414 



NATURE 



[March 2, 1893 



the uterus was "merely rudimentary and nothing more than a 

 membranous tube terminating in the two fallopian tubes." The 

 ovaries were normal in appearance, though very much smaller 

 than those of the full-grown lioness or tigress. 



The extreme length of the skull, from the end of the occipital 

 crest to the end of the prjemaxillse, of the specimen now in the 

 Cambridge Museum, is 290 mm. ; the distance between the 

 foramen magnum and the end of the prsemaxillse is 235 mm. ; 

 and the extreme zygomatic breadth is 190 mm. The ascending 

 process of the maxilla ends at a point 3 mm. in front of the 

 posterior end of the nasal bones, and has a somewhat rounded 

 termination. In these characters the skull of the hybrid re- 

 sembles that of the lion much more closely than that of the 

 tiger. S. F. Harmer. 



University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, 

 February 27. 



Travelling of Roots. 



The mode in which roots travel in pursuit of food (mois- 

 ture) is often remarkable. Innumerable instances have been 

 published. But I think the inclosed is one of the most 

 striking which I have come across. The specimen kindly sent 

 to the Kew Museum by the vicar of Petersham is most extra- 

 ordinary. The roots seem to have behaved more like the 

 mycelium of a fungus than an ordinary axial structure. 



W. T. Thiselton-Dyer. 



Royal Gardens, Kew, Feb. 24. 



Mentor anduJH by the Rev. W. H. Oxley, Vicar of Petersham, 

 dated February 16, 1893. 



Roots of a Wistaria from the dining-room of Eden House, 

 Ham, just demolished. 



The root entered the room by a very small chink in the side 

 of the window, near the ceiling, and on removing the paper, 

 which had not he&n disturbed for many years, from the walls (of 

 the room about 14ft. square) the whole of the plaster beneath 

 the paper was found covered with a fine network of roots spread- 

 ing all round the room. The specimen is about one-third of 

 the whole roots and the stem where it entered the room. There 

 was not the faintest appearance of anything of the sort on the 

 surface of the wall paper to give rise to the suspicion of these 

 roots being there, and the room was continually inhabited, with 

 fires, &c. 



i The Flight of Birds, 



With reference to an extract from Science on the flight of 

 birds, which appeared in your " Notes " of February 16, I agree 

 with the writer of that extract that the rapidity with which the 

 generality of birds travel is often considerably over-estimated. 



Some few months ago, whilst crossing, by G.W.R. express, 

 the moors of Bridgewater Level in Somerset, a couple of 

 turtle-doves rose at a distance of about eighty yards from the 

 train, and flew for a considerable distance in a line nearly 

 parallel with the rails. 



I observed them with much interest, for I wished to have 

 some comparison of their power of flight with that of some 

 "homing" pigeons in my possession, and perceived that they 

 were being slowly overtaken. They must have flown fairly 

 parallel with the line of rails for at least 500 yards, and finally 

 bore away northward. We must have been travelling at about 

 forty miles an hour at the time, so that their speed would have 

 been a little less than that. I was the more surprised at this as 

 1 had had "homing" pigeons, trained by myself, which, on a 

 clear, calm day, had flown from the Quantock Hills to Taunton 

 (a distance of seven miles) in less than eight minutes— a quite 

 superior rate of flight, which, however, I do not think they 

 would continue for a long distance. The Columbacei generally 

 may be considered good flyers ; the turtle, however, I believe 

 from observation to be somewhat below the average standard of 

 excellence. It certainly cannot be compared with the Passenger 

 Pigeon of America, which has frequently been killed in the 

 neighbourhood of New York with Carolina rice still undigested 

 in its crop — having probably accomplished a journey of between 

 300 and 400 miles in about six hours, giving the high record of 

 sixty miles an hour for six hours in succession. My own impres- 

 sion is that there is a great difference in the speeds of various 

 orders and tribes of birds. I have repeatedly observed the 

 fieldfare, which is a fairly strong flyer, overtaken by trains of 

 which I have been an occupant, and which could not have been 

 NO. 1218, VOL. 47] 



