October 14, 1915] 



NATURE 



77 



' r, and the like. It is worth translating into 

 _;lish for its scientific insight alone. In 1795 

 i:iimanuel Kant drew up a programme, "Zum Ewigen 

 Fricden," which is still a classic. Messrs. George 

 \ii' n have been well advised to issue this with trans- 

 on in pamphlet form. The manifesto of the 

 itral Organisation for a Durable Peace, at 51 

 resiastraat, the Hague, gives a minimum-pro- 

 inme for the bases of such peace, chiefly to invite 

 L;estions and co-operation. It is the result of the 

 inational meeting held at the Hague last April. 

 Comiti Suisse pour I'dtude des bases d'un traitd 

 '\iix durable have, on the lines of the Hague mani- 

 I, issued a valuable memoire, not individual, like 

 Forel's, but impersonally legal. It contains refer- 

 s to articles of conventions and to recent litera- 

 lure on the general subject of permanent peace. Cer- 

 tainly there is now in process of creation a science of 

 peace-maintenance, the successful results of which 

 may regenerate both national and international life. 



I.\ the issue of the Journal of the Royal Anthro- 

 pological Institute for January-June, 1915, the 

 president, Prof. A. Keith, publishes his presidential 

 Address on the Bronze age invaders of Britain. He 

 '" s the date of this invasion about the year 2000 

 . and he states that we are not yet in possession 

 ufficient evidence to determine how far this round- 

 led race replaced the older inhabitants of Britain. 

 le were several parts of England, Wales, Scot- 

 1, and Ireland which they failed to penetrate; at 

 -r, we have not found in these parts their peculiar 

 und-barrow" graves. The problem is to ascer- 

 i the birthplace of this race. We find merely 

 iidary settlements along the eastern shores of 

 North Sea and at the possible points of their 

 arkation. The hypothesis that they came from 

 I may be discarded, as the belief is growing that 

 own continent may have produced its own races. 

 Tiie centre of dispersion was probably the central 

 n ountainous region of Europe. In Denmark we 

 >t«nise two invading waves of round-heads, but 

 older or neolithic wave contained men marked 

 Dy all the characters which we recognise in the 

 English round-barrow people. They also settled in 

 «Duth Sweden, south-west Norway, at the mouths 

 of the Elbe, Weser, and Ems, advanced down the 

 Rhine valley, and reached the coast of Normandy, 

 paper deserves attention as an able summary 

 he results of modern research. 



The Indian Journal of Medical Research for July 

 (vol. iii.. No. i) contains a number of valuable papers 

 on subjects relating to tropical medicine. Major 

 MacGilchrist discusses the relative therapeutic value 



i malaria of the cinchona alkaloids, and finds that 

 droquinine is clinically superior to quinine and all 

 5 others. 

 The report of the director-general of public health, 

 Hew South Wales, for the year 1913, recently issued, 

 contains a mass of statistical and other information 

 ting to the public health of that colony. One of 

 most interesting sections deals with an outbreak 

 -mall-pox in Sydney, showing how mild and in- 

 NO. 2398, VOL. 96] 



sidious this disease may sometimes be. It is also of 

 interest because the disease was successfuly inoculated 

 upon the calf. 



The third report of the Government Bureau of 

 Microbiology, New South Wales, contains a number 

 of valuable reports on the diseases of man, animals, 

 and plants occurring in the colony, and on agricultural 

 and economic problems. A diphtheroid bacillus was 

 isolated from a number of surgical lesions in children. 

 It was, however, not the true diphtheria bacillus; it 

 conformed to one particular and distinctive type, 

 which can be identified with comparative ease, and is 

 named by Dr. Cleland the Bacillus chirurgicalis. The 

 organism was usually non-virulent to guinea-pigs. 



Many biochemical reactions proceed in the manner 

 of a mono-molecular reaction, as, for example, the 

 killing of micro-organisms by heat and by disinfect- 

 ants. T. Madsen and T. Watabiki show that the 

 same holds good for the destruction of "complement" 

 of blood-serum and of " haemolytic amboceptors" by 

 heat, the relation between the temperature, and the 

 rapidity of reaction in both cases conforming in 

 general to the law of van't Hoff and Arrhenius (Bull 

 de I'Acad. Roy. des Sc. et des Lettres de Dancmark, 

 1915, No. 2). 



"The bird as a labourer," remarks a writer in the 

 autumn number of Bird Notes and News, " is not recog- 

 nised by the Board of Agriculture." This is indeed 

 the case, because the Board has not yet risen to a 

 full sense of its responsibilities. When it does it will 

 establish a Bureau of Ornithology, such as has long 

 been at work, both on the Continent and in the United 

 States. In these countries the value of birds as 

 destroyers of insect pests and of noxious weeds is fully 

 recognised. The present number of our contemporary 

 contains some valuable information on the subject of 

 birds in relation to the farmer and gardener. 



Dr. J. M. Dewar, in the Zoologist for September, 

 continues his observations on "The Relation of the 

 Oystercatcher to its Natural Environment." The pre- 

 sent notes are concerned with the summer environ- 

 ment, and the nature of the nesting-sites and sources 

 of food supply. The breeding-stations within the area 

 examined fall into three distinct habitats — a hill- 

 stream, a river-valley, and a beach habitat. But a 

 strong similarity exists between all the stations of each 

 habitat, variability of the factors being much less 

 pronounced than in the winter environment. In such 

 inland stations earthworms, tipulid, and coleopterous 

 larvae form the staple food of the young. In the lake- 

 beach area a large sand-bank at the head of the loch, 

 and a boulder area on its north shore, are used every 

 year by the birds that have failed to breed, as places 

 of assembly for bathing, sunning, and other activities. 

 We should have been glad of some statement as to the 

 number of birds breeding at these stations. But these 

 details will perhaps be given in a later article, for 

 Aie series is not yet completed. 



Mr. a, H. Clarke, in the American Naturalist for 

 September, discourses at length on asymmetry as 

 developed in the genera and families of recent 

 Crinoids. He maintains that the less favourable the 



