April 19, 19 17] 



NATURE 



1 SI 



This formed part of the paraphernalia of the aman- 

 ingiu, or serpent, Juju, the serpent and the hippo- 

 potamus spirit heing represented on Janus-like carv- 

 ingS- on the back and front. A similar rendering 

 appears on a Kalahari wooden mask from Abonnema, 

 which is also described in this article by Mr. Henry 

 Balfour. 



. In the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 

 ' {vol. xl\*i., July-December, 1916) Dr. Bronislaw 

 Malinowski contributes a paper on " Baloma : The 

 Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands," which 

 lie off the eastern coast of British New Guinea. Inci- 

 dentally, he discusses the question, brought into pro- 

 minence by Spencer and Gillen in the case of the Aus- 

 tralian Arunta, that the belief in reincarnation, a 

 spirit child believed to enter the womb of the mother, 

 ■excludes any knowledge of the physiological law of the 

 process of impregnation. That this ignorance exists 

 IS certain. The writer deals with this difccult sub- 

 ject in a scientific and tactful way, and he arrives 

 at the general conclusion that its prevalence among 

 the Melanesians of New Guinea is a condition extend- 

 ing into much higher stages of development than it 

 would have seemed possible to assume only on the 

 basis of the Australian material. 



The r6\e of the flagellated protozoa in infective pro- 

 cesses of the intestines and liver (of animals) is the 

 subject of Bulletin 166, Agricultural Exf>eriment 



- Station of the Rhode Island State College, U.S.A., by 

 Dr. P. B. Hadley. Evidence is presented that a Tricho- 

 monas is the causative organism of an almost invari- 

 ably fatal cecal and hepatic infection in birds. The 

 pathological findings are described and the course of 

 infection and development of the parasite is studied. 

 The paper is illustrated by three excellent plates. In a 

 further Bulletin (No. 168) the avenue and the develop- 

 ment of tissue infection in intestinal trichomoniasis are 

 discussed. The stages are, first, multiplication of the 

 parasite in the cecal contents, then the flagellates 

 penetrate the goblet cells of the intestinal mucous 

 membrane, break through the basement membrane of 

 the mucosa, and enter the sub-mucous connective 

 tissue. Simultaneously, a marked invasion of the 

 base of the crypts occurs, and the crypt space becomes 

 consolidated. As a result of this, the deep-lying cecal 



\ epithelium becomes to a large extent destroyed. 

 Eleven plates illustrate this part of the investigation. 



The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology 

 for March (vol. x., Nos. 3 and 4) contains a series of 

 papers by Prof. Noel Paton and Messrs. Findlay, Wat- 

 son, Burns, Sharpe, and Wishart on the functions of 

 the parathyroid glands and their relation to the 

 disease known as tetany. It is shown that removal 

 of the parathyroids induces a condition resembling 

 tetany. This effect is brought about by the influence 

 of the parathyroids on guanidin and methylguanidin 

 metabolism ; these substances are increased in amount 

 by removal of the parathyroids, and their artificial 

 administration induces a condition resembling tetany. 

 Tetany may therefore be regarded as being caused by 

 an increase in the amount of guanidin and methyl- 

 guanidin in the body, due to disease or disordered 

 function of the parathyroids. 



In California Fish and Game for January a long 

 and valuable history is given of the introduction of 

 food and game fishes into the waters of California. 

 The author, Mr. W. H. Shebley, who is in charge 

 of the fish-culture department of the California Fish 

 and Game Commission, carries Ws survey from the 

 initiation of this work in 1871 to the present day. 

 While he has many failures to record, as must always 



NO. 2477, VOL. 99] 



be the case in acclimatisation work, he has a long 

 list of very striking successes. .-Vmong these are to 

 be reckoned the introduction of the ccMiimon shad. 

 Between 1871 and 1880 as many as 619,000 shad fry 

 were imported from the Castleton hatchery in New 

 York and turned down in the Sacramento River. As 

 a result, this fish is now one of the commonest in 

 Californian waters. The introduction of carp, 

 "which will probably become one of the State's most 

 valuable food fishes," has been equally successful, 

 though it has brought about the destruction of the 

 Californian perch. As a set-off against this, however, 

 it is pointed out, it forms the chief food of the black 

 and striped bass. The introduction of the black bass 

 into California is regarded as "one of the greatest 

 feats of acclimatisation of new species of fish in the 

 history of fish-culture." Loch Leven trout have also 

 thriven. The introduction of the carp, we note, has 

 given cause few repentance in one case, at any rate. 

 Their rapid increase in the Chautauqua Lake so 

 fouled the water as to make it almost unfit for use. 

 In consequence, pike and muskelunge were intro- 

 duced to exterminate the carp, but the latter still 

 remain in possession, the fish introduced to effect the 

 work of extermination having themselves been exter- 

 minated. An excellent coloured plate of the eastern 

 brook-trout forms the frontispiece of this number. 



As a result of the shortage of cotton owing to the 

 war, we learn from "Am Haiislichen Herd" (Zurich, 

 Pestalozzigesellschaft, xx., 6) that an old industry 

 is being revived in the cultivation of stinging nettles 

 for textile purposes, both in Switzerland and Germany, 

 In order to obtain fibres of the best quality, the nettles 

 should be grown on rich soil and thinned out when 

 necessar}-. In the spring, when they are about a foot 

 high, they are to be cut down and the young tops may 

 be eaten like spinach. The second growth produces 

 much better fibres than the first, and the stems are 

 cut down in June or- July, when they have reached a 

 height of about 4 ft. Another crop is obtainable in 

 September. In October the shoots can be used as 

 fodder, and for this purpose they may be dried, when 

 they will lose their stinging properties. They may 

 also be chopped up for feeding poultry. It is much 

 to be hoped that in our country a similar use will be 

 made of the stinging nettles, which at present consti- 

 tute such a pest in gardens and plantations. 



On the basis of Bohr's theory, taking account of 

 the magnetic and electrical fields of the atom, a 

 general formula for spectral series has been deduced 

 by Mr. J. Ishiwara (Proc. Tokyo Math. Phys. Soc., 

 series 2, vol. ix.. No. 2). The formula may be 

 written : — 



where v gives the wave numbers of lines correspoivd- 

 ing to successive integral values of m, A is the limit 

 of the series, and a is the Rydberg constant, slightly 

 varied according to the atomic weight of the element; 

 /i, a, and b are constants special to each series. The 

 last term is a relativity correction, and <r has the 

 numerical value 0-00015908. As a test of the formula, 

 the author has employed it in a re-calculation of the 

 numerous series of enhanced lines of magnesium dis- 

 covered by Fowler, for which the Rydberg constant 

 has four times the value appropriate to the arc lines. 

 The formula appears to be well adapted to the series 

 in question, and there are some curious relations 

 between the values of fi for six of the series. 



On behalf of the Bureau of Standards, Dr G. K. 

 Burgess, the head of the metallurgical department of 



