October i, 1914] 



NATURE 



121 



Natire of August 13 (p. 620) as having been stranded 

 at Birzebbugia on July 20, is undoubtedly, as suggested 

 in that note, a blackfish {Globicephala melaena). The 

 identification is confirmed by photographs forwarded 



I by Mr. Despott, who states that this specimen is the 

 first record of the species in the Mediterranean. 



From the report for 19 13, contained in vol. iv,, No. 8, 

 of its journal, we learn that the East Africa and 

 Uganda Natural History Society continues to main- 

 tain its record of progress and prosperity, the number 

 of new members being greater than in any previous 

 year. His Excellency Sir H. C. Belfield has been 

 pleased to collect a fund which is to go towards the 

 establishment of a permanent museum, with a curator, 

 and a plot of ground in a central position in Nairobi 

 has been reserved as a site for the proposed new 

 buildings. A feature of the aforesaid number of the 

 society's journal is a coloured plate of the African 

 brown-bellied kingfisher {Halcyon semicoeruleus), 

 illustrating an article on this strikingly coloured 

 species by Dr. V. G. L. van Someren. 



In concluding his article on pattern-development in 

 mammals and birds in the September issue of the 

 American Naturalist, Dr. G. M. Allen discusses par- 

 tial albinism in wild birds, and what is termed 

 "centrifugal coloration" in both groups. In the 

 former section it is suggested that the white eyebrow- 

 stripe in the so-called ringed guillemot — now known 

 to be a special phase of the ordinary Uria troile — 

 represents an incipient albinism forming a line of 

 demarcation between the dark ear-patches and crown- 

 patches. The author would expect to find this white 

 in young birds, and suggests that, if of a recessive 

 nature, it may eventually be developed in a much 

 larger number of members of the species than is at 

 present the case. As regards centrifugal coloration, 

 this is the development of black pigment at the ex- 

 tremities or points of the body, as exemplified by the 

 black nose and tail-tip not infrequently seen in domes- 

 ticated cats. The so-called Himalayan rabbits, in 

 which the whole animal is white, with the exception 

 of the black nose, ear-tips, and toes, form another 

 striking example. The paper winds up with a sum- 

 mary of the author's views. 



Ix connection with the military operations of our 

 Japanese allies in the province of Shantung, the 

 meteorological observations made in Korea, on the 

 opposite shores of the Yellow Sea, for about ten 

 years, are of especial interest. We have recently 

 received the results for the year 1912, and for the 

 lustrum 1906-10. The following extracts from these 

 valuable data, refer to stations in the north-west and 

 south-west of Korea for the lustrum in question. 

 Chemulpo : Highest mean monthly maximum tem- 

 perature (August), 828° ; lowest mean monthly mini- 

 mum (February), 19-6°; annual rainfall, 31 in., on 

 ninety-seven days; sunshine, 2726 hours (61 per cent, 

 of possible amount). Mokpo : Temperature as above, 

 864° (August); 279° (February); rainfall, 383 in., on 

 126 days; approximate sunshine, 2310 hours (52 per 

 cent, of possible amount). The instruments and 

 method of obser\'ation are of the same excellent char- 

 NO. 2344, VOL. 94] 



acter as those at meteorological stations in Japan, 

 and the tables are carefully prepared by Mr. Y. Wada, 

 director of the observatory at Chemulpo. 



We are glad to see from Symons's Meteorological 

 Magazine for September that Dr. Mill is able to 

 resume the editorship after an interval of nearly a 

 j^ear. The size of the magazine has had to be some- 

 what reduced, owing to the fall in the income of the 

 British Rainfall Organisation through the war. This 

 number contains an interesting article by Mr. H. H. 

 Clayton and Mr. W. M. Hays, entitled "Arguments 

 for Basal and Immediate Crop Estimates," the gist of 

 which is the possibility of substituting for present 

 estimates of crop conditions, based on reports by 

 growers and bureau agents, opinions based on climatic 

 records supplied by a World Meteorological Organisa- 

 tion from daily weather telegrams. The publication 

 by the U.S. Weather Bureau of daily weather charts 

 for the northern hemisphere, and the collection and 

 publication of data from stations to represent the 

 meteorology of the globe, by the efforts of the Solar 

 Commission of the International Meteorological 

 Committee and of the Meteorological Office, are great 

 steps in the above direction. But, as we have before 

 had occasion to point out, the proposals made to the 

 meteorological conferences and meetings to promote 

 the establishment of an international weather bureau 

 have not met with any definite encouragement. 



In the Bulletin of the American Mathematical 

 Society, vol. xx., p. 10 (July), Prof. Edward Kasner 

 discusses certain exceptions to the general rule accord- 

 ing to which the ratio of the arc to the chord of a 

 curve tends to the limit unity. In the case of an 

 ordinary singular point the ratio may, of course, be 

 indeterminate, but the author finds that in the case 

 of certain imaginary curves the ratio may have a 

 definite limit different from unity at some particular 

 point or points, even if the curve be analytic in the 

 neighbourhood of the point or points in question. The 

 most typical case is that of a plane curve at a point 

 where the tangent passes through one of the imaginary 

 circular points at infinity. At such a point the ratio 

 of chord to arc becomes f v^2, j ^3, ? 1/^, and so on 

 according to the order of contact with this particular 

 tangent. The discrepancies are due to the fact that 

 the elements of chord and arc from the point to a 

 neighbouring point both vanish to the first order of 

 small quantities. 



In the Proceedings of the Physical Society for 

 August (vol. xxvi., part 5) Dr. Lees discusses the 

 connection betwen Fourier's series and the method of 

 least squares. This connection was pointed out in 

 Tait's " Natural Philosophy " without proof, and we 

 believe that several other writers have dealt with the 

 question in greater or lesser detail, possibly covering 

 the same ground. The present paper contains a brief 

 proof of the proposition that if it is required to obtain 

 a finite trigonometric series having given values for a 

 corresponding finite number of values of the argu- 

 ment, the series obtained by the Fourier expansion 

 makes the sum of the squares of the errors a 

 minimum. 



