756 



NATURE 



[June io, 1922 



Research Items. 



The Sacred Herakleopolite Nome Tree. — In 

 Ancient Egypt (Part i, 1922), Dr. F. F. Bruijning 

 concludes his interesting paper on the sacred tree of 

 the Egyptian HerakleopoUte Nome. From numerous 

 representations of this famous tree on the monuments, 

 he reaches the conclusion that it may be identified 

 with the wine-palm, Raphia monbuttorum, which has 

 since then retreated southward, keeping its place 

 longest where the special conditions for its growth, a 

 warm, damp air and soil, as in the oases, were 

 favourable. Most of the so-called " artichokes " 

 represented among the funeral offerings undoubtedly 

 represent the palm-cabbage, and older interpreta- 

 tions, such as the theory that they represent pine- 

 cones, must be set aside. A clear distinction must 

 be drawn between palm-wine, obtained from the sap 

 of various species, drawn by incisions in the spadix 

 or head, or by cutting off the spadix, and date-wine 

 in which, as with other fruits, the ripe fruit is mashed, 

 pressed, or boiled, and then fermented. 



The Osage Tribe of American Indians. — The 

 Bureau of American Ethnology in its thirty-sixth 

 Annual Report, 1914-15, publishes a fine, illustrated 

 monograph on the Osage tribe by Mr. F. la Flesche. 

 Marquette first visited them in 1673, and thus a 

 trading relationship was established with Spanish 

 and French merchants. In 1806 began the crisis in 

 their history, by which they gradually relinquished 

 their territory to the United States, and in 1825 

 they gave up their ancient home and removed to 

 a reservation in Kansas. Their present quarters are 

 in Osage County, Oklahoma, where they removed 

 in 1872. They are rapidly, as a tribe, approaching 

 extinction, not by death but by absorption by the 

 whites, and only a small minority are now of pure 

 blood. They belong to the great Siouan linguistic 

 family, their nearest kindred tribes being the Omaha, 

 Ponca, Quapaw, and Kaw. The volume contains, 

 both in the tribal dialect and an English translation, 

 a full account of their tribal rites — the Rite of the 

 Chiefs, which records their traditions in a cryptic 

 form, and the Hearing of the Sayings of the Ancient 

 Men. They were accustomed to appeal daily to 

 Wakonda for a long and healthful life. " Therefore 

 at dawn, when they saw the reddened sky signalling 

 the approach of the sun, men, women, and children 

 stood in the doors of their houses and uttered their 

 cry for divine help : as the sun reached mid-heaven 

 they repeated their prayer : and their supplications 

 again arose as the sun touched the western horizon." 



Bacteria associated with Rice and other 

 Cereals. — Starch is prepared from tubers and cereals, 

 and of these rice probably holds the first place as a 

 source of starch. The raw material is washed, 

 steeped, and ground with water, so that the starch 

 separates from other constituents of the grain, and 

 the milky suspension is allowed to stand in tanks 

 in which the starch is deposited. Fermentation due 

 to bacteria is liable to occur, particularly during 

 steeping and settlement, and may cause serious loss. 

 The chief source of bacterial infection is the grain 

 itself. It is found that " polished " rice carries 

 more bacteria than " unpolished " {i.e. unhusked) 

 rice, due apparently to the removal with the protective 

 epidermis of the grain of an alkaloidal substance 

 which has antiseptic properties. When not required 

 for seed the grain may be sterilised by means of 

 sulphur dioxide. Ordinary " paddy," rice grain as 

 it comes from the fields, carries sporing bacilli which 

 are capable of fermenting the starch with the pro- 



NO. 2745, VOL. 109] 



duction of acetone and butyl alcohol — as much as 

 8-9 per cent, of acetone on the weight of rice taken 

 being obtained (G. J. Fowler and Dhiresh Zobhan 

 Sen, Journ. Indian Inst, of Science, Vol. 4, Pt. VIII., 

 p. 119). 



Migration Instinct in Birds. — Mrs. C. D. 

 Langworthy of Claygate, Surrey, raises the question 

 of the migration of young cuckoos as an example 

 of " inherited memory." The adult cuckoos, being 

 free from family cares, emigrate very early and have 

 all left the. country some weeks before the young 

 ones, which they have never seen, are ready for the 

 journey. The young must thus find their way 

 unaided. There is no evidence that the foster- 

 parents' example plays any part; indeed the latter 

 are frequently birds of sedentary habit. A similar 

 phenomenon also takes place in the case of many 

 other migrants, such as the starling, for example, 

 but with the order reversed ; the young migrate 

 separately when only a few weeks old, the adults 

 following later after completing their autumn moult. 

 These cases are scarcely easier to explain than that 

 of the young cuckoos, for it is difficult to imagine 

 anything equivalent to theoretical instruction before- 

 hand. Migration is a very regular phenomenon, 

 occurring year after year according to the same plan ; 

 much of it, too, takes place before the need has 

 become really apparent, and thus it cannot be 

 explained simply as the result of immediate stimuli 

 and of the pressure of external circumstances. It 

 is therefore difficult to escape the conclusion, not 

 only that the migratory habit is an inherited instinct, 

 but that some foreknowledge of the journey to be 

 performed is in some way inborn. 



New Dinosaur from New Mexico. — Mr. C. W. 

 Gilmore describes " A new Sauropod Dinosaur 

 \^Alamosaurus sanjuanensis, n. gen. et n. sp.] from 

 the Ojo Alamo formation of New Mexico" ("Smith- 

 sonian Miscellaneous Collections," vol. Ixxii., No. 14). 

 The remains so far recovered consist of a left scapula 

 and a right ischium, both in a good state of preserva- 

 tion. The great importance of these particular 

 bones lies in the fact that the remains of sauropodous 

 dinosaurs have not previously been known to occur 

 above the Lower Cretaceous in North America, so 

 that the extension of their geological range into the 

 Upper Cretaceous is of the greatest palasontological 

 and geological interest. Much doubt attaches, in 

 Mr. Gilmore's opinion, to the proper identification, 

 or exact geological position, of the reported finds in 

 other parts of the world of sauropod remains of 

 Cenomanian age or later, although such dinosaurs 

 doubtless continued to exist until after the Cenomanian 

 and even into the Danian. 



New Surveys in Arabia. — The Geographical 

 Journal for May contains a new map of northern 

 Arabia prepared by the Geographical Section of the 

 General Staff. The map incorporates the work of 

 the late Capt. W. H. I. Shakespear, especially his great 

 journey across Arabia in 1914 from Koweit on the 

 Persian Gulf to the Egyptian outpost of Kuntilla in 

 Sinai. These observations were utilised during the 

 war in the construction of the i/M map of Arabia, 

 from which the present map is reduced to the scale 

 of 1/1-5 M. Mr. D. Carruthers, in an article accom- 

 panying the map, points out that Capt. Shakespear's 

 trans- Arabian journey covered about 1200 miles of 

 unknown country and that for the whole distance, 

 1 8 10 miles, he kept up a continuous route traverse, 

 checked at intervals by observations for latitude. 



