360 



NATURE 



[November ii, 1920 



the village decorated memorial poles are erected. In 

 the example described by Mr. Lorrain, one of the 

 f)oles bore the horsehair plume denoting that the 

 deceased had taken heads and the tail-feather of a 

 cock denoting that he had carried off another man's 

 wife, while on another pole was the skull he had 

 taken. A third small pole showed projecting points, 

 each representing a slave he had carried off when 

 making raids. The animals which had fallen to his 

 spear in the chase were represented by stones round 

 the foot of the poles. .\ large, flat stone was possibly 

 a sacrificial slab. On one side was placed a row of 

 flat staves representing the deceased's wives. 



Great value is attached to the heads of animals 

 taken in the chase and to the heads of human beings 

 taken in tribal wars and raids, as the possession of 

 such is believeti to give the owner not only power 

 over the victims in the "world to come," but also 

 ensures a permit into Paradise after the death of the 

 one who has obtained a full set of heads. Sometimes 

 the marriage price of a maiden consisted in part of 

 a number of such heads of human beings, and this 

 led to young men entering into raids upon their near 

 or distant neighbours. 



Bv religion the Lakhers are animists, but it would 

 be rnore correct to say that they appeased rather than 

 worshipped these spirits, which are believed to be the 

 authors of all evil. .\ large tree in the centre of the 

 village was held to be the abiding place of the most 

 powerful spirit. At the foot of this tree was the sacri- 

 ficial stone upon which cocks and pigs were sacrificed. 



In the discussion which followed the paper Mr. 

 Lorrain, in replying to certain queries raised by Col. 

 Shakespeare, stated further that there were well- 

 marked social distinctions between the clans. The 

 headship of the village could be held only by the 

 members of about six clans. Next in grade to these 

 were the aristocratic clans, also about six in number, 

 who could not hold the headship of the village. The 

 lower classes comprised two grades, an upper of 

 ten to fifteen clans and a lower of about thirty 

 clans. Below these were the slaves. The headship 

 of the village descended from the father to the 

 voungest son of the chief legitimate wife : other sons 

 became headmen of outlying villages. Mr. Lorrain 

 had not found anv regular institution of feasts similar 

 to those held among the neighbouring Lushai, which, 

 when ffiven in a certain progression in the number 

 and character of the victims, bring the giver honour 

 in this world and favour in the world to coine. He 

 had found, however, one instance of a house in which 

 the door had a rounded instead of a sauare top. The 

 exact sig^nificance of this he had not been able to 

 ascertain bevond that it was a privilege cottnected in 

 some way with a special sacrifice. 



Meteors of the Season. 



THE November meteors are due to return on 

 November 14 and 15, and, though no 

 abundant display may be expected, Mr. VV. F. 

 Denning thinks that the shower is likely to prove 

 fairly conspicuous. The parent comet of the meteors 

 must have been in aphelion in 1916, and is now 

 situated between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, 

 so that whatever meteors may appear this year must 

 be at a vast distance from the cometary nucleus of 

 the shower. The whole orbit, however, contains 

 meteoritic particles, and observations during last 

 century prove that this system re-appears annually 

 at the middle of November. It is fortunate that the 

 moon will be absent from the skv after the rising of 

 the Leonid radiant, which occurs at about 10.15 P-^"- 

 NO. 2663, VOL. 106] 



on November 15. Probably the meteors will be far 

 more abundant after midnight, when the radiant at 

 150° -(-23° has attained a fairly good altitude. 



These November meteors belong to the swift class, 

 moving at the apparent velocity of 44 miles per 

 second, and, like the Perseids of August, they include 

 flashing fireballs of the largest kind intermingled with 

 the smallest shooting stars. 



An abundant shower of meteors was observed be- 

 tween October 30 and November 5, and quite a large 

 number of fireballs were seen. The meteors belonged 

 to a radiant point in Taurus and a few degrees south- 

 west of the Hyades, at about 59°+ 12°. There was 

 also another shower .situated in Aries at 43°-(-22°, 

 which furnished a considerable number of meteors. 

 These were slow-moving, brilliant objects, and have 

 usually traversed long flights. 



Both these showers were well observed by Miss 

 A. Grace Cook from Stowmarket during a series of 

 careful and prolonged meteoric observations between 

 October 30 and November 4. Mr. F. Sargent at the 

 University Observatory, Durham, also witnessed the 

 fall of a number of meteors on October 30 and 

 November 5. At Bristol Mr. Denning saw some of 

 the meteors, and one of them, on October 30, about 

 7.14, was also observed by Mr. F. Sargent. The real 

 path of this object was from about 77 to 55 miles in 

 height, and its luminous course no miles at a velocity 

 of about 24 miles per second. The radiant point was 

 at 60°-!- 14°. 



A very brilliant member of the same shower 

 appeared on November 4 at 6. 11, and came under 

 observation by Miss \. Grace Cook at Stowmarket 

 and by others at Bristol and Ilford. It had an ex- 

 tremely long path, and afforded a grand spectacle to 

 many observers in the south of England. This was 

 also a Taurid, and it traversed a horizontal course of 

 about 235 miles at a height of about 63 miles from 

 over the sea, about 40 miles cast of Southwold, to 

 over Somerset about 20 miles south of Bath. This 

 shower of Taurid meteors is well known, but its 

 recent display, like that on November 2, 1886, was 

 of a rather exceptional character. 



Heredity and Social Fitness. 



DR. WILHELMINE E. KEY has made (Carnegie 

 Institution, Washington, Publication 296, 1920, 

 pp. 102) a careful study of differential mating in a 

 Pennsylvania family. The study comprises 1S22 in- 

 dividuals, nearly half of whom are in the direct line 

 of descent from two pairs of German immigrants of 

 more than a century ago. The remainder were con- 

 sidered in connection with the strains into which the 

 descendants of these couples married. The research 

 began with four young people, patients at the In- 

 stitution for the Feeble-minded of Western Pennsyl- 

 vania, and was followed into intricate networks of 

 stocks. Some of the general results may be outlined, 

 (i) The behaviour in inheritance of such qualities as 

 far-sightedness, perseverance, and push indicates that 

 the occurrence of these traits is due to a segregation 

 of their determiners. (2) There was a decided de- 

 crease in fecundity in all lines, but not more marked 

 in the socially inefficient than in the efficient. On the 

 other hand, the survival ratios increase for the suc- 

 cessive generations of the efficient lines, while they 

 decrease for the inefficient lines, thus illustrating 

 Nature's method of eliminating the unfit. (3) In 

 migration the more efficient push into new areas, the 

 less efficient tend to settle down. (4) The reactions 

 of the degenerate members show that the variations 

 in efficiencv are due not to adverse conditions, or to 



