2l6 



NA rURE 



[Dec. 27, I ^ 



by the pinya, an armed party detailed by the council of heail- 

 men of the tribe to execute its sentences upon offenders. Other 

 tribes, such as the Kurnai, use pieces of wood without any 

 markings. Others, again, especially in Eastern Queensland, 

 use message sticks extensively, which are often elaborately 

 marked, highly ornamented, and even brightly painted. No 

 messenger, who was known to be such, was ever injured. The 

 message stick was made by the sender, and was kept by the 

 recipient of the message as a reminder of what he had to do. 

 For friendly meetings the messenger of Kurnai, of Gippsland, 

 carried a man's kilt and a woman's apron hung on a reed ; but 

 for meetings to settle quarrels or grievances by a set fight, or for 

 hostile purposes generally, the kilt was hung upon the point of 

 a spear. Among the Wotjoballuk of the Wimmera River in 

 Victoria, the principal man among them prepares a message 

 stick by making certain notches upon it with a knife. The man 

 who is to be charged with the message looks on, and thus learns 

 the connection between the marks upon the stick and his message. 

 A notch is made at one end to indicate the sender, and probably 

 notches also for those who join him in sending the message. If 

 all the people of a tribe are invited to attend a meeting, the stick 

 is notched from end to end ; if part only are invited, then a 

 portion only of the stick is notched ; and if very few people are 

 invited to meet or referred to in the verbal message, then a notch 

 is made for each individual as he is named to the messenger. 

 The messenger carried the stick in a net-bag, and on arriving at 

 the camp to which he was sent, he handed it to the headman at 

 some place apart from the others, saying to him, " So-and-so 

 sends you this," and he then gives his message, referring, as he 

 does so, to the marks on the message stick. The author gives 

 an explanation of the method adopted for indicating numbers, 

 which fully disposes of the idea that the paucity of numerals in 

 the languages of the Australian tribes arises from any inability to 

 conceive of more numbers than two, three, or four. A messenger 

 of death painted his face with pipe-clay when he set out, but did 

 not in this tribe carry any emblematical token. Among the 

 Wirajuri of New South Wales, when the message was one calling 

 the people together for initiation ceremonies, the messenger 

 carried a "bull-roarer," a man's belt, a man's kilt, a bead string, 

 and a white head band, in addition to the message stick. In 

 New South Wales, the Kaiabara tribe use message sticks cut in 

 the form of a boomerang, to one end of which a shell is tied. 

 As a rule the notches on a message stick are only reminders to 

 the messenger of the message he is instructed to deliver, and are 

 unintelligible to a man to whom they have not been explained ; 

 but certain notches appear to have a definite meaning and to 

 indicate different classes ; and among the Adjadura there is an 

 approach to a fixed rule, according to which these sticks are 

 marked, so that they would convey a certain amount of meaning 

 definitely to an Adjadura headman independently of any verbal 

 message. 



Mathematical Society, December 13.— J. J. Walker, 

 F.R.S., President, in the chair. — Dr. Glaisher, F.R.S., com- 

 municated a geometrical note by Mr. H. M. Taylor. — Mr. 

 Love read a paper on the equilibrium of a thin elastic 

 spherical bowl. — The President (Prof. Greenhill, F.R. S., in the 

 chair) contributed some illustrations of a former paper on a 

 method in the analysis of ternary forms. — The Secretary read an 

 abstract of a paper on a method of transformation with the aid 

 of congruences of a particular type, by Mr. J. Brill. 



Edinburgh. 

 Royal Society, December 3. — Sir Douglas Maclagan, Vice- 

 President, in the chair. — The Chairman gave an opening 

 address. — Dr. John Murray communicated a paper by Mr. H. 

 B. Brady on the Ostracoda collected in the South Sea Islands. 

 One fresh-water specimen obtained in New Zealand is described. 

 The rest were collected between the tide-marks or at depths of 

 not more than 6 fathoms. The internal structure is not described, 

 as the specimens were preservedyin the dry state. Fifty new 

 species and two new genera occur. --^Dr. Murray communicated 

 also a paper by Dr. O. von Linstow on Pseudalius alatus, Leuck., 

 collected by Mr. Robert Gray in the Arctic Seas, and other 

 species of the genus. A detailed description of this Entozoon is 

 given, it having been only once previously described, and that 

 imperfectly. Six other species of the same genus are described 

 — Prof. Patrick Geddes read the first part (botanical and 

 zoological) of a restatement of the theory of organic evolution. 

 He drew attention to the two tendencies — vegetative and repro- 



ductive — which exist in organic nature, and asserted that 

 evolution is the result of the universal subordination of the 

 former to the latter. 



Stockholm. 

 Royal Academy of Sciences, December 12.— Contri- 

 butions to our knowledge of the habits of solitary wasps, by Prof. 

