76 



NATURE 



[September i6, 191 5 



Island. The Austro-Hungarian Arctic Expedition 

 sailed in 1872 in the Tegetthof. Weyprecht was again 

 associated with Paj^er in the command. Their aim 

 was to push north-east of Novaya Zemlya and return to 

 Europe vid the Behring Strait. From the first they met 

 with misfortune. The Tegetthof was beset in the ice 

 in 76° 22' N., 63° E., and drifted with the pack 

 throughout the winter in hourly danger of destruc- 

 tion. Twelve months later high land was sighte3 

 to the north-west and named Franz-Josef Land. A 

 landing was made on one of thti islands. A second 

 winter was passed on the ice-bound ship, and in the 

 summer of 1874 Payer conducted several sledge ex- 

 peditions to explore the new land. Passing up Austria 

 channel, he reached Cape Fligely in Rudolf Land in 

 81° 51' N. North-eastward he saw further land, 

 which he named King Oscar and Petermann Lands. 

 In May the Tegetthof was abandoned, and after 

 terrible hardships to get clear of the ice the expedition 

 reached Novaya Zemlya in open boats in August, 

 1874. An English version of Payer's narrative, " New 

 Lands within the Arctic Circle," appeared in 1876. 

 In 1875 Payer was awarded the patrons' medal of the 

 Royal Geographical Society. 



In the course of excavations on the site of the great 

 city of Pataliputra, the modern Patna in Behar, a 

 discovery of much interest has been made. A vast 

 pillared hall of the Maurya period, the third century 

 B.C., has been unearthed. It contained eight rows 

 of monolithic columns, fifteen feet apart, supporting 

 a wooden superstructure which has been destroyed by 

 fire. Some remarkable constructions of sdl wood 

 beams have also been found, the object of which is un- 

 certain ; they may have been platforms for mooring 

 boats, or supports for another portion of the building. 

 The type of architecture at once recalls the great hall 

 at Persepolis, and we have thus a further indication 

 of the influence of Persian art on India during this 

 period. 



The great Buddhist Emperor, Asoka, was in the 

 habit of inscribing his edicts on monolithic pillars or 

 on rocks throughout his wide dominions. The Bud- 

 dhist pilgrim, Hiuen Tsang, mentions specifically six- 

 teen such pillars. Up to the present ten have been 

 discovered, but only two of these can be identified with 

 those mentioned by the traveller. The rock Inscrip- 

 tions, of which twelve have already been found, 

 though not possessing the artistic interest of the 

 pillars, are in some respects the most valuable monu- 

 ments of his reign. The recent discovery of another 

 rock inscription by some gold prospectors at a place 

 not far from Raichur, in the Dominions of the Nizam 

 of Hyderabad, is now announced. The Government 

 epigraphist, Rao Sahib H. Krishna Sastri, is satisfied 

 that it is a rock inscription. As the texts of these 

 documents vary, the publication of the inscription will 

 be awaited with interest. 



Some admirable photographs of the adult and nest- 

 ling of the Asiatic golden plover, and a most excellent 

 account of the breeding habits of this bird, by Miss 

 Maud Haviland, appear in the September issue of 

 British Birds. The most important of her observa- 

 NO. 2394, VOL. 96] 



tions are such as concern the behaviour of apparently 

 non-breeding birds of this species. On two points, 

 however, she might well have been a little more 

 explicit. The reader is left in doubt, for example, as 

 to whether the newly-hatched nestlings accompany 

 their parents, from the high to lower grounds, to 

 participate in the formation of the flocks of which 

 she speaks, and it would have been helpful to have 

 had a more precise description of the plumage of the 

 fledgling. Following Miss Haviland's paper comes a 

 brief account, by Mr. C. W. Colthrup, of the idiosyn- 

 crasies of the nidification instinct in the redshank. 

 Within the confines of the same marsh in Hampshire 

 he found eggs in comparatively elaborate nests and 

 screened from view by overarching stems of grass, 

 while in other cases the eggs were laid in an apology 

 for a nest, and without any attempt at concealment. 



In the Philippine Journal of Science, vol. x.. No. i, 

 Mr. R. P. Cowles contributes some extremely interest- 

 ing notes on the habits of some tropical Crustacea. 

 He deals more especially with the remarkable feeding 

 habits of Atya molluccensis , and of several species of 

 Caridina, and the peculiar structural modification of the 

 chelae associated therewith. In both genera the chelae or 

 "nippers" are armed with hairs, which, in Atya, can 

 be opened to form funnel-shaped strainers for the cap- 

 ture of minute organisms, and closed to form a pencil- 

 like brush, imprisoning the food thus captured, which 

 is then conveyed to the mouth. While feeding, Atya, 

 which is an inhabitant of running streams, remains 

 perfectly still, with its strainers directed upstream. 

 Caridina, with similarly armed chelae, crawls about 

 on the bottom of the stream, and uses the hairs, not as 

 strainers, but as brushes, to sweep the bottom of the 

 stream for minute particles of animal and vegetable 

 matter. Mr. Cowles supplements these notes with valu- 

 able observations on the habits of Myctris longicarpus, 

 which appears in countless numbers on sand-banks 

 exposed at low tide. When the tide rises they imme- 

 diately disappear beneath the sand. During their 

 migrations they are continually smearing the sand 

 over the mouth with the chelae, apparently for the 

 sake of the nourishment to be derived from the par- 

 ticles of animal matter it contains. These creatures 

 are extremely difficult to approach, for on the slightest 

 alarm they at once proceed to dig themselves into the 

 sand, vanishing in about three seconds. 



The recently Issued part of Contributions from the 

 United States National Herbarium, vol. xvii., part 6, 

 Is entirely occupied hy an enumeration of the tropical 

 North American species of Panicum by A. S. Hitch- 

 cock and Agnes Chase. One hundred and sixteen 

 species and three subspecies are Included, nine of which 

 are new. The total number of species of Panicum 

 In North America is now 216. Each species is 

 accompanied by an outline map graphically represent- 

 ing its geographical distribution within the tropics of 

 North America. There Is also a key to the species 

 and groups, and a complete list of the localities for 

 each species is given. 



A CATALOGUE of the soft-water algae collected In the 

 Caucasus in the region of Czernomorsk is published 



