NA TURE 



[April 21, 1892 



Parliament. Of the Parliamentary grant no less than ;^l64,437 

 went to the North- West, including Manitoba and Keewatin ; 

 while British Columbia took ;^i7,oio of the remainder. 



There seems to be no doubt that the aborigines of the 

 Andaman Islands are rapidly disappearing. According to the 

 latest administrative report relating to the islands, all the people 

 of Rutland Island and Port Campbell are dead, and few remain 

 in the South Andamans. Mr. Portman thinks that the present 

 generation of this interesting race will be the last. Only a 

 small number of children are born, and they do not survive 

 infancy. 



In his Presidential address to the American National Geo' 

 graphic Society, now printed in the Society's Magazine, Mr. 

 Gardiner G. Hubbard presents an interesting sketch of the forces 

 which have been at work in the evolution of commerce. In the 

 concluding passage he glances at what he supposes to be the 

 future of commerce. America, the last of the continents to be 

 inhabitated, now receives, he points out, the wealth of Asia on 

 the one hand and manufactures, and population from Europe on 

 the other. " Here the East and West, different from each other 

 in mental power and civilization, will meet, each alone incom- 

 plete, each essential to the fullest and most symmetrical develop- 

 ment of the other. Here will be the great banking and com- 

 mercial houses of the world, the centre of business, wealth, and 

 population." 



In ancient times Greece possessed something like seven and 

 a half millions of acres of dense forest, and she was com- 

 paratively rich in timber until half a century ago. Many forests 

 have now disappeared, and the result is seen both in the scarcity 

 of the water supply and in various injurious climatic effects. The 

 Austro- Hungarian Consul at Athens— while calling attention to 

 these facts in a recent report, of which some account is given in the 

 Board of Trade Jotirnal for April — points out that even at the 

 present day Greece possesses about two millions of acres of 

 forest land. The quantities (in cubic metres) of timber and 

 forest produce obtained in 1890, compared with 1889, were : 

 building wood, 59,948 and 48,986 ; timber for shipbuilding, 

 2606 and 1640 ; for tools and machinery, 4146 and 2940 ; 

 lignite, 509,895 metric centners, compared with 466,953 ; 

 asbestos, 491,722 metric centners, compared with 490,179 ; and 

 tanners' tawing materials, 20,003 metric centners, compared 

 with 30,089 in 1889. Notwithstanding this considerable pro- 

 duction, Greece will have to import large quantities of timber 

 in the near future, so as to meet the demand arising from the 

 revival of the building trades now affecting both the rural and 

 urban districts of the peninsula. 



A PAPER on the agricultural needs of India, by Dr. J. Augustus 

 Voelcker, was read the other evening before the Society of Arts, 

 and is printed in the current number of the Society's Journal. 

 It gave rise to an instructive discussion, in the course of which 

 Mr. Thiselton-Dyer — referring to the necessity of India producing 

 sufficient food for its growing population — said the real question 

 was how to get more nitrogen into the soil. That overshadowed 

 everything else. He agreed with Prof. Wallace, who had 

 spoken before him, as to one way of supplying this want. 

 After the studies made in Germany, France, and England, there 

 could be no longer any doubt that the growing of leguminous 

 crops did enrich the soil with nitrogen in a way which, as far as 

 was at present known, without manure, could be done in no other 

 way ; but in India the method of green soiling was not alto- 

 gether unknown. If it were, the sooner some popular account 

 of the method was distributed the better. An old pupil of his 

 own, who had charge for a time of an experimental farm at 

 Bangalore, found that by making some slight addition to the 

 Indian plough he was able to stir the soil — not to plough 

 NO. II 73, VOL. 4.5] 



deeply, but to stir it lower than the ordinary plough did, and, 

 by slightly opening the subsoil in this way, the roots were able 

 to get down lower, and the crops, even in a season of drought, 

 flourished in a way they did not when the soil was cultivated in 

 the ordinary manner. Pie was inclined to think that the Indian 

 plough was a thing which deserved a good deal of study ; but it 

 could not be studied very well by people in Europe, because our 

 conditions were so different. The study should be made on the 

 spot, and efforts should be made to improve the agricultural 

 methods there by the introduction, if possible, of some kind of 

 rotation with leguminous crops. He was under the impression 

 that, in a great deal of the cultivated land of India, there was 

 something like a pan, formed at no great distance below the 

 surface, which made it extremely difficult for the roots to pene- 

 trate, and so they were unable to bear even a slight drought. 



The Great Bower Bird seems to give the people of Northern 

 Queensland very frequent occasion to think about him. Every 

 kind of fruit suffers from his depredations ; and, according to a 

 letter from Mr. E. M. Cornwall, printed in the Victoria 

 Naturalist, he has also a taste for new-laid eggs. Says Mr. 

 Cornwall : — "This is not mere supposition, but hard fact, for 

 after noticing the disappearance of eggs in a most unaccountable 

 manner for some time, the gardener kept watch, and was rewarded 

 by seeing Mr. Bower Bird fly straight to a nest just vacated by a 

 hen and deliberately pick the egg and polish off its contents." 

 " In re the Great Bower Bird. — Since writing you last, I have 

 had still further evidence to convict this rogue of what I charged 

 him with. A bird was seen to fly right to a hen's nest in an 

 empty shed and immediately emerge with an egg in his long 

 claws ; but the egg proved an awkward burden, and he dropped 

 it ere he had gone many yards." 



Colonel W. S. Hore gives in the journal of the Bombay 

 Natural History Society (vol. vi., No. 3) an interesting account of 

 the taming of a heron. Writing from Deesa in September 1891, 

 he says that during the then recent monsoon a young egret 

 or heron with a greenish-brown neck and body, white-tipped 

 wings, and green legs, flew into the verandah of his house, 

 apparently in search of food. He caught it, and for about ten 

 days kept it under a large basket, feeding it with raw meat. 

 He then gave it its liberty, but it refused to leave. It grew very 

 tame, and would feed out of Colonel Hore's hand. Occasionally 

 it would indulge in a bath in one of the dog's tins, and afterwards 

 sit on a chair in the verandah. In the evening it flew away to 

 roost in one of the large neem trees in the compound. It 

 showed no fear of the dogs, and would give any of them who 

 came too near a vigorous " dig " with its long bill. It remained 

 with Colonel Hore for about six weeks, when, as his regiment 

 was under orders to march, and he was afraid if left behind it would 

 meet with an untimely end, he carried it down to the river about 

 two miles off and left it there. 



The new number of Petermann s Mitteilungen has a map of the 

 Kalahari Desert, and the western part of British Bechuanaland, 

 with remarks by Edward Wilkinson. There are also articles on 

 the Pamir question (with map), by F. Immanuel, and contribu- 

 tions to our knowledge of the south-eastern part of Persia, by 

 A. J, Ceyp. 



The Rochester Academy of Science, U.S., has published 

 two brochures of the first volume of its Proceedings. The 

 papers are attractively printed and well illustrated. Among the 

 contributions we may note " The Aurora," "The Forces con- 

 cerned in the Development of Storms," and J "The Zodiacal 

 Light," by M. A. Veeder; "Description of New Meteorites," 

 and "Notice of a New Meteorite from Louisa County, Va.," 

 by Edwin E. Howell ; " Root Foods of the Seneca Indians," 

 by G. H. Harris ; " Descriptions of New Species of Muricidas, 

 with remarks on the apices of certain forms," by Frank C. 



