May $\, 1888] 



NA TURE 



103 



sented to me by Dr. Barbosa Rodriguez, appeared in Nature 

 more than a year ago (vol. xxxv. p. 343). Dr. Rodriguez pub- 

 lished a note on that specimen in the Jornal do Cowmereio of 

 Rio de Janeiro for October 15, 1886. I state this as his note 

 might easily be overlooked, not having appeared in a scientific 

 periodical. 



The last specimen received was caught at Autaz near the 

 Madeira River in September 1887 ; it came, Dr. Rodriguez 

 writes, from a mud-pool, whence it issued forth wriggling on the 

 mud during rain-storms. My friend received it dead and in a 

 state of incipient decomposition ; he did all he could to insure 

 its preservation, but when it reached me all I could save was 

 the skeleton and portions of the skin and tougher muscles. 

 These I have put in strong alcohol for future study. This 

 specimen is considerably smaller than the one previously 

 received, being, as far as I can judge, about 0:11. 400 millim. in 

 length. 



At Autaz this fish is called Trayra-boia, or Turum-boia ; the 

 latter name is onomatopoeic for Turum, which expresses the grunt 

 made by the fish, and boia means "snake." On the Rio Mahu, an 

 affluent of the Rio Branco, Dr. Rodriguez tells me that the name 

 of this fish in the Makuchy dialect is Aramo. 



Henry H. Giglioli. 



Royal Zoological Museum, Florence, May 22. 



Dreams. 



Mr. R. L. Stevenson, in his "Chapter on Dreams" in 

 Scribners Magazine for January last, brings forward one difficult 

 point that must have puzzled many dreamers besides himself. 

 The point is that the dreamer is often in the position of an 

 ignorant onlooker, who, only when the plot or story is complete, 

 sees the drift and motive of the different incidents that have been 

 enacted before his eyes by what Mr. Stevenson calls " the Little 

 People who manage man's internal theatre." 



Perhaps it is one step further on in the puzzle to have the 

 interpretation only vouchsafed to one after awaking ; and the 

 following example may be of some interest. 



Much of my dreaming goes on in the form of reading ; and it 

 once happened to me to awake while looking at the outside of a 

 pamphlet I dreamt I was holding. I saw it vividly enough 

 before me ; it had a mud-coloured cover, and the title was 

 printed on it in plain Roman capitals : " Food, or the astrology 

 of every day." "But this is nonsense," I thought ; until, still 

 having a vivid view of the title before me, I observed that the 

 rough brown paper had been rubbed up after the word " the," 

 and that there was a wide gap between it and the "astrology." 

 Evidently a letter was missing, and I at once conjectured th.it 

 the word had been printed " gastrology. " But this I did not 

 arrive at till I was wide awake. 



I come back to Mr. Stevenson's query, " Who are the Little 

 People?" and how comes their amazing independence of their 

 employers? E. H. 



Strange Rise of Wells in Rainless Season. 



A house near Fareham, standing in its own grounds, is 

 principally supplied with water by two wells, about 16 feet deep. 

 They are usually quite full in winter, and gradually empty before 

 autumn. Owing to the small amount of rain last winter, the 

 beginning of March found the wells with only 3 feet and 2 feet 

 of water respectively : when, after a continuance of north-east 

 wind, without rain, but with half a gale blowing, the water in 

 these wells rose 14 feet and 12 feet. 



Can you or any of your readers explain this mystery? There 

 is a tradition in the neighbourhood that it is customary with the 

 wells in the district to rise with a heavy gale even without rain ; 

 and a similar phenomenon has been observed before by my 

 informant. E. II. 



May 23. 



Milk v. Lightning. 



In Emin Pasha's letter published in Nature (vol. xxxvii. 

 p. 583), the Sudan Arabs are said to have a superstition 

 that fire kindled by a flash of lightning cannot be extinguished 

 until a small quantity of milk has been poured upon it. A 

 similar belief seems to have existed formerly in this country. 

 The earliest register-book of this parish contains the following 

 note : — 



" In the yeare of our Lord 1601 and uppon ye 14 day of May 

 beinge thursday ther was great thundringe and lightninge and 

 ye fyer descendinge from heaven kindled in a white-thorne bush 

 growinge neere to a mudd-wall in Brook-street westward from 

 Thomas Wake his house, it burned and consumed ye bush and 

 tooke into ye wall about on yeard then by milke brought in 

 tyme it was quenched and it did noe more hurl." 



