December 13, 1917] 



NATURE 



293 



account of plants introduced from camp fodder. There 

 are lists of additional plants, of Lepidoptera, and of 

 nesting birds, with locality and date of each observa- 

 tion. A golden oriole and a waxwing are among 

 the birds observed. Among papers read at the meet- 

 ings (which, by the way, are held on Sundays), those 

 by R. F. Lowndes on trout and by J. Comber on 

 ditch plants bear witness to much first-hand know- 

 ledge, and are rightly printed at greater length than 

 the others. Although the war has introduced many 

 competing claims on the energy of the school, the 

 membership of this society has not diminished, and 

 ail, from its president down to the smallest junior, 

 are to be congratulated on the excellent report that 

 their united efforts have produced. We hope that in 

 this time of stress other schools will do as well in 

 natural history as does this home of the ancient learn- 

 ing. 



The Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural His- 

 tor>- Society for 1917 contain much interesting matter. 

 Dr. A. H. Foster, a very sound ornithologist, con- 

 tributes a list of the birds of North Herts ; he gives 

 records of 200 ^ecies, -and, though stray wanderers 

 are included, the list is a remarkable one. Though the 

 county is becoming dotted with small towns and large 

 villages, the birds, being very conservative, still keep 

 to their old haunts and their old lines of migration. 

 Besides this there are a fair number of good observers, 

 so that few rarities pass unnoticed. Among nesting 

 species may be noted especially the grasshopper 

 warbler (scarce and local), the stone curlew, the wood- 

 cock, and the quail. Among occasional birds of 

 passage is the common tern. A regular winter visitor 

 is the golden plover; in the south of the county these 

 birds frequently don the black breast before starting 

 for the north. Surely, then, Dr. Foster must be 

 wrong when he says they never do so in the district 

 of which he writes. He has as yet no record of the 

 breeding of the redshank, which nests regularly in 

 Essex, and shows signs of extending its range over 

 the border into Herts. For the common snipe the 

 record is "a few nesting pairs in summer and many 

 individuals in winter." Do these winter and summer 

 birds belong to different sets which keep apart? A 

 paper on "The Response of Plants to Selective Screen- 

 ing," by Col. Rawson, records some valuable ex- 

 periments that show that variations may be induced 

 in some plants by screening them from the sun when 

 it is at certain altitudes. There is also an interesting 

 paper on Rotifers by T. E. Lones, and a list of the 

 Macro-Lepidoptera of North Herts by Dr. Foster. 



The Vasculum is an illustrated quarterly magazine 

 devoted to the natural history of Northumberland 

 and Durham, and from the three parts of the current 

 third volume before us it may be seen that it is ful- 

 filling a useful function. The general editor is the 

 Rev. J. E. Hull, whose speciality is the Arachnida, 

 but who also contributes chatty papers on place-names. 

 The other editors are Mr. George Bolam, the author 

 of " Birds of Northumberland and the Eastern 

 Borders," who writes on the coming and going of 

 the birds of the Upper Tyne Valley; Mr. R. S. Bag- 

 nail, who records discoveries of spring-tails and their 

 allies new to science and new to the district ; and Dr. 

 J. W. H. Harrison, whose recent work in hybridisa- 

 tion has brought him into prominence, who dis- 

 plays in the magazine a wide knowledge of animals and 

 plants and their associations. Other field naturalists 

 of the counties concerned contribute articles, and we 

 note that they represent the other natural history 

 activities of the district — the Natural History Society 

 of Newcastle and Armstrong College. The magazine 

 brings scattered workers in country districts into inti- 

 mate association, new discoveries are made known, 

 the older workers are stimulated to fresh endeavours, 

 and those who have received the call of natural history 

 NO. 251 1, VOL. 100] 



are encouraged and guided as to literature and 

 methods. The work of the Xorthumiberland and Dur- 

 ham naturalists is providing material for the presenta- 

 tion of the district from an ecological point of view," 

 and the gathering of the material is fostered by the 

 Vasculutn. 



The Proceedings and Transactions of the Croydon 

 Natural History and Scientific Society for 1916 contain 

 a good deal of detailed information in regard to the 

 intermittent bournes of the district. The late Mr. 

 Baldwin Latham showed that the Croydon Bourne 

 flowed early in 1916, for the fifth year in succession, 

 with a maximum flow of 13,345,920 gallons per day, 

 thus equalling the great flow of 1904. Bournes also 

 flowed at Carshalton, Cheam, Nonsuch Park, Smitham 

 Bottom, and Wickham. With regard to the last- 

 mentioned, Mr. W. Whiitaker contributes a paper 

 showing that the Wickham Bourne had not flowed 

 since 1883. On May 28, 19 16, it was yielding 1,628,550 

 gallons per day, at a point where it flowed into and 

 filled up a gravel-pit by the side of the railway near 

 Hayes Station. In Mr. N. F. Robarts's presidential- 

 address reference is made to a valuable find of bronze 

 implements made in 19 14 in Addington Park, when 

 the golf links were laid out and an enormous destruc- 

 tion of woodland took place. So large was the find 

 that the man who took them away staggered under 

 the weight. Apparently he disappeared, but it was 

 found afterwards that a man had called at the British 

 Museum in the same year and had sold about thirty 

 implements and fragments of bronze from Addington. 

 The find contained six socketed celts, and is thought 

 to be of late Bronze age. The Proceedings contain 

 the usual rainfall returns from more than a hundred 

 stations, compiled monthly by Mr. F. Campbell- 

 Bayard, and these are of great value to water engineers 

 and others. The society may be congratulated on the 

 energy displayed in spite of pressing war vocation. 



The 19 17 issue of the South-Eastern Naturalist con- 

 stitutes the twenty-second volume of Transactions of 

 the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, and 

 includes the proceedings at the annual congress held 

 in London last June. This meeting was reported in 

 our issue for June 28 (vol. xcix., p. 354), when sum- 

 maries were given of Dr. W. Martin's presidential 

 address and the more important papers read at the 

 meeting. Among the contributions to which limita- 

 tions of space made any detailed reference impossible 

 on that occasion may be mentioned Dr. B. Daydon 

 Jackson's well-informed directory to the notable trees 

 and old gardens of London, with its references to the 

 gardens of Gray's Inn, planted by Sir Francis Bacon; 

 and those of Syon House, at one time under the 

 superintendence of Dr. W. Turner, physician to the 

 first Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector. Dr. Turner, 

 the "Father of English Botany," published "The 

 Names of Herbes " in 1548, and dedicated it to the 

 Protector. Prof. MacBride's address on "Are Acquired 

 Characters Inherited?"; Dr. J. S. Haldane's on "Ab- 

 normal Atmospheres and the Means of Defence against 

 Them " ; and Prof. Boulger's on " The Association of the 

 Chelsea Physic Garden with the History of Botany," 

 are all printed in extenso. 



PARASITIC BIRDS. 



THOUGH the singular habits of the parasitic cow- 

 birds (Molobrus honariensis and M. badius) are 

 well known to ornithologists, Mr. L. E. Miller has 

 been able to add still further to the records of their 

 eccentricities in a valuable paper published in the Bulle- 

 tin of the American Museum of Natural History, 

 vol. xxxvii. His observations were made during a 

 recent expedition to Bolivia and north-western .Argen- 



