History Society (vol. iii.. No. i) an account 

 of his investigations on the food of trout caught in 

 the Torquay reservoirs in August and Septeniber. He 

 found that th6 nature of the food in the reservoir 

 fish was very different from that of river fish. The 

 latter appeared to be feeding on aquatic insects only, 

 to contain much less food, and to be in an inferior 

 condition generally. In the reservoir fish the food 

 seemed to be composed mainly of such land insects 

 as happen to fall accidentally on to the surface of 

 the water under the stress of weather conditions. 

 Dr. Perkins is of the opinion that this difference in 

 the nature of the food is due to the fact that in the 

 reservoirs the aquatic insects are limited in species, 

 and the rarity or absence of some forms specially 

 favoured by trout is the result of the extermination of 

 the insect by the fish. The reservoir trout have thus 

 to fall back on a source of food denied to the river 

 fish. In a single trout's stomach Dr. Perkins found 

 no fewer than forty-six species of land insects, the 



