222 



NATURE 



[October 14, 1920 



been decided to present a duplicate- set of the col- 

 lection to the Congo Museum at Tervueren, near 

 Brussels. 



The hall illustrating the "Age of Man" in the 

 American Museum of Natural History, New York, is 

 now approaching completion, and Prof. H. F. Osborn 

 gives some account of it in the journal of the 

 museum, Natural History (vol. xx., No. 3). Besides 

 the collection of plaster casts and specimens, there 

 are beautiful wall-paintings by Mr. C. R. Knight, 

 representing scenes in the life of the various races of 

 prehistoric man and of the large mammals by which 

 they were surrounded in different parts of the world. 

 There are also hypothetical bust-restorations of Pithec- 

 anthropus, Eoanthropus, Neanderthal man, and Cr6- 

 Magnon man ; while a completely restored figure of 

 Neanderthal man is now being attempted. Critics 

 may be disposed to think that existing evidence is 

 too slender to justify some of the conclusions about 

 man's ancestry which the exhibition suggests, but 

 there can be no doubt that so attractive a presenta- 

 tion of the subject will stimulate wide interest in it 

 in America. 



We have recently received vol. xvli., part v., of 

 the Annals of the South African Museum, containing 

 two systematic papers, one on the Crustacea, the 

 other on the spiders, of South Africa. The former is 

 the sixth contribution by Mr. K. H. Barnard on the 

 crustacean fauna of South Africa, and deals with 

 further additions to the list of marine Isopoda ; 

 73 species are here recorded, 45 being described as 

 new. The list of South African marine Isopoda now 

 includes about 170 species. 



In his presidential address to the Eugenics Asso- 

 ciation of America (Scientific Monthly, September) 

 Dr. Stewart Paton pleads for a more definite and 

 e.xact knowledge of man in order that the study of 

 eugenics may be directed on sound lines, and 

 especially points out the importance of the studv of 

 the personality — the reactions of the human machine 

 as a whole to the conditions actually met with in life. 

 A body of investigators specially trained in the diffi- 

 cult art of studying the personality — which cannot 

 be judged only from the point of view of the physio- 

 logist or psychologist — is essential for future progress. 



Miss E. A. Eraser has investigated the pronephros 

 and the early development of the mesonephros in 

 the cat (Journal of Anatomy, vol. liv., part iv., July, 

 1920), and finds that the embryonic excretory system 

 of this animal is one continuous organ, the degenerate 

 anterior end passing posteriorly into the fullv de- 

 veloped mesonephros. A pronephric ridge is developed 

 as a thickening of the somatic wall of the inter- 

 mediate cell-mass. During the formation of this 

 ridge and immediately lateral to it a series of ccelomic 

 chambers becomes cut off from the general body- 

 cavity, each chamber communicating with the body- 

 cavity by a narrow passage. Such chambers do not 

 appear to have been observed previously in a mammal, 

 and it is suggested that they represent vestigial 

 pronephric chambers, each with a peritoneal funnel. 

 They soon undergo a change, and from the region 

 NO. 2659, VOL. 106] 



of the eleventh somite backwards they close off from 

 the body-cavity and form an almost solid longitudinal 

 cord, which later becomes divided into a series of 

 vesicles, the central cavity of each of which arises 

 secondarily. Though it is difficult to demonstrate 

 that the longitudinal cord of tissue in which the 

 vesicles arise is actually derived from the pronephric 

 chambers, this interpretation seems to be the correct 

 one. If so, then the pronephric chambers are homo- 

 logous with the Malpighian capsules. 



During the course of recent ecological work on the 

 Irish coast — near Dublin and in Galway Bay — col- 

 lections were made of the mites (.^carina) occurring 

 in the inter-tidal area, and Mr. J. N. Halbert has 

 described the material in a paper published in the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Irish .Academy (vol. xxxv., 

 B7, 1920). The species dealt with, which are such 

 as can be reasonably considered as habitual denizens 

 of the inter-tidal area, do not apparently exhibit anv 

 striking modifications to suit them for a semi-aquatic 

 life, e.g. the breathing organs present no modifica- 

 tion. The majority of the species possess, in common 

 with many purely terrestrial species, a smooth, 

 shining epidermis or a covering of hairs, which serves 

 to protect the surface of the mite from becoming 

 wetted. The usual habitat of these mites is in shel- 

 tered places — crevices, rock-fissures, and under em- 

 bedded stones — such as have been for long undis- 

 turbed, and where air is imprisoned during high tides. 

 Higher up on the shore, at about high-water mark, 

 a few species have succeeded in establishing them- 

 selves where they are only occasionally wetted or 

 sprayed. The zonal distribution of the inter-tidal 

 mites is shown in a table, from which it is seen 

 that below the upper zone, named the orange lichen 

 zone (from the occurrence there of Physcia, Lecanora, 

 etc.), the number of species becomes suddenly much 

 less. The list contains seventy-seven species, twelve 

 of which are new, and a new genus is described. 



Clol-dixess in the United States is the subject of 

 an article by Prof. R. De C. Ward in the Geo- 

 graphical Review for .April-June (vol. ix., No. 4, 

 1920). The article contains a useful bibliography of 

 the subject and a new map showing the mean annual 

 cloudiness. The regions of maximum cloudiness 

 appear to be the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence 

 valley in the east and the northern part of the Pacific 

 Coast in the west. The desert regions in the south- 

 west naturally experience least cloud. Over most of 

 the country the difference between the amount of 

 cloud in the cloudiest and in the least cloudy months 

 is only 10-20 per cent., but in the regions of maxi- 

 mum cloudiness it is 30 per cent, or more, and in 

 the western plateau region it is more than 40 per 

 cent. 



The microscopic examination of the structure of 

 metals and other substances by the aid of light 

 reflected from a polished and etched surface has 

 proved of such great value that Mr. F. E. Wright, 

 of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion, Washington, has gone carefully into the ques- 

 tion as to how far it might be possible by such an 

 examination in polarised light to determine the 



