172 



NATURE 



[July ii, 1918 



k>gical science, in part because of its youthfulness, 

 there are great possibilities of a return to "a whole- 

 some apprenticeship as in the days when students 

 were the assistants of their masters, shared their 

 hopes and ambitions, and felt the stimulus of their 

 creative activity." There is here the touch of "The 

 Third Floor Back " — for students as well as for 

 teachers. 



In the Bankfield Museum Notes, second series. 

 No. 10, Mr. H, Ling Roth continues his studies in 

 primitive looms by an account of those of Indonesia. 

 The loom of this region belongs to the Pacific type, of 

 which the most important are the American and the 

 Ainu. Taking the area in a wide sense, there appear 

 to be three forms of loom in Indonesia — the Dusun 

 and Iban (Sea Dayak) looms, the Ilanun and Igorob 

 transition loom, and the Cambodia and Malay loom. 

 Of these the Dusun and Iban loom is the most primi- 

 tive, consisting of a warp beam attached to two up- 

 right posts, a breast beam attached to a back strap, 

 several laze rods, a shed stick, one "single" heddle, 

 a beater-in, a temple, and a spool. The warp is con- 

 tinuous, and the weaver sits on the floor. The mono- 

 graph is, as with others in the series, provided with 

 several excellent illustrations from drawings. 



In a paper republished from the Proceedings of the 

 British Academy (vol. viii.) under the title of "Cosmic 

 Law in Ancient Thought," Prof. T. W. Rhys-Davids 

 discusses the question of animism as defined by the late 

 Sir E. Tylor. This is merely another name for the 

 soul-theory, but it was a great advance to replace the 

 ambiguous expression "soul " by a new scientific word 

 which could be used in a definite sense. There is, 

 however, a group of facts which cannot be included in 

 this definition — those behind which is a single under- 

 lying principle, the belief in a certain rule, order, or 

 law. Thus, among the Chinese, the fact of a boy having 

 a hare-lip was explained to Prof, de Groot as resulting 

 from the child's mother having during her pregnancy 

 accidentally made a cut in an old coat of the father's 

 she was mending. This is a definite law of causation, 

 however absurd it may appear. For cases of this kind 

 Prof. Rhys-Davids proposes the term "normalism," 

 which is convenient, and will probably be included in 

 the nomenclature of comparative religion. 



Mr. Waino Pekkola, who during the last four years 

 has been engaged in the study of the fish fauna of the 

 Nile, publishes in Sudan Notes and Records, No. 2, 

 April, 1918, a report on the "Seasonal Occurrence and 

 Edibility of Fish at Khartoum." At present nearly 

 200 species are known to exist in the Nile system, 

 but only a small number of these occur in the rivers 

 near Khartoum, and still fewer are constantly present 

 throughout the year. The most abundant are the 

 Siluridae or cat-fishes, of which the commonest is 

 Synodontis, Schall. Almost as abundantly represented 

 is the family Mormvridaj, all the members of which are 

 African fish. Of the Cyprinidae there are four species 

 of Labeo. Of the Cichlidae Tilapia nilotica has a wide 

 distribution from the Sea of Galilee and the River 

 Jordan all over the Nile system. The salting of fish 

 is at present carried out only to a small extent in the 

 Sudan, but many of the small species of the genera 

 Barbus and Alestes would be valuable as food if salted 

 in a proper manner. 



The British Museum (Natural History) has just 

 issued the report on the Arachnida collected during the 

 British Antarctic Expedition of iqio. The few speci- 

 mens collected were obtained during the voyage out, 

 from a rocky island off South Trinidad, and on the 

 return journey from New Zealand. Mr. H. R. Hogg, 



NO. 2541, VOL. lOl] 



to whom the specimens were submitted, remarks that, 

 unfortunately, nearly one-half of the South Trinidad 

 specimens have not reached maturity. This render* 

 their determination uncertain, and consequently pwe- 

 eludes any clear indication of the source from which 

 the fauna had its origin. The island is situated in 

 the belt traversed by the south-east trade winds, and 

 the families represented are mostly those the members 

 of which are carried long distances by the wind. Twc^ 

 new species were included in this collection. 



Two papers of considerable interest to ornitholo- 

 gists appear in the American Museum Journal for 

 April. In the first of these Messrs. Herbert Lang and 

 James P. Chapin describe the nesting habits of the 

 African hornbills. While confirming much that has 

 already been recorded on this theme, the authors have 

 been enabled to add further details as to the extra- 

 ordinary nesting habits of these birds. The most strik- 

 ing of these is contained in their assurance that the 

 incarcerated female adds to the thickness of the mud 

 wall used to diminish the entrance to the nesting hole 

 by plastering the inner walls with excrement, contain- 

 ing the chitinous parts of insects and the seeds of forest 

 trees. They also show that the female does not 

 undergo a complete moult during her imprisonment, 

 though this has been generally supposed to be the 

 case. In the second paper Mr. Edward Forbush 

 describes the courtship dances of the heath hen 

 (Tympanuchus cupida). The curious sounds emitted 

 bv the bird during the display cannot be satisfactorily 

 accounted for, but they are evidently due, in part at 

 any rate, to the inflation of the cervical air-sacs, since 

 no sound is emitted when these are punctured. Some 

 remarkable photographs add considerably to the value 

 of this very careful record. 



The British Museum (Natural History) has recently 

 issued the fifth report on Cetacea stranded on the 

 British coasts. The report, compiled by Dr. S. F. 

 Harmer, keeper of the department of zoology, records 

 the whales stranded during 1917. The most interesting 

 specimens were a white-sided whale, from Lincoln- 

 shire, believed to be the first sp>ecimen recorded from 

 the English coast ; a large sperm whale from Caith- 

 ness ; a Cuvier's whale (Ziphius cavirostris) from Co. 

 Clare; and a Risso's Grampus from the south coast 

 of Devon. Examples of the bottle-nose whale 

 (Hyperoodon rostratus) were recorded from Caithness, 

 from Cork, and from Dorset, and Dr. Harmer dis- 

 cusses in some detail the occurrence of this whale on 

 the British coasts, which generally takes place during 

 late summer and autumn, the spvecimens being usually 

 adult females accompanied by a calf. Most of the 

 records have been obtained from information provided 

 by the coastguards, but it is hoped that amateur 

 naturalists will take an interest in this question and 

 see that information as to any Cetacea stranded on 

 the coast is sent to the Natural History Museum. 

 The interesting record of Risso's Grampus on the 

 Devonshire coast would have been lost but for the 

 vigilance and careful examination of Mr. F. Beynon, 

 of Torquay. 



We have recently received the first number of a new 

 periodical, the South African Journal of Natural 

 History, which is the ofificial organ of the South 

 African Biological Society. This society was formed 

 in the latter part of 19 16, and with it were amalga- 

 mated the South African Ornithologists' Union and 

 the Transvaal Biological Society, with the object of 

 making a strong body to advance the study of bio- 

 logical questions in the Union of South Africa. The 

 South African Ornithologists' Union was started in 

 1904, and has issued twenty-two numbers of its 



