September 2, 1920] 



NATURE 



Ministry of Labour, the Commission has established 

 at Brockcnhurst, New Forest, a school for the forestry- 

 training of disabled ex-Service men, to be opened this 

 month. A similar school is open at Birnam, near 

 Dunkeld, and a new school for forest apprentices has 

 recently started at Beauly, Inverness-shire. Offers of 

 land may be addressed to the offices of the Assistant 

 Commissioners at 22 Grosvenor Gardens, London ; 

 25 Drumsheugh Gardens, Edinburgh; or 6 Hume 

 -Street, Dublin. W\ inquiries should be addressed to 

 the headquarters of the Commission at 22 Grosvenor 

 Gardens, London. 



Thb passages in classical literature which have been 

 quoted in support of the assertion that mother-right 

 existed in ancient Italy are discussed in the June issue 

 of Folk-lore by Mr. H. J. Rose. One of the most 

 daring attempts to support this position is a review 

 of the succession of the members of the great lulio- 

 Claudian house (Journal of the Royal Anthropolc^ical 

 Institute, vol. xlv., 1915, pp. 3,7 sqq,). A number of 

 these counted their descent from women, but of matri- 

 linear descent proper we have not a trace. In Italy, 

 as Mr. Rose remarks, "we cannot, whatever we may 

 do in Greece, weave sociological fantasies from the 

 relationships of the gods, for the excellent reason 

 that the Italian numina have no families. If any 

 better arguments remain I shall await their produc- 

 tion with interest, but, frankly, I have small expecta- 

 tion of anything of the sort." 



In a discourse delivered on March 12 last before 

 the Royal Institution Mr. W. W. Rouse Ball, of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, gave an instructive 

 illustrated account of the art of weaving string 

 fi(,'ures, usually made by weaving on the fingers 

 a loop of string about 64-7 ft. long so as to produce 

 a pleasing design, often supposed to suggest a familiar 

 object cither at rest or in motion. Mr. Ball remarks 

 that " friends who have learned the rules tell me that 

 in convalescence and during long journeys the 

 amusement has helped to while away many a tedious 

 hour; moreover, the figures are easy to weave, they 

 have a history, and they are capable of manv varie- 

 tus. Thus even in England the game may prove 

 well worth the time spent in learning to play it; and 

 admittedly to the very few who travel among 

 aborigines it may sometimes be of real service." 



Mr. a. L. Armstrong describes, in the Naturalist 

 for July, with an illustration, an interesting series 

 of six bone implements picked up by Mr. W. F. 

 Jackson on a ploughed field at Rocher Head. Brad- 

 fW-ld, near Sheffield, in 1888. They were associated 

 with a number of well-worked implements of flint, 

 consisting of round and horseshoe scrapers, a " spoon " 

 srr.nper, and several trimmed flakes and knives. The 

 collection has recently been examined by Mr. ReginakJ 

 .Smith, of the British Museum, and Sir W. Boyd 

 D.nvkins. who agree in regarding them as belonging 

 to the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze age. The bones 

 are those of an unidentified mammalian long bone. 

 sm;.ll metatarsal bones of a horse, and one of a bird. 

 Thf largest specimen teems to have been rubbed down 

 to form a blade on one long edge for about half its 

 NO. 2653, VOL. 106] 



length, and it may have been used in dressing skins. 

 They may be the grave furniture of a tumulus now 

 demolished, or may represent a hoard. 



Dr. \Vm. McDougall deals, in Mind (N.S., No. 115, 

 July, 1920), with the problem of motives in the 

 light of recent discussion. He reviews briefly his own 

 fKjint of view as expressed in "Social Psychology," the 

 view, namely, that the instincts are the mainsprings or 

 motives of all man's activity. He then considers, first, 

 the criticism and suggested alterations of Prof. Wood- 

 worth, who in " Dynamic Psychology " maintains that, 

 in addition to the instincts, other mechanisms, e.g. 

 native capacities and acquired habits, have also driving 

 force ; and, secondly, those of Mr. Graham Wallas, who 

 seeks to establish thought as an independent native 

 capacity containing its own "drive." Dr. McDougall 

 considers the various arguments brought forward bv 

 these critics, but fails to find them convincing, and 

 himself brings further evidence in support of his 

 original contention. The article is interesting and 

 suggestive to all who, whether from the theoretical 

 point of view of abstract thought or from that of the 

 practical necessities of life, find themselves confronted 

 with the difficult problems concerned with human 

 motives. 



It is well known that the large European ground- 

 beetle, Calosoma sycophanta, has been introduced 

 into the eastern United States in order that it may 

 prey upon caterpillars destructive to deciduous trees. 

 Messrs. C. W. Collins and Clifford E. Hood have 

 shown (Journ. Agric. Research, vol. xviii., No. 9, 

 1920) that an American tachinid fly, Eubiomyta calo- 

 somae, has formed the habit of laying eggs on the 

 introduced beetle, within which the maggots feed. 



We have received No. 15 of the Journal of the East 

 Africa and Uganda Natural History Society (Novem- 

 ber, 1919), which contains, among other interesting 

 papers, a lecture on " The Geological History of the 

 Rift Valley." delivered at Nairobi by Prof. J. W. 

 Gregory, who narrates how on his journey of 1893 

 he had encamped on the unoccupied site of that now- 

 busy and important town. Dr. G. D. Hale Carpenter, 

 in " Discursive Notes on the Fossorial Hymenoptera," 

 summarises the results of his studies on the habits of 

 trc^ical .\frican Sphegida and Pompilidas. This well- 

 produced journal is, we notice, printed in EnglaM; 

 so are the Annals of the Transvaal Museum, of which 

 vol, vii., part 3 (June, 1920), comprises an important 

 systematic entomological paper. " On the South 

 African Notodontidje." by Mr. .A. J. T. Janso. 



When the surface of a lava-stream hardens, the 

 lava below may continue to flow, forming a tube 

 beneath the frozen crust. In some volcanic areas 

 lava-tubes of small size are abundant, but those of 

 great length are rare. In the Monthly Bulletin of 

 the Hawaian Volcanic Observatory for March, 19*0, 

 Mr. S. Power describes and illustrates a tube near 

 Kilauea of unusual size, known as Thurston's tulv, 

 1494 ft. in length, with a maximum height and width 

 of 20 ft. and 22 ft. respectively. It opens into the 

 Kaluaiki pit crater, and is one of the channels by 

 which the crater was <lrained shortly before the final 

 disappearance of the lava-lake. 



