December 27, 1917] 



NATURE 



329 



close. The subject has been carried a stage further 

 by the work of Mr. G. T. Palmer, chief of the research 

 staff of the New York Commission on Ventilation. 

 He finds that our sensation is due, not to the rate of 

 evaporation from the surface of the body, but to the 

 difference between that rate and the rate of supply of 

 moisture from the interior of the body to the skin. 

 His paper will be found in the July number of the 

 Journal of the American Society of Heating and Ven- 

 tilating Engineers. 



In the December issue of Man Mr. A. C. Breton 

 describes, with a photograph, a curious scene from a 

 painted pot found in a mound in British Honduras, 

 and now in the Liverpool Museum. It represents a 

 group of strange winged creatures which appear to be 

 dancing and singing for joy at the coming of vegeta- 

 tion, represented by a seedling in the corner. The 

 humming-bird was the special messenger of the sun 

 to awake and encourage vegetation, and appears pro- 

 minently in this group. It would seem a natural 

 result of watching the migrating birds in spring that 

 man should endeavour to imitate them in his cere- 

 monial dances. Similar dances have been noticed in 

 Queen Charlotte Islands, and the gestures of the 

 creatures on this pot may be compared with those on 

 British Columbian totem poles. 



Co-partnership in nests, and presumably in the 

 duties of incubation, is known to exist, at any rate 

 sporadically, among many birds. Mr. J. Wiglesworth, 

 in British Birds for December, records several cases 

 of this kind amonff sheldrakes breeding on Steepholm, 

 an island in the Bristol Channel. In one nest which 

 he examined he found the eggs of no fewer than five 

 birds. The frequency of this occurrence on this small 

 island may perhaps be due to the limited nesting 

 accommodation. This record, by so competent an 

 authority, will be welcomed by ornithologists. 



Whalers know well the excellent qualities of whale- 

 meat, but doubtless the general public would need 

 some persuasion to adopt it as a substitute for beef. 

 A writer, however, in California Fish and Game for 

 October suggests that, in present circumstances, 

 a trial should be made. He proposes to begin with 

 the Californian grey-whale (Rhachianectes), the carcass 

 of which vields about twelve tons of most succulent 

 "beef." Some, both in a fresh state and canned, has 

 already been placed on the market, and it is to be 

 hoped that success will attend the venture, for in this 

 case it may lead to sane methods of conservation. At 

 present whaling is being carried on utterly regardless 

 of the future, so that unless something is done speedily 

 the whales will follow Steller's sea-cow and many 

 another valuable species which has fallen a prey 

 to commercial "enterprise." 



Dr. Eagle Clarke, in the Scottish Naturalist for 

 December, continues his most interesting analysis of 

 wild life in a West Highland deer forest. All students 

 of our native fauna will be grateful fof this contribu- 

 tion, especially as very little has yet been done 

 in regard to altitudinal distribution. Over the area 

 surveyed the fox is very numerous, at from 900 ft. to 

 3500 ft., while the badger, which seems here almost 

 extinct, ascends no higher than 1500 ft. A few pairs 

 of otters are to be found on Lochs Ossian (1269 ft.) 

 and Treig, and on the river Ghuilbin. Formerly it 

 frequented Loch na Lap (1930 ft.), but has not been 

 seen there for some years. Many will probably be 

 surprised to learn that the house-sparrow has but 

 recently penetrated to these fastnesses, having followed 

 the iron road into the Highlands. It is now resident 

 at Corrour Station, at the summit of the West High- 

 NO. 2513, VOL. 100] 



land Railway (1350 ft.). Thence it has established 

 further outposts, but it has not yet reached Loch 

 Treig. 



An able history of the bats of Central Africa is 

 given in an article in the Bulletin of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, vol. xxxvii., 1917. The 

 authors, Messrs. J. A. Allen, H. Lang, and J. P. 

 Chapin, therein describe the material obtained by the 

 .American Museum Congo Expedition. Naturally, a 

 considerable number of new species are described, but 

 the value of the communication rests not so much 

 on this as on the light it throws upon the life-histories 

 of these animals, and the many remarkable struc- 

 tural modifications and secondary sexual characters 

 which the authors have here brought together. 

 Some of these were already known, but the 

 range of these peculiarities has been enlarged by many 

 striking additions. One of the most important of 

 these concerns the air-sacs of that singular creature, 

 the hammer-head bat. But the authors offer no com- 

 ments on the function of the large cheek-pouch of this 

 animal, though they give an excellent figure indicat- 

 ing its great size. 



It has long been known that true bats existed among 

 the earliest Tertiary mammals, but remains are very 

 rare, and nothing has been discovered of the ancestry 

 of the group. An imperfect skull of a new genus, 

 Zanvcteris, has now been obtained frorti one of the 

 oldest Tertiary formations (Wasatch) in Colorado, 

 U.S.A., and according to a description of the specimen 

 by Dr. W. D. Matthew (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 

 vol. xxxvii., pp. 569-71), it seems to represent a highly 

 specialised member of the family Phyllostomatidae, 

 which is still peculiar to tropical America. The skull 

 is only unusual in the length of its slender snout and 

 the comparatively small size of its canine tooth. 

 Numerous comparatively modern fossil remains of bats 

 have also lately been received by the American 

 Museum from the caverns of Porto Rico. Among 

 them one skull is especially interesting as belonging 

 to the genus Phyllonycteris, of which only one species 

 is known living in Cuba (H. E. Anthony, Bull. Amer. 

 Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxxvii., pp. 565-68, pi. Ivi.). 



The fishes of the fresh waters of Panama are de- 

 scribed with great care and detail by Messrs. S. E. 

 Meek and S. F. Hildebrand in vol. x.. No. 15, of the 

 zoological series of publications of the Field Museum 

 of Natural History, Chicago. Though small collec- 

 tions of the fish-fauna have from time to time been 

 made by tourists and others, no serious survey of the 

 waters of the canal zone had been made until that 

 organised co-operatively by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, the Field Museum of. Natural History, and the 

 U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. The present memoir con- 

 tains the results of this ichthyologicnl reconnaissance. 

 The need for such a survey was urgent, since it was 

 not begun until much work had been done on the 

 canal and natural conditions had already been con- 

 siderably disturbed, but it was fortunately completed 

 before the species of the two slopes had been allowed 

 to intermingle. Before the survey began the Rio 

 Grande, on the Pacific slope of the canal zone, had 

 been thoroughly cut to pieces, and hence to measure 

 the probable effect of this disturbance it became neces- 

 sary to extend investigations to other streams east 

 and west of the Rio Grande. As a consequence, data 

 were collected which seem to show that several species 

 have disappeared owing to the unfavourable conditions 

 created by the construction of the canal. Five genera 

 and thirteen species new to science are described in 

 these pages, which, further, are illustrated by 

 numerous excellent plates. 



