August 1 6, 1888] 



NATURE 



37i 



the purpose of initiating investigations in this direction. 

 At the instance of the same gentleman, a similar sum was 

 recently obtained out of the Government grant administered 

 by the Royal Society, shortly after which the separate 

 Committees appointed to administer the two grants agreed 

 to combine for the purpose " of reporting on the present 

 state of our knowledge of the zoology and botany of the 

 West India Islands, and of taking steps to investigate 

 ascertained deficiencies in the fauna and flora." 



The joint Committee thus formed consists of Prof. 

 Flower, Mr. Carruthers, Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Dr. Giinther, 

 Prof. Newton, Mr. Sclater, Dr. Sharpe, Lieut.-Col. 

 Feilden, and Mr. D. Morris. Prof. Flower has been 

 elected Chairman of the Committee ; Mr. Thiselton Dyer, 

 Secretary ; and Mr. Sclater, Treasurer. 



Lieut-Col. Feilden having accepted a colonial ap- 

 pointment in Barbados will be in future resident at 

 Bridge-Town, where he will act as local Secretary of the 

 Committee, while Dr. H. A. Alford Nicholls, F.L.S., 

 C.M.Z.S., has kindly agreed to assist in the same capacity 

 in Dominica. In order to commence their investigations 

 without delay, the Committee have secured the services 

 of Mr. George A. Ramage, who was lately associated 

 with Mr. Ridley in his expedition to the island of 

 Fernando Noronha, and has since been collecting in 

 Pernambuco. Mr. Ramage arrived in Dominica in 

 March last, and has proceeded to his work with great 

 zeal. In May, after passing five weeks at Laudat, on the 

 right bank of the Roseau River, about 2000 feet above 

 the sea-level, he moved to St. Aroment, an estate belong- 

 ing to Dr. Nicholls, just above Roseau, which he found 

 to be a better locality for getting his plants dried. At 

 Laudat he met with great difficulty in this matter on 

 account of the extreme wetness of the climate. Writing 

 in May last, Mr. Ramage speaks of having got, besides 

 his plants, " a good lot of insects, lizards, small snakes, 

 and land-molluscs." Besides these, he had also obtained 

 three specimens of Peripatus. This is a valuable dis- 

 covery, as this singular organism was originally dis- 

 covered in Dominica by Guilding many years ago, and. 

 has not been since obtained in the same locality. 



After exploring Dominica, Mr. Ramage will probably 

 receive instructions to proceed to the other islands of the 

 Leeward group, some of which are almost entirely 

 unworked as regards their animal and vegetable life. 

 Now that this important investigation has been so fairly 

 started, it is hoped that little difficulty will be experienced 

 in obtaining further assistance from the British Associa- 

 tion and the Royal Society. It should, perhaps, be 

 mentioned that complete sets of all the specimens 

 obtained will be placed in the British Museum and Kew 

 Herbarium, the Directors of these two Institutions being 

 themselves both members of the Committee. 



SONNET* 



TO A YOUNG LADY WITH A CONTRALTO VOICE, 



On her singing, on a warm summer 's afternoon, without accompani- 

 ment, save the music of the birds heard through the open 

 windows of the author's rooms overlooking the beautiful 

 garden of New College, Oxford, the old English ditty, 

 "Deck not with gems that lovely form for me," 

 in which occurs the line, 

 " Z must have loved thee hadst thou not been fair." 



THE startled, ambushed, nightingales despair 

 ■*■ To match those notes, so tender sweet and low, 

 That poured through lips where Cupid lays his bow 

 Had made thee loved e'en hadst thou been less fair. 



* This is the original firm of the sonnet, published in the preceding 

 number of Nature, which, if perhaps superior to this in expression, is opan 

 to the reproach from which the original is free, pointed out to the author by his 

 distinguished friend, the great Traveller and Orientalist (the translator, too, 

 of Camoens' sonnets), Sir Richard Burton, of deviating from the Petrarchian 

 model by its s;stett having one rhyme in common with the octave. In my 



What need hast thou with gems to deck thy hair, 

 Of aught of wealth Golconda's mines bestow, 

 Rubies or pearls rash divers seek below ! — 

 Thou canst in nobler wise thy worth declare. 

 Oft shall thy votary in his cloistered cell 

 In deep research of Nature's secret clue 

 Pause, to bid Memory with her magic spell, 

 Bring back thy face and sweet girl-form to view, 

 And in fond fancy hear thy voice anew 

 Till life to gladness breathes its last farewell. 

