36 



NATURE 



[December io, 1891 



first intimation of its advent in the spring is usually a loud 

 trumpeting or croaking that seems to shake the air for miles. 

 But the cranes themselves, generally in pairs, soon begin to be 

 seen. Their food at that season is chiefly rose pips, in 

 gathering which they stalk over the bare plains. At first little can 

 be noted but their excessive wariness, but as the warmer weather 

 quickens their feeling, they often "so far forget their dignity 

 as to wheel about and dance, flapping their wings and shouting 

 as they 'honour their partners,' and in various ways contrive 

 to exhibit an extraordinary combination of awkwardness and 

 agility." This dance Mr. Thompson has seen only durin^^ the 

 pairing season. 



Referring to the question " whether squirrels are torpid in 

 winter," Mr. C. Fitzgerald writes in the December number of the 

 Zoologist that, during many winters pa^^sed in the backwoods of 

 North America, he has seen squirrels frisking among the trees 

 in the coldest weather. On bright sunny days especially they delight 

 in chasing tach other from tree to tree among the evergreens, and 

 cover the snow with their tracks. The young of the ordinary 

 red squirrel are born early in the spring. The " Chipmunks," 

 or little striped ground squirrels, lay up in the autumn a store 

 of provisions of grains, nuts, &c. , for winter, and on fine days 

 may be seen sunning themselves. Mr. Fitzgerald has on several 

 occasions come across their hoards, and once saw two large 

 bucketsful of shelled buckwheat taken from the hollow of an old 

 birch tree that the woodmen had chopped down on the edge of 

 a clearing which had been cropped the previous summer with 

 that grain. ° 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 

 on October 28, the fifth part of Mr. E. Meyrick's " Revision of 

 Australian Lepidoptera" was read. This paper practically 

 concludes the Australian Geometrina, except in so far as future 

 discoveries may produce fresh material. One hundred and 

 twelve species are included, of which forty-seven are described 

 as new. 



Mr. Carl Lumholtz contributes to the current Bulletin of 

 the American Geographical Society a very interesting report on 

 his explorations in Northern Mexico. The most remarkable 

 caves he met with were at the head of the Piedras Verdes River, 

 6850 feet above sea-level. These caves contain groups of 

 •deserted houses or small villages, and the houses are splendidly 

 made of porphyry pulp, and show that the inhabitants had 

 attained a comparatively high culture. The dwellings were 

 sometimes three stories in height, with small windows, and 

 doors made in the form of a cross ; and occasionally there were 

 stone, staircases. The caves, which number about fifty in a 

 stretch of twenty miles, are from 100 to 200 feet above the 

 bottom of the caiion, and the largest is some fifty feet high. 

 One series of them, on the shady side of the canon, had been 

 reserved for burial-places. Here, at a depth of three feet, Mr. 

 Lumholtz dug out a numi)er of bodies in a wonderful state of 

 preservation, the saltpetre which is mixed with the disintegrated 

 rock having for centuries preserved them, making them look 

 like mummies. Several had their features, hair, and eyebrows 

 perfect, and these were photographed. The hair is very 

 slightly wavy, and softer than that of the ordinary Indian, 

 almost silky in fact. They were small people, and reminded Mr. 

 Lumholtz strikingly of the present Moqui village Indians. The 

 Moquis, like the Zuiiis, have a tradition that they came from 

 the south. The same district abounds in mounds, some of 

 which are very large. Mr. Lumholtz thinks that an explorer 

 might find in these mounds a fine field for investigation. 

 With his own limited force of men he was not able to make 

 as extensive excavations as he wished to make ; but still, a 

 good deal of work was done. He unearthed a great many 

 polished stone implements, about 300 jars, most of them 

 NO. II 54, VOL. 45] 



decorated, and some in very odd shapes, and several specimens 

 of a big stone wheel, and a stone cylinder fitting into it, 

 probably used for some sort of game. The mounds contain 

 bouses, and, as usual, most of the relics are found near the 

 dead bodies, which are always buried under the floor, partly 

 under the wall. These people must have been there before the 

 arrival of the cave and cliff dwellers, but who they were it 

 would not yet be safe to say. 



Messrs. T. Cooke and Sons, of Buckingham Works, 

 York, have issued a new illustrated catalogue of telescopes, 

 surveying and other optical instruments. 



Messrs. Gurney and Jackson (Mr. Van Voorst's succes- 

 sors) hope to have ready for publication by the end of this year 

 the first volume of " A Synonymic Catalogue of Lepidoptera- 

 Heterocera," which Mr. W. F. Kirby, of the Zoological Depart- 

 ment, British Museum, has been for some lime engaged upon. 



Sir J. D. Hooker's well-known book of travels, " Himalayan 

 Journals," has been reprinted in the Minerva Library series 

 (Ward, Lock, Bowden, and Co.). It is reprinted from the first 

 (unabridged) edition, with the omission of some of the ap- 

 pendices, which were only of limited general interest. Mr. 

 Murray has supplied copies of the original woodcuts, many of 

 them from drawings by the author. 



A new Review, which will be partly scientific, is about to be 

 issued at Rome. It is to be published twice in the month, and 

 will be entitled Natura ed Arte. 



The admirable Harveian Oration recently delivered by Dr. W. 

 H. Dickinson has just been published by Messrs. Longmans, 

 Green, and Co. 



Part 9 of Cassell and Co. 's "Universal Atlas" has just been 

 issued. It contains a map of the Balkan Peninsula, another of 

 China and Japan, and one of Japan alone, the first occupying 

 a double page. 



Two communications upon phosphides of boron have been 

 published by M. Moissan and M. Besson respectively in the 

 most recent numbers of the Compfes rendiis. M. Moissan has 

 obtained two compounds of phosphoru-; and boron of the com- 

 position PB and P3B5, by the reduction of the new compound 

 PBI2 recently prepared by him (comp. Nature, vol. xlv. p. 67) 

 in a current of hydrogen gas. M. Besson, however, in July of 

 this year published a note upon one of these compounds, PB, 

 which he obtained by heating the compound BBrj. PH3 to the 

 temperature of 300° C , and in the current number of the Comptes 

 rendus calls M. Moissan's attention to the fact. The-e com- 

 pounds of boron and phosphorus appear to be somewhat re- 

 markable substances, and the following is a brief account of 

 their mode of preparation and properties, as described by Messrs. 

 Moissan and Hesson. The curious compound PBIj is a substance 

 crystallizing in vacuo in beautiful bright red crystals. When 

 these crystals are heated in a current of dry hydrogen to a tem- 

 perature of 45o°-5oo°, three things happen : a small portion of 

 the compound volatilizes unchanged, and forms ar^ annular red 

 deposit upon the cooler part of the tube ; another portion loses 

 iodine and yields a second sublimate, yellow in colour, of the 

 other comp >und of phosphorus, boron and iodine, (PBDj, pre- 

 pared by M. Moissan ; the remainder of the PBI., becomes 

 converted in situ into the normal phosphide of boron, PB. The 

 heating of the PBI2 is best effected in a U-shaped tube immersed 

 in a bath of fused nitre. After the reduction is completed as 

 far as possible, which is determined by the cessation of the 

 evolution of vapour of hydriodic acid, the U-tube is removed 

 from the bath, and the residual phosphide extracted, powdered 

 rapidly, and again placed in the tube, and the reduction continued 

 for a short time longer, in order to insure the removal of the las 



