402 



NATURE 



\_March 21, 1878 



is sunk in the skin, and when the young are first born this de- 

 pression, or miniature pouch, is large enough to hold them ; 

 when about a month or so o'd, their hinder parts may be seen 

 sticking out ; when two or three months old, only the head, 

 and afterwards, as they become larger, only the snout is hidden, 

 the marsupial bones, which are well developed, support the 

 weight of the young one while sacking. The young does not 

 leave the mother until at least one-third grown, and even 

 when fully the size of the adult, the quills are only then begin- 

 ning to show through the skin, which is black, and thinly 

 covered with black hair. 



The new species, T. lawesii, Ramsay, from Port Moresby, may 

 be distinguished at once by the stiff flat bristles of the face and 

 the more cylindrical form of its spines ; T bruijniihzs a very long 

 snout, nearly twice the length of any other species at present 

 known. See Proceedings L. Soc. of N. S. W., Vol. ii., Pt. i. 

 PI. I. E. P. Ramsay 



Australian Museum, Sydney, January 25 



P.S. — It may interest your readers to know that Messrs. 

 Ramsay Bros., of Maryborough, Queensland, have a fine series 

 of eleven Ceratodus alive in a large tank constructed for them. 

 These fish have now lived and thriven well in confinement for 

 over eighteen months. I was the first to send the Ceratodus in 

 spirits to England, although 1 never got the credit of it ; nor 

 did any of those naturalists to whom I forwarded specimens 

 through a friend at the Zoological Society, ever think it worth 

 their while to acknowledge them. Had it been otherwise, living 

 specimens would have found their way to England long since. 

 It is a great mistake to suppose the Ceratodus is now common j 

 they can only be obtained at certain seasons and in certain parts 

 of the Rivers Mary and Burnet. The Osteoglossum [Barra- 

 mu7idi), with which the Ceratodus ( Teebi ne) is often confounded, 

 is plentiful enough in the western waters of Queensland. 



E. P. R. 



Fetichism in Animals. — Discrimination of Insects 



I HAVE frequently noticed the fetichism of dogs, and was 

 therefore much interested by Mr. G. J. Romanes' letter of Decem- 

 ber 27, which I have but just seen. Our terrier — a very queer 

 character and a great warrior — is abjectly superstitious. He 

 will not come near a toy cow that lows and turns its head, but 

 watches it at a distance with nose outstretched. A vibrating 

 finger-glass terrifies him ; indeed he has so many superstitions 

 that we often make him very miserable by working on his fears. 

 I feel sure he constantly tries to understand, but never gets 

 further than the sense of " uncanny "-ness. Dogs vary greatly 

 as to this. 



A propos of the discriminating power of insects. I have seen 

 humming-bird moths deceived by sight. They were seeking in an 

 open loggia, ceiled with wood, some dark place in which to hide ; 

 the pine wood was studded with brown knots. Again and again 

 the two moths flew from knot to knot, felt and rejected them. 

 At last they reached the open work — holes which looked much 

 like the knots — and in them they hid themselves. 



I was much struck at the time, as it appeared to me to show 

 they possessed some dim sense of colour, but no defining per- 

 ception of surface. C. G. O'Brien 



Cahirmoyle, Ardagh, Co. Limerick 



Nitrification 



It seems right to direct attention to the fact that Bacteria were 

 observed by Meusel to convert nitrates into nitrites ; an abstract 

 of which observations is to be found in ihQ Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History iox February, 1876; this abstract is copied 

 from SillimarCs Journal for January, 1876, where the reference 

 to Meusel's paper will be found. This reference is Ber. Berl, 

 chetn. Gesel., October, 1875. 



No indication of their knowledge of these observations is to 

 be found in Schloesing and Munk's paper in the Comptes Rendus 

 (February, 1877) or ■ in Mr. Warington's communication to 

 Nature, vol. xvii. p. 367. F. J. B. 



