172 



NATURE 



[November i, 1917 



The requirements of all groups constituting the popu- 

 lation may be calculated, and it is found that the 

 minimum requirement of the nation is something like 

 43f million million energy units per year. To find 

 how far the food supply in pre-war time was adequate 

 to yield this, statistics have been collected and the 

 energy yielded by the food has been determined, and 

 has been found sufficient to yield 51 million million 

 energy units — about 15 »er oent. above the calculated 

 minimum requirement. Of this food more than half 

 was imported. Further particulars of Chadwick lec- 

 tures may ibe obtained from the secretary, offices of 

 the Chadwick Trust, 40 (6th) Queen Anne's Chambers, 

 Westminster. 



In Mayx for October Dr. W. L. Hildburgh describes 

 an interesting example of disease transference wit- 

 nessed by him at Benares. When an attack of disease 

 is attributed to the malevolence of the spirit of a 

 woman who has died in childbirth, known as churel, 

 a little palanquin, a doll, and some other articles are 

 placed at night at a spot where four roads meet. Dr. 

 Hildburgh regards this device as a kind of trap to 

 outwit the evil spirit, the idea being that anyone tread- 

 ing on these articles will carry the dangerous influ- 

 ence away with him. The cross-roads are naturally 

 selected as the place at which such dangerous influ- 

 ences may be most readily dispersed. 



Sir James Frazer has published, as an instalment 

 of his forthcoming work on the folklore of the Old 

 Testament, a paper f-ead before the British Academy 

 (Proceedings, vol. viii.) entitled " Jacob and the Man- 

 drakes," in which he discusses, with an abundant 

 quotation of examples, the belief that this plant 

 (Mandragora ofjicinarum) is regarded as a potent agent 

 in magic, particularly as a means of promoting fer- 

 tility. " Such beliefs and practices illustrate the primi- 

 tive tendency to personify Nature, to view it as an 

 assemblage of living, sensitive, and passionate beings 

 rather than a system of impersonal forces. That tend- 

 ency has played a great part in the evolution of reli- 

 gion, and even when it has been checked or suppressed 

 by the general mass of educated society, it lingers still 

 among the representatives of an earlier mode of 

 thought, the peasant on one hand and the poet on 

 the other." 



The potato tuber moth {Phthorimaea operculella) — 

 a well-nigh cosmopolitan pest — forms the subject of 

 Bulletin 427 of the U.S. Dept. of Agric, written by Mr. 

 J. E. Graf. A Sipecial feature of this paper is seen in 

 the attention paid to parasitic Hymenoptera and other 

 insect enemies of the caterpillars. 



A NEW species of Lima from the English chalk is 

 described by Mr. T. Sheppard in the Naturalist for 

 October. Differing very markedly in shape from any 

 other of the Cretaceous Limidae, the author proposes 

 to name his specimen Lima (Plagiostoma) middleton- 

 ensis. It most nearly resembles Lima hoperi, which 

 has a wide range in the south of England, and is 

 found in the same quarry as that from which the new 

 species was obtained. The distribution of L. middle- 

 tonensis is given as the " base of the Micrastur cor- 

 anguinem zone, Middleton-on-the-Wolds, East Riding 

 of Yorkshire." 



A PAPER by Mr. A. Busck in the Journal of Agricul- 

 tural Research (vol. ix.. No. 10) on the pink bollworm 

 {Pectinophora gossypiella) — a well-known cotton pest 

 v^ith a very wide range — is noteworthy for the extreme 

 care devoted to structural details of the insect in its 

 various stages, which are illustrated by exceptionally 

 good drawings. These minute details are not with- 

 out economic importance, as the scavenging caterpillar 

 of Pyroderces rileyi, often found in open cotton bolls, 

 NO. 2505, VOL. 100] 



is, at times, mistaken for the true "bollworm." The 

 imago, larva, and pupa of Pyroderces are also most 

 carefully described and figured for purposes of com- 

 parison. 



COLEOPTERISTS will be glad to know that a fine 

 specimen of the .rare Curculionid beetle, Tapinotus 

 sellatus, has been found in the Norfolk fens, since it is 

 just seventy-one years ago that the last specimen was 

 taken. This capture, announced in the Entomologist's 

 Magazine for October, was made by Mr. O. E. Jason,, 

 who, in June last, made a very thorough search for 

 this insect in the neighbourhood of Horning. It is 

 to be noted that it was not found in association with 

 its reputed food-plant, Lysimachia vulgaris. Only 

 two other specimens of this beetle have been taken in 

 Great Britain, the first at Horning in 1836, the second 

 at Whittlesea Mere in 1846. 



Under the title " Some Museums of Old London " 

 Mr. W. H. Mullens, in the Museums Journal for 

 October, gives a most interesting account of William 

 Bullock's Museum. This was removed in 1809 from 

 Liverpool to London, where it was housed, first at 

 No. 22 Piccadilly, and three years later at the Egyptian 

 Hall, Piccadilly, which was pulled down a few years 

 ago. Mr. Mullens, however, does not confine his sur- 

 vey entirely to the museum, but brings together some 

 interesting details of Bullock himself, including an 

 account of his chase of the last living specimen of 

 the great auk, which was later killed and placed in 

 his museum, and now rests in the British Museum. 

 In a later contribution the author promises to give a 

 detailed description of the museum itself, its contents, 

 and the story of its dispersal. 



Considerable interest was aroused during the 

 summer months by somewhat sensational newspaper 

 accounts of a plague of caterpillars of the "antler" 

 moth {Charaeas graminis) in the north of England. 

 Two short articles in the Entomologist's Monthly Maga- 

 zine for August (vol. liii.. No. 639), by Mr. G.T. Porritt 

 and Dr. A. D. Imms, contain trustworthy information 

 on the subject. From the latter we learn that " in point 

 of numbers and area affected the present year has 

 probably exceeded all previous records, at any rate so 

 far as the United Kingdom is concerned." The larvae 

 swarmed in hill pastures from Cumberland to Cheshire 

 and Derbyshire, feeding, however, only on "bent 

 grass " (Nardus stricta), and not attacking either good 

 meadow grass or corn crops. 



An exceptionally interesting contribution to our 

 knowledge of the insects of the Carboniferous period 

 is made by Mr. Herbert Bolton in a paper (Mem. 

 Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc, vol. Ixi., part i) on 

 the "Mark Stirrup" collection of fossil insects from 

 the Coal Measures of Commentry — (that famous local- 

 ity in central France whence came the 1300 specimens 

 described in Ch. Brongniart's classical " R6cherches " 

 (1894). Most of the species now brought to light by 

 Mr. Bolton are blattoids. . Of special importance are 

 two specimens made types of new genera, one of 

 which — Megagnatha — is referred to the Perlidae (stone- 

 flies), with which it agrees in nervuration, though it 

 differs in the possession of elongate and formidable 

 mandibles, while the other — Sycopteron — ^is regarded 

 as .an ally of the Panorpidae (scorpion-flies). To have 

 established the existence of such a comparatively 

 specialised type among the Palaeozoic fauna is a note- 

 worthy achievement. The illustrations are admirably 

 reproduced from enlarged photographs. Another paper 

 on Palaeozoic insects has been published by Mr. H. 

 Bolton in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (vol. Ixxii., 1916, 

 part i); this contribution deals with insects from the 

 British Coal Measures. Several wings and wing frag- 



