June 23, 1898] 



NATURE 



89 



low power photomicrography. — The President read a note on 

 the optics of photographic lenses.— A paper by Mr. F. W. 

 Millett, which was a continuation of his "Report on the 

 Foraminifera of the Malay Archipelago," being of a highly 

 technical character, was taken as read.— There was a very 

 interesting exhibition of microscopic aquatic life by members of 

 the Quekett Microscopical Club and Fellows of the Society. 



Anthropological Institute, May 24.— Mr, F. W. Rudler, 

 President, in the chair. -Prof. E. B. Tylor, F.R.S., having ex- 

 hibited lantern photographs of the great totem-post from Queen 

 Charlotte's Island, sent over by Mr. Bertram Buxton, and now 

 erected in the grounds of Fox Warren, near VVeybridge, the 

 residence of Mr. Charles Buxton, took this as the text for a 

 critical examination of totemism in general, as regards both its 

 real importance and the somewhat extreme ideas of its place in 

 anthropology and theology, which have been gaining ground 

 ever since J. F. McLennan brought it into notice in his 

 "Primitive Marriage." This writer at first looked at it purely 

 in its legal aspect, the group of clans named after animals — as 

 Wolf, Bear, Tortoise, Snake, &c. — being used as a means of 

 dividing tribes, so as to regulate their exogamy ormarrying-out ; 

 a Wolf man, for instance, not being allowed to marry a Wolf, 

 though he might marry a Bear. Later McLennan wrote papers 

 on the worship of animals and plants in the Fortnightly Re- 

 viav, which he did not republish, but which have served to 

 model public opinion since. As bringing the subject into 

 scientific view, these papers were admirable ; but they plunged 

 into somewhat reckless theories which have held their own, 

 notwithstanding incompatibility with evidence. Especially the 

 word totemism, originally referring to exogamous human clans 

 named from animals, was used in the large and complex sense of 

 animal-worship, to only a fraction of which the totem-clans 

 really belong. This discrepancy became serious when, for in- 

 stance, in Fiji a god who embodied himself in serpents, was 

 treated as if his worshippers formed a serpent-clan ; in such a 

 case the serpents being regarded as totems, and it being further 

 supposed that the superior gods of the land were evolved out of 

 such totem-animals. When this notion was later expanded in 

 the works of Frazer and Jevons, it gradually produced a theory 

 of totem-animals having been the origin from which a rude form 

 of monotheism arose in the religion of mankind. As an instance 

 how misleading such reasoning may be, it was pointed out that 

 the great Heaven-god Tangalsa, whose veneration extends over 

 the islands of the Pacific, is in Samoa incarnate in a species of 

 snipes. According to this totemic theory of gods, the vast Sky- 

 god would be a developed and exaggerated snipe. It was 

 argued also that attempts to support Robertson Smith's 

 doctrine of the Slain-god, with its further sacramental implica- 

 tions, by certain supposed piacular sacrifices of totem animals to 

 the totem-god, were not to be depended on, the few instances 

 alleged being cases of animals put to death for reasons not 

 necessarily sacrificial. As to the real meaning and origin of 

 totemism. Prof. Tylor pointed out that modern information has 

 thrown considerable light on the annuistic processes by which 

 totems probably came into existence. The evidence of Wilken 

 and Codrington, from the Malay and Melanesian region, shows 

 the prevailing doctrine of transmigration of soul to convert an 

 ordinary form of animal-wor.ship into what hardly wants more 

 than the name to become a totem. An influential native on his 

 death-bed will announce to his family the animal into which his 

 soul will migrate, perhaps a crocodile or shark by preference ; 

 taking him at his word, his kinsfolk will worship the creature 

 — above all, not killing or eating it — and the crocodile or shark 

 species becomes their protector. Such a family multiplying, 

 and being called after sacred animals, will become crocodiles 

 or sharks, clans whose totem is the crocodile or the shark. 



Entomological Society, June i.— Mr. R. Trimen, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. P. B. Mason exhibited a speci- 

 men of the rare Lathridins filtivi from his own herbarium. It 

 had been previously taken at Edinburgh by .McNab, and he 

 understood that an example had been found in a sealed envelope 

 containing Marchantta from Franz Josef Land.^-Mr. J. J. 

 Walker exhibited a singular blue variety of Carabns inonilis, 

 Fabr., resembling in colour C. intricatus, and taken at I wade, 

 Kent, in flood-rubbish in May. — Mr. F. Merrifield forwarded 

 for exhibition from Riva on the Lago di Garda larvse of the 

 .'.* Corsican form," var. ichnusa, of Aglais urtica. — Mr. G. C. 