John Cyprian Rust. 



The Vicarage, Soham, Cambridgeshire, May 23. 



The Renewed Irruption of Syrrhaptes, 



Mr. Sclater having requested me to contribute to The l/ns 

 an account of the present visitation of Syrrhaptes similar to that 

 which I compiled for that journal in 1864, I would ask for in- 

 formation on the subject to be sent to me, and especially cuttings 

 from foreign newspapers, the name of the publication and the 

 date being always indicated thereon. I must add that I do trust my 

 task will not be the unpleasant one of merely recording senseless 

 slaughter. In 1863 the species bred both in Denmark and in 

 Holland. There is no reason why it should not, if unmolested, 

 breed this year in many parts of Britain. The visitations of 

 1872 and 1876 were of insignificant proportions, but that of the 

 present year would seem to be of considerable magnitude, and 

 sanguine hopes might be entertained as to the result if the • 

 malign influence of the " collector " could be neutralized or 

 withstood. Alfred Newton. 



Magdalene College, Cambridge, May 27. 



"The Shell-Collector's Hand-book for the Field." 



As your reviewer (Nature, May 17, p. 51) has shown that the 

 little book which bears the above title is certainly worth a large 

 share of " powder and shot," I may, in all fairness, be allowed 

 to reply to those strictures made by him which are the most unfair, 

 and which I consider warrant a reply from me. In the first place, 

 it is quite apparent that he has never used the "Authenticated 

 British List " published by the Conchological Society, where he 

 would have found Clausilia parvula, C. solida, and Zonites 

 draparnaldi excluded, doubtless, on reliable authority ; while 

 Bulimiis Goodallii, Vertigo turnida, and Platiorbis dilatatus are 

 included, also, doubtless, on reliable authority, as recognized 

 members of the British fauna, even if they be "casuals." He 

 has also, it is quite apparent, never read Prof. Macalister's 

 "Introduction to Animal Morphology," where he will find it 

 stated on p. 286 that "the operculum has always more conchiolin 

 in its composition than the shell whose mouth it closes." He 

 does not know, it is also quite apparent, that Pisidium and 

 Sphjerium are British fresh-water mussels, and siphonated British 

 fresh- water mussels too, there being one siphon in the former and 

 two in the latter genus (cp. the description of these genera in 

 Westerlund's " Fauna of Sweden and Denmark "). He can 

 scarcely know that the epiphragm has been called by some authors 

 (as instance Macalister) the clausilium ; and although recognizing 

 this on p. 5 of my " Hand-book," I have described in a footnote 

 to the genus Clausilium (p. 44) the only structure which we 

 recognize to-day under that name. He does not know, it is 

 evident, that Prof. Milnes Marshall (" Practical Zoology," p. 106) 

 states that "the perio?tracum or outer layer is horny and 

 uncalcified. To it the colour of the shell is due," and that "the 

 middle layer" "is densely calcified, and has an opaque 

 porcellanous appearance." And he scarcely knows that in 

 Huxley and Martin's "Course of Elementary Instruction in 

 Practical Biology," p. 274, the aperture of the shell is spoken of 

 as the peritreme and not as the peristome, and that in the majority 

 of works on comparative anatomy it is also solely mentioned 

 under that name. I think it also my duty to tell your reviewer 

 that the teeth- formulae were not copied from Lanke-ter, as he 

 supposes, but from Woodward, and that upon comparison I find 

 the copy correct (cp. Jeffrey Bell, "Comparative Anatomy and 

 Physiology," p. 136). 



In the second place, with regard to those other strictures 

 which I can characterize by no other name than mere whims. 

 It is a mere whim, for instance, to consider Auodonta anatiiia as 

 a variety of A. eyguea, since such has never yet been generally 

 recognized. It is a mere whim to believe that Achatina acicula 

 should be Cacilianella acicula : Bulimus acutns should be Helix 

 (Coelilicella) acuta; Zonites should be /fya/iuia," and I had 

 rather remain with my old system of nomenclature than get so 