Oxford, March 11 



hunting by scent ; but when one recollects the fine line usually 

 left by spiders as they go, it is evident that sight or feeling may 

 have been the sense exercised, and that the fatal clue may have 

 been the guide to the wasp. E, Hubpard 



March 18 



The Wasp and the Spider 



May I suggest a possible explanation of the curious case of 

 spider-hunting by a wasp cited by Mr. Cecil j had the prey so 

 accurately tracked by the wasp been anything but a spider, it 

 would, indeed, have seemed an almost conclusive uistance of 



ENTOMOLOGY AT THE ROYAL AQUARIUM 



AN aquarium is put to its legitimate use when it is 

 made the home of natural history exhibitions, and 

 any attempt to rescue one from the too dominant sway 

 of the showman deserves every support at the hands of 

 science. The Entomological Exhibition, the opening of 

 which at the Royal Aquarium we noticed last week, is 

 also quite a novelty, though it is the outcome in a parti- 

 cular branch of the idea that led to the Loan Exhibition 

 of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington ; as in that 

 case the exhibitors are induced by no hope of prizes, but 

 merely from the love of their science to lend their 

 treasures. One learns from such an exhibition as this 

 how much genuine love for natural history exists amongst 

 men whose daily lives are devoted to manual labour, and 

 that there are those who live within sound of Bow Bells, 

 who make as good a use of their more limited oppor- 

 tunities as Edward in Banffshire. Here is a Mr. Machin, 

 compositor by trade, whose long day's work has not pre- 

 vented him from collecting and rearing a magnificent 

 series of crepuscular and nocturnal moths, shown in 

 twenty beautifully- arranged cases and accurately named ; 

 and the collections of some others are scarcely less notice- 

 able in this respect. But apart from the interest attaching 

 to some of the exhibitors, the material brought together 

 alTords an opportunity both to the entomologist proper 

 and to the general naturalist not often to be met with. 

 The greater portion of the whole exhibition is perhaps 

 inevitably taken up with British lepidoptera, but these are 

 not, as might be feared, an endless multitude of specimens 

 of no special interest beyond their rarity and beauty, but are 

 made to teach as well as please. Lord Walsingham, for 

 example, shows the larv^, pupae, and imagines of nearly 

 370 species with the plants on which they occur — so that 

 we have their complete life-history so far as it can 

 possibly be represented to us. This, perhaps, from its 

 scientific character and the beautiful means of preserva- 

 tion adopted, is the most interesting to the general natura- 

 list, but there are others more limited, but scarcely less 

 instructive — as those shown by the Messrs. Adams, in 

 which the usual parasites are included in the series with 

 each insect. Other instructive collections are those which 

 illustrate the varieties of a single species ; such is the set 

 of specimens of Colzas edusa, exhibited by Mr. Harper, a 

 grand series showing insensible passages between perfectly 

 distinct colourings. The influence of climate on colour 

 is well illustrated in the melanic northern varieties of 

 several species of moths, which are usually of a lighter 

 colour in the south of England, the two varieties being 

 placed side by side in the Yorkshire collections, and the 

 results of selective breeding in the same direction in the 

 photographs, unfortunately not specimens, of the common 

 gooseberry moth, varying from nearly white to almost 

 entirely dark. The moths and butterflies of the fen 

 districts, which are now becoming so scarce, are repre- 

 sented by a very large collection by Mr. Farn. But one 

 of the most interesting objects is a large white close-set 

 web, in appearance like a cloth — some eight feet by four 

 feet, spun by the larvje of a moth, Ephestia elutella, that 

 feeds on chicory. It is a portion only of a larger web, 

 six times the size, formed on the walls and ceiling of a 

 chicory warehouse in York, by the incessant marching to 

 and fro of the well-fed larvae. The threads composing it 

 are less than -^-^jj^ inch in diameter, and as they are 

 nearly contiguous and eight or ten deep, the portion 

 exhibited represents about 4,000 miles of their wanderings. 

 When twisted into a rope, it has been made to support a 