travelling more than forty miles an hour. On the other hand, 

 I have witnessed the pursuit of a wood -pigeon or cushat by 

 a hawk, in which both birds exhibited powers of flight which 

 might seem incredible to persons unobservant of nature. In this 

 instance I should have estimated the speed of the pigeon, which 

 was straining every muscle to reach the shelter of a bell of tim- 

 ber, to be about sixty miles an hour ; whilst that of the hawk, 

 which flew with little effort, could not I think have been less 

 than eighty, during the brief period that they were within my 

 sight. I should be glad to hear from any of your correspondents 

 their opinion as to the rapidity of flight in the Raptores 

 (British). Herbert Withington. 



Taunton, February 22. 



The Niagara Spray Clouds. 



I DO not remember having seen anywhere a reference to the 

 fact that the spray clouds of Niagara exhibit an ice bow in clear 

 frosty weather. 



I had an opportunity last week of seeing a very fine complete 

 bow, the inner one, the outer being absent. 



There was no trace of the mock suns or of the bands of white 

 light usually present ; though I have seen ice bows without the 

 latter, I have never seen one before without any trace of mock 

 suns ; these are generally accounted for by supposing the pres- 

 ence of hexagonal ice prisms. I would suggest the inference 

 that the ice crystals in the Niagara spray clouds are not prisms 

 but rhombs. Chas. A. Carus-Wilson. 



McGill University, Montreal, February 6. 



British New Guinea. 



In Nature (vol. xlvii. p. 345) Mr. H. O. Forbes 

 has a lenient review of Mr. J. P. Thomson's "British New 

 Guinea," in which he reproduces a figure of four natives. In 

 the original they are called " native mountaineers" (p. 95). As 

 a matter of fact only the two central men are mountaineers ; the 

 two outermost being coast natives who acted as decoys to induce 

 the timid highlanders to submit to being photographed. Mr. 

 Thomson has a reprehensible habit of inserting figures which, 

 while they illustrate the contiguous text, really belong to a 

 different part of British New Guinea than that, there dealt 

 with. I fancy Mr. Forbes has been deceived in this respect, for 

 the last figure which appears in the review is entitled by Mr. 

 Thomson " Native Ornaments" (p. 120), and, though occurring 

 in his description of the Fly River district, represent, if I am 

 not mistaken, Papuan Gulf natives, most probably Motu- 

 Motuans. Alfred C. Haddon. 



I quite agree with Prof. Haddon's remarks above, which you 

 have been good enough to submit to me, with regard to the 

 mountaineers of the interior of New Guinea. They enter into 

 details which, in an already over-long review, I had no space 

 for. There is no doubt about the right-hand figure (p. 346) 

 being not a mountaineer. I was less confident about the man 

 on the left hand. The two central figures recall to me perfectly 

 the people of Uburukara, of whom 1 took photographs in 1886, 

 the plates of which were ruined during my disastrous march down 

 the Goldie, and it was they who specially attracted my attention. 

 With regard to the " Fly River " natives, I have never had the 

 fortune to see any of them, but I certainly took the central figure 

 to be one, while remarking to myself the likeness of the right- 

 hand man to a Motuan — to men with whom he could be matched 

 in any village indeed between the Gulf and"Kerepunu. 



104, Philbeach Gardens, S.W. Henry O. Forbes. 



Some Lake Basins in France. 



I regret that, through some inadvertence on my part, the 

 name of the author of the "Atlas des Lacs Fran9ais," mentioned 

 in my letter (p. 341) is wrongly printed. It should be Dele- 

 becque. In a letter received from M. Delebecque, he informs 

 me that " the direction of the arrow on the map of Lake Leman 

 is not exactly N., but N. 7° W." He informs me also that the 

 curious funnel-shaped hole at the northern end of the Lake of 

 Annecy, which I suggest may be a submerged swallow hole, 

 is the site of a spring. This fact, however, need not be fatal to 

 my suggestion, because the changes in level might convert what 

 was once a swallow-hole into a spring. At present water at 

 one time flows up from the dolinas of the Julian Alps, at 

 another it drains off down them. T. G. Bonney. 