 Chr. Aurivillius.— On the singular points of such functions as 

 are defined by non-linear differential equations, by Prof. Mittag- 

 Leffler. — On the influence of the woods on the climate of 

 Sweden, by Dr. Ilamberg.— Singular generatrices in algebraic 

 rule surfaces, by Prof. Bjorling.— On the systematic value of the 

 varieties of herring, by Prof. F. A. Smitt. — On dinitro- 

 naphthalin-sulphon acid and some of its derivatives, by Herr P. 

 Hellstrom. — On naphthoe acids, by Dr. Ekstrand. — On the 

 action of fuming sulphuric acid on amido-naphthalin-sulphon 

 acids, by He rr Forsling. — On the structure of the auricles in the 

 Echinococon idse, by Prof. S. Loven. 



BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, and SERIALS RECEIVED. 



Puff: Mrs. Macquoid (S.P.C.K.).— Rides and Studies in the Canary 

 Islands: C. Edwardes (Unwin).— Elementos de Estatika Grafica : J. 

 Schloske, traducidos del Aleman por V. Balbin (Buenos Aires). — Tratado de 

 Geometria Analitica : J. Casey ; traducido del IngMs por V. Balbin 

 (Buenos Aires). — Carl von Linne's TJngdomsskrifter, r, 2 (Stockholm). — 

 Challenger Report — Zoology, vol. xxviii. (Eyre and Spofiswoode). — Ele- 

 mentary Building Construction and Drawing : E. J. Burrell (Longmans). — 

 Atlas of Chemistry, part 1 ; V. V. Branford (Edinburgh, Livingstone). — 

 Visitors' Guide to Salem (Salem, Mass.). — Bibliography of Astronomy for 

 the Year 1887 : W. C. Winlock (Washington). — The Beginning of American 

 Science— The Third Century: G. Browne Goode (Washington).— On the 

 Variation of Decomposition in the Iron Pyrites, 2 parts : A. A. Julien. — 

 Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society, December (Williams and 

 Norgate). — Essex Institute Historical Collections, vol. xxiv., January to 

 December 1887 (Salem, Mass.). — Botanische Jahrbiicher fiir Systematik 

 Pflanzengeschichte, und Pflanzengeographie, Zehnter Band, iv. Heft 

 (Williams and Norgate). — Journal and PJoceedings of the Royal Society of 

 New South Wales, vol. xxii. part i (Triibner). — Beiblatter zu den Annalen 

 der Physik und Chemie, 1888, No. 11 (Leipzig).— Transactions of the 

 Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, October (Leicester). — The 

 Encyclopsedic Dictionary, vol. vii. part 2 (Cassell). — Catalogue of the Mar- 

 supialia and Monotremata in the Collection of the British Museum, Natural 

 History (O. Thomas, London). — Die Mechanik in Ihrer Entwickelung : Dr. 

 E. Mach (Brockhaus, Leipzig).— Year-book of Pharmacy, 1888 (Churchill). 

 — Les Stations de I'Age du Renne, fas* i (Bailliere et Fils, Paris). — Prace 

 Matemalyczno-Fizyezue, torn. i. (Warszawa). 



CONTENTS. Page 



The Butterflies of the Eastern United States and 



Canada. By Captain H. J. Elwes 193 



Pole's Life of Siemens 194 



Some Palaeozoic Dipnoan Fishes 196 



Our Book Shelf :— 



Bornet and Flahault : " A Revision of the Heterocyst 



Nostocaccce" I97 



Letters to the Editor:— 



Mr. Spottiswoode's Mathematical Papers.— R. 



Tucker I97 



Statistics of the British Association. — Wm. Pengelly, 



F.R.S 197 



On the Formulre of the Chlorides of Aluminium and 

 the Allied Metals.— Dr. Sydney Young .... 198 

 The Utihty of Specific Characters. By Prof, W. A. 



Herdman 200 



The International Bureau of Weights and Measures 202 

 On the Plasticity of Glacier and other Ice. illus- 

 trated.) By James C. McConnel 203 



Notes 207 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Madras Meridian Circle Observations, 1865, 1866, 



1867 210 



Comet 1888 e (Barnard, September 2) 210 



Astronomical Phenomena for the Week 1888 



December3o— 1889 January 5 211 



Geographicai Notes .211 



The Farmer's Guide to Manuring. By Prof. John 



Wrightson 212 



On the Discovery of the Olenellus Fauna in the 

 Lower Cambrian Rocks of Britain. By Prof. C. 



Lapworth, F.R.S ' • 212 



The Forests of Upper Burmah 214 



The Cocoa-nut Palm 214 



University and Educational Intelligence 214 



Scientific Serials 215 



Societies and Academies 215 



Books, Pamphlets, and Serials Received 216 



