434 



NA TURE 



\_Sept. i6, 1875 



One of the most important novel points of manipulatory 

 detail which we notice, is the value of mucilage as an 

 imbedding agent when the microtome is employed for 

 freezing, as suggested by Dr. Pritchard. It depends on 

 the fact that " frozen mucilage can be sliced as readily 

 as a piece of cheese," a most valuable property, as all 

 who have had any experience will acknowledge. 



Prof. Rutherford has supplied a deficiency. He has 

 given us a manual which will meet the requirements of a 

 large class of students who will never find it necessary to 

 enter into the details of practical histology so minutely 

 as they are discussed in larger works, such as the " Hand- 

 book for the Physiological Laboratory," or the still deeper 

 manual of Strieker. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



A Yachting Cmise in the South Seas. By C. F. Wood. 

 With six photographic illustrations. (London : King 

 and Co., 1875.) 



Mr. Wood's narrative is so interesting that we wish it 

 had been very much longer. He has made several 

 voyages among the Pacific Islands during the last 

 eight years, and, judging from this and what he tells us 

 in the work before us, he must possess much valuable 

 information concerning these islands, and especially with 

 regard to their puzzling populations, which he would do 

 well to publish in detail, and which would be welcomed 

 especially by ethnologists. Mr. Wood is evidently a 

 careful observer, and has the power of describing what he 

 observes interestingly and clearly. 



The present volume contains a narrative of a cruise 

 which the author made, starting from New Zealand, 

 from May to December 1873, among some of the most 

 interesting groups of the Pacific Islands. Among the 

 islands visited during this time were Rotumah, to the 

 N.E. of Fiji, Futuna, Savaii, and Upolu, in the Samoan 

 group ; Niuafu, some of the islands in the Fiji group, the 

 New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, 

 Oualan, the Mulgrave Islands, and the Ellice group. Con- 

 cerning every island which he visited, Mr. Wood has some 

 interesting and valuable information to give, either 

 about its physical condition, its products, its people, its 

 history, or its antiquities. One of the main objects of his 

 cruise was the collection of native implements and 

 weapons, and in this he seems to have succeeded to his 

 heart's content. His observations concerning the people 

 seem to us especially valuable ; he has gathered many 

 traditions as to their migrations, and gives some speci- 

 mens of folk-lore. In many of the islands the natives 

 seem restless and discontented, and Mr. Wood was fre- 

 quently petitioned to give them a passage from one 

 island to another. Like many other Pacific voyagers, he 

 has but a poor opinion of the results of the attempts 

 which have been made to Christianise the natives. Not 

 that he disapproves of attempting to civilise them 

 and to raise them in the scale of humanity, but he thinks 

 the methods which are generally adopted are quite 

 abortive. The unmodified European garment of civilisa- 

 tion evidently cramps and enervates the Pacific Islander. 

 The information which Mr. Wood gives concerning the 

 Rotumans, their traditions as to their predecessors in the 

 island, their migrations, customs, superstitions, folk-lore, 

 &c., is especially valuable. He refers briefly to the 

 remarkable mounds among the hills in Bonabi, or Ascen- 

 sion Island, in the Carohne group, about which them 

 have no tradition, but which would be likely to repay a 

 careful examination. Quite as interesting, and still more 

 wonderful, are the remains of large buildings of stone in 

 the same island, some of the blocks of which are of 

 immense size, and concerning which also the natives seem 



to have no traditions. Mr. Wood believes these ruins to 

 be the work of a people that have passed away, and it is 

 very unlikely that the original buildings were the work of 

 passmg Spaniards, as has been supposed. We have cer- 

 tainly much yet to learn concerning the history and rela- 

 tionships of the Pacific Island populations, and it is a 

 subject well worth careful investigation. Mr. Wood's 

 modest volume is a valuable, though small, contribution 

 to our knowledge of the subject ; he must, we should 

 think, have a great deal more to tell as the result of his 

 long intercourse with these islands. The few autotype 

 illustrations are appropriate and well executed. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressea 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.'\ 



Living Birds of Paradise in Europe 

 We have just received at the Zoological Gardens of Dresden 

 two living Birds of Paradise, viz., Paradisca papuana, from New 

 Guinea, and Paradisea apoda, from the Aru Islands, both males, 

 in excellent health and fine condition. Mr. von Below, Assistant- 

 Resident of Makassar, in Celebes, brought them home in a three- 

 months' passage from Makassar, vid Java, Suez, Gibraltar, 

 London, and Hamburg to Dresden, where he intends to spend 

 the winter, and has deposited the birds in the Zoological 

 Gardens. They have already been about three years in captivity 

 with him at Makassar, where I saw them when passing through 

 that place to New Guinea in 1873. The birds, therefore, are 

 accustomed to cage-life, and as the conditions under which we 

 have placed them are most favourable — consisting chiefly in a 

 large space to allow free movement, and in an equal temperature 

 of about 20° Reaumur — there is some hope of our being able to 

 keep them alive. Mr. von Below got these birds through native 

 traders who have their home at Makassar and trade to New 

 Guinea and the Aru Islands. He fed the birds in India with 

 grasshoppers, bananas, and rice, and on board the steamers 

 with the same, cockroaches being sulistituted for grasshoppers. 

 In Dresden we try to feed them with bread, rice, and worms 

 {Mehlwiirmer). Both are very active, and cry their well-known 

 ' ' wok, wok " with much force ; the specimen of Paradisea 

 apoda especially is not the least shy, and takes the worms out of 

 one's hands. Their fine plumage suffered, of course, on the 

 voyage, but I was astonished to see that it was not damaged 

 mote. As they probably will moult from about November till 

 April, the plumage will not be at its finest condition till the 

 month of May, and, supposing that the readers of Nature will 

 be interested in the further fate of these Birds of Paradise, I 

 shall report in time how they are getting on. 



I believe I am not mistaken in saying that a living specimen 

 of Paradisea apoda has never before been alive in Europe. The 

 two Birds of Paradise which Mr. Wallace brought home, which 

 he had bought at Singapore, were Paradisea papuana (if I re- 

 member correctly, having no books at hand here) ; Mr. Cerrutti, 

 some years ago, brought over a specimen of Seleticides alba, but 

 I did not hear how long it hved in Europe. No other species of 

 Birds of Paradise have yet been brought alive to Europe, so far 

 as I know, and we may therefore felicitate Mr. von Below on 

 having increased the number of these at least to three. 



The inhabitants of those parts of New Guinea which I visited 

 in 1873 ^^s "^ol^ accustomed to catch Paradisea papuana alive, 

 as Mr. Wallace states is the case with Paradisea apoda from the 

 Aru Islands ; they only know how to kill the bird with the 

 arrow, and I did not succeed in teaching them otherwise, but I 

 suppose that the Papooas of the south-west coast of New Guinea 

 know how to catch the Birds of Paradise alive, and that Mr. 

 von Below's specimen is from that part of New Guinea. 

 Wildbad Gastein, Sept. 1 1 A. B. Meyer 



Source of Volcanic Energy 



Mr. W. S. Green, like others of Mr. Mallet's supporters, 



takes wider ground than he did himself in his original paper. 



It is obvious that he regarded his experiments conclusive as to 



the amount of heat that could be produced by rock crushing 



