7o6 



NATURE 



[February 25, 191 5 



heads, and punches, are totally wanting". The ques- 

 tion whether the pigmy and the ordinary Neolithic 

 types of implements were manufactured and used 

 simultaneously by a single race is, for the present, 

 left without a definite answer. 



In 'Man for January Mr. Edge Partington supplies 

 a graceful obituary notice of Mr. Norman Hardy, one 

 of the best of our anthropological artists, who died 

 about a year ago. His work began with illustrations 

 for Dr. Beddoes's " Races of Mankind." He travelled 

 widely In Australia and the Pacific, and some of his 

 best drawings appeared in "The Savage South Seas" 

 and "Women of all Nations." In 1907 he went to 

 the Kasai with the expedition led by Mr. E. Torday, 

 and his last work was the tracing of the wall paint- 

 ings in the tombs of the Kings at Thebes. He was 

 for many years an active member of the Royal 

 Anthropological Institute, where the simplicity and 

 kindliness of his nature, as well as his skill as an 

 artist, won him the regard of many friends. 



In the proven triculus of the flea there is a valvular 

 arrangement of chltinised spine-like epithelial cells 

 which normally prevents the regurgitation of blood 

 from the stomach during the act of sucking. A. W. 

 Bacot and C. J. Martin have shown that in the 

 plague-infected flea this mechanism is upset by a 

 copious growth of plague bacilli which gets entangled 

 among the spines, thus allowing the regurgitation of 

 infected blood and the Infection of a new host. In 

 the fourth Plague Supplement of the Journal of 

 Hygiene (January), this mode of transmission of 

 plague by the flea Is further elucidated by Bacot as the 

 result of a study of serial longitudinal sections of 

 infected fleas. Bacot also shows that in cool weather 

 fleas are able to survive and to carry B. pestis for 

 periods up to forty-seven days in the absence of any 

 host, and afterwards to Infect mice. He also shows 

 that under experimental conditions bugs can transmit 

 plague from mouse to mouse. Active healthy mice, 

 however, eat the bugs, and an Ingenious arrangement 

 Is described w'hereby the bugs are given shelter In 

 saw cuts In the walls of wooden tubes In which the 

 mice reside. Blood In the bug's stomach does not 

 form so favourable a medium for the growth of the 

 plague bacillus as in that of the flea, and It would 

 therefore appear that the bug Is not likely to be an 

 active carrier of the Infection under natural conditions. 



The June number of Peru To-day contains an article 

 entitled "The Conquest of Verruga," by Mr. C. H. T. 

 Townsend, entomologist to the Peruvian Government. 

 The author gives a brief summary of the results of 

 his investigations upon Verruga Peruana, a disease 

 which causes great ravages and much mortality in 

 the Andes, and he claims to have solved the problem 

 of the etiology of the disease and to have proved con- 

 clusively that It Is transmitted by a tiny fly, a species 

 of Phlebotomus, to which he has given the name 

 P. verrucarum. The fly is crepuscular and nocturnal 

 in Its habits, remaining hidden by day in caves or in 

 crevices In rocks and In the w^alls of human habita- 

 tions. Protection against the fly, and consequently 

 against the disease, can be obtained b}- sleeping under 

 NO. 2365, VOL. 94] 



muslin-nets, by applying ointments to the exposed 

 parts of the body just before dark, and by the use in 

 bedrooms of electric fans arranged in such a way as 

 to direct strong currents of air towards the open 

 windows through which the flies come in. The flies 

 appear to breed in the canyons in which there is 

 sufficient moisture to support a luxurious vegetation, 

 but not In the dry canyons without vegetation ; the 

 life-history of the fly has not yet, however, been 

 observed. The author believes that small rock-lizards 

 constitute a reservoir for the disease, and that the 

 flies, which feed naturally on the blood of these rep- 

 tiles, transmit the virus from them to human beings. 



One of the most difficult problems with which the 

 museum curator has to deal Is to find a satisfactory 

 method of presenting fishes for public exhibition. 

 Stuffed specimens are an abomination ; spirit speci- 

 mens, however cunningly pairted, are worse; and 

 the ordinary type of cast Is altogether wanting in 

 sharpness and definition, owing to the external layer 

 of plaster being disintegrated by the mucus from the 

 skin during the process of setting. For the latter 

 defect Messrs. Gill and Fletcher, of the Hancock 

 Museum, Newcastle-on-T3ne, claim. In the February 

 number of the Museums Journal, to have found an 

 efl"ectual remedy, and. judging from the figure of one 

 ready for painting, their casts certainly seem to be 

 a great Improvement on the old-fashioned type. A 

 continuation of the article is to follow. 



"An Appreciation of Theodore Nicholas Gill," Illus- 

 trated by a portrait in academical robes, is the title 

 of an article communicated by Prof. A. Lucas to the 

 January number of the American Museum Journal. 

 Dr. Gill, who died in September last, is regarded by 

 the author as having possessed an extraordinary grasp 

 of various branches of zoology, and this despite a 

 natural Indolence, which led him to forgo personal 

 investigation, and to rely largely on the work of others 

 as a basis for his own generalisations. Among the 

 latter " were the recognition of the claim of the 

 elasmobranchs to a position of the ' highest ' rank, 

 and of the purely artificial nature of the groups 

 Carinatae and Ratltae among birds." As regards the 

 latter item, his views, which are undoubtedly correct, 

 were diametrically opposite to those of the late Prof. 

 Alfred Newton. 



Mr. S. Taber discusses the earthquakes of the 

 Charleston district in the Bulletin of the American 

 Selsmological Society of America (vol. iv., 19 14, pp. 

 108-60). The earthquake-series of 1886 was preceded 

 by a prolonged interval of repose, only eight shocks 

 being recorded during the previous two centuries. 

 Since August, 1886, the decline of the after-shocks 

 In frequency has been gradual though fluctuating, 

 318 being reported from 1886 to 1897, and 77 from 

 1898 to 1913. The shocks are most frequent in Sep- 

 tember and rarest In April. Mr. Taber considers the 

 relations between earthquake-frequency and various 

 meteorological and astronomical factors. He finds 

 that shocks are most frequent after long-continued 

 periods of local rainfall, when the pressure of the 

 underground water is relatively greatest on the north- 



