March i8, 1920] 



NATURE 



81 



^vork on a sufficiently large scale, and raises 5000!. a 

 year from the trade for five years, grants of the same 

 amount and for the same period will be made from 

 State funds. The offices of the association are in 

 Evelyn House, 62 Oxford Street, W.i. The objects 

 of the association are to establish, in co-operation 

 with the Department of Scientific and Industrial 

 Research, an Empire scheme for the scientific inves- 

 tigation, either by its own officers or by universities, 

 technical schools, and other institutions, of the 

 problems arising in the sugar industry, and also to 

 encourage and improve the technical education of 

 persons who are or may be engaged in the industry. 

 A survey is being made of the field of research which 

 is likely to be beneficial to the industry, and it is 

 proposed to establish a bureau of information to 

 which any member of the association can apply for 

 assistance. In the. first instance, the whole of the 

 research undertaken will be carried out in existing 

 institutions, and it will be necessary to enter into 

 agreements with the bodies controlling these institu- 

 tions for the use of laboratories and the services of 

 skilled scientific investigators. With regard to the 

 actual production of sugar, experiments on the cul- 

 tivation of the sugar-cane and of the sugar-beet will 

 bo undertaken in suitable parts of the Empire. In 

 this connection it is hoped that very close relations 

 \\ ill be established with Colonial Agricultural Depart- 

 ments. The organisation and general supervision of 

 the research work will eventually be entrusted to a 

 director of research, and it is hoped to establish a 

 Central Sugar Research Institute if and when it 

 ])ecomes necessary. 



In .Mgeria most gun-owners are able to trim roughly 

 the flints they require for the long-barrelled muzzle- 

 K):d:ng guns and pistols which still form the principal 

 armament of the nation. Mr. M. W. Hilton-Simpson, 

 while engaged in collecting specimens for the Pitt- 

 Rivers Museum, Oxford, came across a specialist who 

 trimmed flints for sale. This worker's methods are 

 fully described in the March issue of Man. He em- 

 ployed a rough stone for striking the flakes from the 

 cone, and for trimming the flakes thus struck off he 

 used a small tool resembling in outline the universal 

 i^eneral-utility implement of the country, a combina- 

 tion of a hoe and pick. This man's features indicate 

 an infusion of negro blood, but flint-chipping does 

 not seem to be a special negro trade, the man being 

 a resident of one of the oases where there is a negro 

 strain in the population. 



Of the eighteen species of ground-squirrels found 

 in the State of California, four, inhabiting cultivated 

 areas, have become pests. The life-histories of these 

 four and of the harmless species have been very care- 

 fully described by Messrs. Joseph Grinnell and Joseph 

 Dixon in vol. vii. of the Monthly Bulletin of the 

 State Commission of Horticulture. In one district 

 infested by the Oregon ground-squirrel the authors 

 estimated that there were 112 adults to the acre or 

 70,000 to the square mile, and that these would con- 

 sume in one day more than two tons of green forage, 

 which would be sufficient to feed ninety head of cattle 

 (iurintj the same time. 



NO. 2629, VOL. 105] 



Bird-lovers will read with no small pleasure Mr. 

 J. H. Gurney's ornithological notes from Norfolk for 

 1919 in British Birds for March. Perhaps the most 

 interesting of these notes are those referring to the 

 bittern, which seems to be returning to the Broads 

 in increasing numbers to breed. It is satisfactory to 

 learn that, so far as can be ascertained, this year no 

 nests were raided, though in one nest the brood, un- 

 fortunately, died. The little owl, he tells us, which 

 up to 19 14 was confined to a few districts in the west 

 of the county, is quickly spreading throughout the 

 whole of Norfolk. The prevailing prejudice against 

 this bird he considers scarcely to be justified, since 

 " the test of dissection is rather in its favour than 

 otherwise." During the war vast quantities of a tar- 

 like substance were spread over much of the North 

 Sea for military reasons. One would have imagined 

 that the need for this had now ceased, but in these 

 notes are records of numerous divers and guillemots 

 picked up in an exhausted condition owing to this 

 compound clogging the plumage. 



In the fourth part of his study of the Mala- 

 costracous Crustacea obtained by the Ingolf and other 

 Danish expeditions from deep water in the seas 

 round Iceland and South Greenland ("The Danish 

 Ingolf Exf>edition," vol. iii., part 6, Copenhagen, 

 1920), Dr. H. J. Hansen describes the Cumacea and 

 Phyllocarida. Of the former group no fewer than 

 sixty-six sf>ecies are enumerated, of which twenty- 

 four are new — a surprisingly large proportion of 

 novelties in view of the attention that has been given 

 by G. O. Sars and others to the Cumacea of northern 

 waters. Together with Dr. Hansen's previous 

 memoirs on the Isopoda and Tanaidacea, this report 

 serves to bring into prominence both the extraordinary 

 richness of the micro-fauna of the sea-bottom and 

 the imperfection of our knowledge of it even in the 

 better-known regions of the ocean. From the point 

 of view of systematic zoology, if not also from that 

 of marine bionomics, a one-sided impression is apt to 

 result from confining attention mainly to the more 

 easily studied species of the plankton. In dealing 

 with the Phyllocarida Dr. Hansen is able to throw 

 new light on the structure of the limbs and mouth- 

 parts of the long-known and much-studied Nebalia. 



In the March issue of Medical Science: Abstracts 

 and Reviews (vol. i., No. 6), one of the reviews is 

 devoted to the subject of typhus fever. Owing to the 

 war this disease has been very prevalent in Europe 

 during the last four years; for example, in Poland 

 124,620 cases were recorded between January i and 

 July 27, 1919. Lice are the agents by which the 

 disease is transmitted, but the causative micro- 

 organism is still unknown. The blood-serum gives 

 agglutination with a Proteus bacillus, the Weil-Felix 

 reaction, which is of considerable value for the 

 diagnosis of the disease. 



An interesting lecture on the history of electro- 

 therapy by Dr. W. J. Turrell is published in the 

 Archives of Radiology and Electrotherapy for February 

 (No. 235). In England electrical treatment appears 

 to have been first pra'tis«'<i by the clerical profession. 



