2«2 



NATURE 



[March 2, 192: 



Research Items. 



Maya Hieroglyphs. — Though much attention has 

 been bestowed on the decipherment of the Maya 

 hieroglyphs since a key was suppUed by Diego de 

 Landa, the first Spanish bishop, the result, except 

 as regards some numerals, has been disappointing. 

 It is obvious that the way to begin such a study is 

 by an examination of the modern language of the 

 country, as the study of Coptic has helped in ancient 

 Egyptian. Hitherto the grammars of the Maya 

 tongue have supplied an inadequate basis for its 

 study, because their authors, Spanish priests, were 

 ignorant of philology and phonetics and tried to 

 build up a grammar of a primitive language by 

 following the Latin or Spanish models. This natur- 

 ally led to two classes of defects : unnatural forms 

 were invented to express corresponding ideas in 

 Latin or Spanish, and numbers of native expressions 

 were overlooked because they could not be brought 

 within the European system. Mr. A. M. Tozzer, 

 the first travelling fellow in American ethnology of 

 the Archaeological Institute of America, spent a 

 considerable time in Central America, from igoi to 

 1905, and he issued in 1907 a report of his ethnological 

 work. This he has now followed up by a compre- 

 hensive grammar of the Maya language on modern 

 lines and a bibliography of the literature. He 

 omits any discussion of the phonetic character of 

 the Maya hieroglyphs, and he deals with the language 

 as unrecorded up to the time of the Spanish conquest. 

 But he justly remarks that any elucidation of the 

 hieroglyphs will be impossible until an advance is 

 made in our acquaintance with their phonetic 

 elements. This in recent years has not advanced in 

 comparison with the gains made in deciphering the 

 numerical parts of the hieroglyphic writing. A 

 successful correlation of the modern Maya language 

 with the hieroglyphs holds out a prospect of success. 

 In this respect Mr Tozzer's book, forming vol. 9 of 

 the Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology 

 and Ethnology, Harvard University, deserves hearty 

 commendation. 



Marine Molluscan Fauna of America. — A useful 

 summan,'^ of the marine shell-bearing molluscs 

 of the north-west coast of America has been pub- 

 lished by Mr. W. H. Dall (U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 

 112, pp. 217, 22 plates). In the preparation of this 

 summary the results of more than fifty years' study 

 of the molluscan fauna of the north-west coast have 

 been brought together, Mr. Dall's investigations 

 having begun in 1865. The molluscan fauna of this 

 coast falls into three main divisions — the Arctic, 

 containing many circumboreal species, and extending 

 from the Arctic Sea to the southern limit of drift-ice 

 in winter in the Bering Sea ; the temperate, extending 

 from this line southwards to Point Conception, Call- ' 

 fornia ; and the tropical, from the latter place to 

 Point Aguja on the coast of Peru. The total number 

 of species (excluding nudibranchs and cephalopods) 

 for the region is 2122. The Tertiary and Pleistocene 

 fossils of the shores of Bering Sea afford evidence of a 

 communication with Atlantic waters during the pre- 

 valence of more genial conditions. Several species 

 now living in Bering Sea are found fossil in the late 

 Pliocene of Nantucket and the Pliocene of Iceland, 

 and, conversely, the common periwinkle of New Eng- 

 land {Littorina palliata) is one of the species found 

 in the elevated beaches of Nome, Alaska, and is now 

 extinct on the Pacific coast. The intercommunication 

 between the two oceans would seem to have been 

 tolerably free at the time, though now there are quite 

 pronounced differences between the Greenlandic and 

 the Bering Strait Arctic assemblages of molluscs. 



NO, 2731, VOL. 109] 



A Parasitic Amceba with Pathogenic Capacities. 

 — Prof. C. A. Kofoid and Dr. Olive Swezy have 

 recently described (Univ. California Zool. Publ., 

 vol. 20, No. 7), under the name Councilmania Lafleuri, 

 a parasitic amceba of the human intestine which 

 " appears to have pathogenic capacities." They state 

 that this organism is apparently cosmopolitan in 

 distribution, but has hitherto been confused with 

 Entamoeba coli because of its eight-nucleated cyst. 

 The cyst has a thick wall, and in addition to the eight 

 nuclei, each with a large dispersed karyosome, there 

 are in the protoplasm acicular chromatoid bodies, 

 fasciculate or massed in the later phases. The cysts 

 are spheroidal, ellipsoidal, or asymmetrical, and their 

 non-spherical form and the dispersed karyosome are 

 among the characters given to distinguish this new 

 amoeba from E. coli. In fresh stools the cysts ex- 

 hibit a process of repeated budding, resulting in the 

 escape of amoebulae. Protoplasm issues through a 

 minute pore formed in the c3/st-wall, a nucleus sUps 

 out into the protoplasmic bud, and this bud detaches 

 itself as an amoebula. A new bud is formed and 

 creeps away, and so on until as many amcebulse have 

 been produced as there were nuclei. The authors are 

 emphatic that this is a normal process. They state 

 that in the division of the nucleus in the cyst eight 

 chromosomes are demonstrable at the metaphase, 

 whereas E. coli has only six. In ordinary practice 

 there will be great difficulty in distinguishing the 

 active stages of Councilmania from those of 

 Entamoeba histolytica and the cysts from those of 

 E. coli. The reason for creating the new genus 

 Councilmania is not obvious, and is not stated by the 

 authors. 



Bud Mutations. — That bud sports, or bud muta- 

 tions, frequently give rise to important new varieties 

 has long been known. Darwin studied many such 

 cases, and Cramer in 1907 compiled an account of all 

 the cases then known. Mr. A. D. Shamel, in a recent 

 publication of the Experiment Station of the Hawaian 

 Sugar Planters' Association, describes and clearly 

 illustrates many modern instances. He believes that 

 in many plants the selection of bud mutations is quite 

 as important as seed selection in the origination of 

 new varieties. Such occurrences are notoriously 

 frequent among citrus fruits, where many often occur 

 on the same tree, but they are also relatively common 

 and have given rise to new varieties in potatoes, 

 sugar-cane, apples, peaches, and pears, as well as in 

 grapes, plums, strawberries, and a great variety of 

 cultivated garden-plants, such as dahlias, chrysan- 

 themums, roses, and carnations. Less is known 

 concerning the frequency with which they will come 

 true from seed, and this, of course, lessens their 

 evolutionary significance. 



Preservation of the Kauri Pine. — Most of the 

 Kauri pine, Agathis australis, the finest conifer south 

 of the equator, has been destroyed in New Zealand 

 by the lumberman. It is satisfactory to learn from 

 the State Forest Report for 1920-21 that a remnant 

 of the primeval forest of this species near Dargaville, 

 908 acres in area, was acquired by the State last 

 year, and will be preserved intact as the National 

 Kauri Park. An illustration in the report shows the 

 stem of one veteran which is 36 ft. in girth. Other 

 forests, of which the Kauri is an important con- 

 stituent, need not, however, disappear. Investiga- 

 tions commenced a year ago by Mr. W. R. McGregor 

 show that this species is readily regenerated under the 

 shade of a natural-shelter wood. Complete re- 

 establishment of a felled area requires a period of 