 Champion called attention to Mr. A. Somerville's recently- 

 published sheet of the county and vice-county divisions of the 



NO. 1495, VOL. 58] 



British Isles for biological purposes, and a discussion ensued 

 thereon. — Papers were communicated by Sir G. F. Ilampson, 

 Bart., on "The Moths of the Lesser Antilles," and by Mr. 

 J. II. Leech on " Lepidoptera Heterocera from Northern 

 China, Japan, and Korea." 



Chemical Society, June 2. — Prof. Dewar, President, in the 

 chair. — The President announced the death of the Right Hon. 

 Lord Playfair, the senior past President, and last surviving 

 founder of the Society. — The following papers were read : — 

 The boiling point and density of liquid hydrogen, by J. Dewar. 

 Liquid hydrogen boils at about - 238° C, and its density at the 

 boiling point, determined by measuring the gas obtained by 

 evaporating 10 c.c. , is about 0'07. Since the hydrogen 

 occluded by palladium has the density 0*62, it cannot be 

 associated with the metal in the liquid state. — The action of 

 hydrogen bromide in presence of ether on carbohydrates and 

 certain organic acids, by H. J. H. Fenton and Mildred Gostling. 

 The formation of ethylic dihydroxymaleate by the interaction of 

 the acid with dry ether and hydrogen bromide is generally 

 applicable to the preparation of alkylic salts. On applying the 

 reaction to carbohydrates and polyhydric alcohols, it is found that 

 an intense purple or red coloration is sometimes obtained with 

 ether and hydrogen bromide ; the coloured matter produced 

 resembles the metafurfurol of Stenhouse and others. — Production 

 of some chloropyridinecarboxylic acids, by J. N. Collie and 

 W. Lean. 



Linnean Society, June 2.— Mr. Albert D. Michael, Vice- 

 President, in the chair. — The Chairman announced that the 

 President had nominated Messrs. William Carruthers, Frank 

 Crisp, Albert D. Michael, and Dr. D. II. Scott to be Vice- 

 Presidents for the ensuing year. — Dr. St. George Mivart, 

 F.R.S., contributed a paper entitled "Notes on Lories." 

 Referring to a recently published paper by Captain Hutton on the 

 value of specific characters {Linn. Soc. Journ., Zool. xxvi. 

 p. 330) in which the writer had stated the results of his exam- 

 ination of a large number of pigeons belonging to the genus 

 Ptilofus, and his reasons for concluding therefrom " that the 

 specific characters of these species could not have arisen as 

 ' recognition marks ' or from any other mechanical mode of 

 origin," Dr. Mivart adduced other examples in support of this 

 view from the family Loriida, or brush-tongued parrots. From 

 the facts collected he expressed his conviction that the cause of 

 specific characters still remained an unsolved enigma, the solution 

 of which would probably not be achieved until the higher 

 p.sychological problems of biology were more widely under- 

 stood, and the light thus gained had been reflected on questions 

 of ordinary physiology. — Mr. E. S. Salmon read a paper entitled 

 "A Revision of the Genus Syinhlepharis." This genus of 

 mosses, he said, as founded by Montague in 1839, had proved 

 too narrow, through the limits imposed by certain peristome 

 characters, and he was of opinion that Mitten's later emended 

 description should be accepted.— Surgeon-Captain Cummins 

 read a paper on the food of the Uropoda. The nature of the 

 food of these mites, which belong to a highly specialised genus 

 of the GamasiniE, had long been a puzzle even to those who 

 have paid particular attention to their organisation. From 

 careful experiments and observation, the author of the paper 

 had come to the conclusion that amongst the organisms on 

 which the Uropoda live were many species of bacilli, including 

 the potato bacillus and the earth bacillus. Wild yeast-cells were 

 rapidly devoured, as also were Micrococci. He had little doubt 

 that they consumed the gonidia of Fungi, for species of 

 Penicillititn and Mucor never appeared in the boxes which con- 

 tained mites in large numbers ; otherwise they were comnionly 

 present. Mr. A. D. Michael, in criticising the paper, pointed 

 out the distinguishing characters of the Uropoda as compared 

 with others of the Gamasina, and especially the peculiar form 

 of the mandibles, which suggested a different mode of feeding to 

 that adopted by other mites.— Mr. C. B. Clarke, F.R.S., gave 

 a summary of a paper on the subdivision of biological areas in 

 India, and in the course of his remarks mentioned some interest- 

 ing facts in connection with plant distribution in the Indo- 

 Oriental region. Dr. Otto Stapf, in commenting on the paper, 

 expressed the opinion that the limits of the subdivisions pro- 

 posed were natural, and might well be accepted by botanists. 



Geological Society, June 8.— W. Whitaker, F.R.S., Pre- 

 sident, in the chair.— On the discovery of natural gas in East 

 Sussex, by C. Dawson. Inflammable natural gas was first re- 

 corded by. Mr. H. Willett in his thirteenth quarterly report of 