 Athenaeum Club, July 25. 



J. J. S. 



NOTES. 

 Next year there will be in Paris what promises to be 

 a splendid Anthropological Exhibition under the auspices 

 of the French Ministry of Public Instruction. It will be organ- 

 ized by Committees representing the Society, the School, and 

 the Laboratory of Anthropology ; and an appeal for aid has 

 been addressed to all who are, or have at any time been, con- 

 nected with one or other of these institutions. The Exhibition 

 will include objects relating to all branches of anthropological 

 science. 



Captain John Ericsson, who retains much of his vigour and 

 youthful activity, celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday at New York 

 on Tuesday, July 31. The King of Sweden and Norway cabled 



" Laws of Verse " (if I remember right) I have compared the octave and 

 sestett of a sonnet to the body and the frame or bed of a carriage respectively. 

 The effect of a rhyme common to the two may be likened to that of driving 

 in a spike, which converts the previous springy connection of the two parts into 

 a fixture. The much more common fault of English sonnets is the reverse of 

 this, viz. that they contain too many distinct rhymes instead of too few. In 

 the form-build of the two sonnets I may be raid to have discovered a locket 

 artistically adapted to receive either one of two miniatures, each in its own way 

 equally exquisite, and worthy of ineffable regard and adoration. I left the 

 Subject of this week's sonnet at the door of Magdalen College Chapel to attend 

 the evening service there, and early the next morning, as it now reads, with 

 the exception of changes in three lines only, it was in the hands of her parents. 

 With regard to the punctuation of this and other of my poetical pieces, I 

 share to a great extent the opinion of the late deeply regretted Matthew 

 Arnold, that in poetical composition the fewer points the better: grammatical 

 or (so to say) choristic points as such should never be introduced except when 

 necessary to prevent ambiguity or obscurity of meaning : consequently there 

 will be many points left out in poetry which would be found in the same piece 

 written in prose. But per contra I hold that points are sometimes useful or 

 even necessary in poetry which would not be found in prose, viz. to mark brief 

 pauses or almost insensible musical rests. The pointing I have adopted in 

 the line from last week's sonnet — 



Thy flashing, rushing, fingers to indue — 



affords an exemplification of this latter principle. The commas on each side 

 of rushing are not choristic but melodic, and w mil not appear in prose. 



In law writings no points at all are introduced, and for reasons which in no 

 wise conflict with the principles referred to above. 



i°. A law document is expected and ought to be written in such a form as 

 to he insusceptible of an equivocal or doubtful construction. 



2 . No one expects a law document (unless maybe it were a marriage 

 certificate or deed of separation by mutual consent) to have much music in 

 its lines. 



One of the ofrtc T al readers of the sonnet contained in the last number of 

 Nature has written to me to say that he cannot seethe sense of lines 3 and 4. 

 The answer is, I think, obvious. In the human organism all parts, faculties, 

 and powers are connected and correlated. Consequently a voice whose notes 

 are pure, sweet, and tru- affords a voucher(I do not say mathematical proof, 

 but presumptiveevidence which may be accepted in the absence of rebutting 

 facts) of the character to which it appertains being sweet, pure, and true. 

 But sweetness, purity, and truth are the prime ingredients of goodness. 

 Therefore notes which are pure, sweet, and true vouch for the goodness of 

 the person to whom the voice belongs. Q.E.D. 



The argument in the text is put in the form of an enthymeme, the major 

 premise— All persons w'i"se singing notes are sweet, pure, and true offer a 

 presumption that they are good— being suppressed. It is notorious that 

 birds instinctively, and therefore 011 the surest ground, infer the worthiness 

 (or according to their ethical code the goodness) of their partners from their 

 superiority in s:>ng. Witness the distic.i from a sonnet familiar to many of 

 my readers— 



Like foolish bird who in the fowler's cry 

 Hears ktr loved mate's soft amorous melody 



If I am wrong in supposing so, I h >pe that Mr. Romanes, or any other 

 biologist (if such there be) of squal skill with him in Darwinian dialectics, 

 will set me right in this point, and inform the readers of Nature on what 

 other intelligible ground can be explained the recourse had to song by the 

 male bird to win the affections of his mate. If such be the case with birds, 

 why should it not be equally true of the sometimes scarcely less volatile 

 portion of the human race? 



