January 7, 19 15] 



NATURE 



:i^:^ 



lance-heads, etc., recently discovered at Haldalsnosi, 

 Hallingdal, and other Norwegian localities, and now 

 exhibited in the Bergen" Museum. Six of these 

 weapons are shown in the illustrations to the article. 



In the report of the Clifton College Scientific Societ\- 

 for 19 13-14 the want of interest taken on the part of 

 members in the geological class, which had abso- 

 lutely no supporters, is deplored, as is also the lack 

 of any entries of essays or collections for the Joshua 

 Saunders prize during 1914. The museum is under- 

 going rearrangement. 



Ix the Times of December 30 appeared an announce- 

 ment that the London Museum possesses a tooth of a 

 mastodon recently found in the neighbourhood of 

 Southwark. If trustworthy, such a statement would 

 be of great interest, seeing that, with the exception 

 of certain specimens alleged to have come from a 

 Derbyshire cave, mastodon remains are known in this 

 countr)" only from the East Anglian crags. As stated 

 in a letter in the Times of Januarv 5, if really 

 found near Southwark, the London Museum specimen 

 must almost certainly be a mammoth's tooth. 



In" concluding his experiences of the notes of tropical 

 birds in Bird-Lore for November and December, 1914, 

 Mr. L. A. Fuertes takes occasion to record his im- 

 pressions of the voice of howling-monkeys. After 

 stating that it is not really " howling," according to 

 his conception of that term, he observes that the cry 

 is a hundredfold more " thunderous " and terrible than 

 an animal not much bigger than a large cat could be 

 imagined capable of emitting. Although the party 

 under observation comprised only a male and a female 

 and two half-grown young, '• the terrible noise, that 

 issued principally from the throat of the old male, 

 seemed to make the atmosphere quake. . . . The 

 noise was a deep, throat}% bass roar . . . fully as 

 loud as the full-throated roaring of lions." 



Ix an article in La Nacion (Buenos Aires) of Sun- 

 day, November 22, 19 14, claim is made to the dis- 

 covery of definite proof of the existence of man in 

 South America during the Miocene epoch. The claim 

 is based on the discovery by Senor Carlos Ameghino, 

 in a deposit in the Chapalmalal stream, on the Atlan- 

 tic coast of the province of Buenos Aires, of a femur 

 of an ancestral member of that group of ungulate 

 mammals typified by the genus Toxodon of the 

 Pampean, in the shaft of which is embedded part of 

 what is regarded as a flint arrow-head. According 

 to a figure given in the article, this presumed arrow- 

 head is broken short off at the level of the surface 

 of the bone; but no explanation is offered how such 

 a feeble weapon could have penetrated the solid shaft 

 of a bone of the type of a toxodont femur. Other 

 traces of the presence of man are stated to have been 

 obtained from the Chapalmalal beds, which are re- 

 garded as immeasurably older than the Pampean 

 formation, in which occurs the so-called " Homo 

 pampaeiis," and *if we accept the views of Senor 

 Ameghino with regard to the embedded arrow-head, it 

 must apparently be admitted that a human being 

 acquainted with fire, and capable of making bows and 

 arrows, lived with the extinct Chapalmalal fauna. 

 NO. 2358, VOL. 94] 



Even so, however, this is ver\' far from affording 

 proof that man, in common with the rest of the fauna, 

 was of Miocene age, and in existence prior to the 

 union of South with North America. 



A USEFUL contribution to ecological botany is made 

 in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edin- 

 burgh (vol. xxvi., part iii.), where Miss Lamont gives 

 an account of the ecology of the family estate of 

 Knockdow, Argyllshire. The area of some 6000 acres 

 is largely uncultivated land, and lies mainly on the 

 j metamorphic rocks ; its overlying soil is peat, and 

 with a flora typical of the western Highlands. On 

 the portion of the area lying on the Old Red Sand- 

 stone a slight change in the flora is noticeable, 

 Galium verum. Ononis spinosa, and Linaria vulgaris, 

 for instance, only being found on the Old Red. 



The longevity of seeds is a subject on which specifi 

 information is always desirable, and the paper b\ 

 G. H. ShuU, on the longevity of submerged seeds in 

 the Plant World (vol. xviii., November, 1914), gives 

 some valuable information on the subject. By the 

 bursting of a dam a lake some seventy years old was 

 drained, and the covering of vegetation, both dense 

 and diverse, which appeared on the dried mud in the 

 following spring, suggested clearly that it arose chiefly 

 from seeds which had been buried for seventy- \-ear?. 

 The paper describes a series of careful experiment- 

 to test the longevity of submerged seeds, which, 

 though only carried on for four and a quarter year- 

 in some cases, and nearly seven years in others, shov 

 that the vitality of many seeds was fully retained at 

 the end of these periods of time. 



The periodical flowering of the bamboo, resulting 

 in the death of all the plants in a given area, is a 

 well-known phenomenon. The flowering of Bamhusa 

 polymorpha in Burma is the subject of a communica- 

 tion in the Indian Forester for November, 1914, and 

 it is stated that the last time this species flowered 

 in its peculiar extensive manner was in 1859-60. 

 Last year a few clumps flowered, and this year ever\ 

 clump is in full flower. It is of interest to notic, 

 that in the year before flowering no new shoots are 

 sent up. The bamboo is regenerated from the seed 

 ripened at these long intervals, hence all the bamboos 

 in a large area are of the same age, and the life-cycle 

 is repeated with regularitj'. When the bamboo 

 flowers sporadically, as is the case with some species, 

 seeds are not matured, apparently because the bamboo 

 is self-sterile. 



A USEFUL and interesting note on fruit-growing in 

 the East Africa Protectorate is contributed to the 

 Kew Bulletin, No. 8, 1914, by Mr. H. Powell, who 

 has had about ten years of experience in this subject 

 in various parts of the country. Following the pioneer 

 work, extending over twenty years, by the late Rev. 

 S. Watts, of the N'Gomeni Mission Station, who 

 devoted much attention to establishing European fruit 

 trees, and obtaining, by means of acclimatisation and 

 selection, varieties best suited to the climatic condi- 

 tions of East Africa, the importance of fruit culture 

 was recognised, and ever since the founding of the 

 ' Department of Agriculture in 1903 the introduction. 



