Junes, 1919] 



NATURE 



73 



from the owners of palm-gardens; but in his second 

 memoir he has regretfully to confess that "such a 

 scheme would be unworkable in practice unless the 

 owner of the plant also had his own trees. Personal 

 experience showed us that one is entirely at the 

 mercy of the cultivator, and no amount of argument 

 will persuade him to sell his juice at a reasonable 

 rate." 



SUSSEX NATURAL HISTORY.^ 

 np HE Hastings and St. Leonards Natural History 

 "•■ Society may be congratulated on the well- 

 sustained number of its rnembers (373), on the small- 

 ness of its annual subscription (3s. 6d.), and on the 

 interesting character of its journal. It is, in the 

 opinion of many naturalists, disastrous when local 

 societies undertake to publish scientific information 

 important for its novelty. In after-years the duty of 

 reference to such a source may cause students serious 

 inconvenience. The faunistic lists in the present 

 journal so industriously compiled — of Coleoptera by 

 Mr. W. H. Bennett, 'of Aphididae by Mr. F. V. 

 Theobald, of Oligochaeta by the Rev. H. Friend, and 

 of the local fauna and flora in general by the late 

 memorable Rev. E. N. Bloomfield, Mr. E. A. Butler, 

 Mr. W. Ruskin Butterfield, Mr. Thomas Parkin, and 

 others — will serve to illustrate this point of view. 

 They are, for the most part, of purely local interest, 

 legitimately recorded in the archives now under 

 review. But in a few instances the entries seem less 

 appropriately placed. Thus Mr. Theobald (vol. ii.. 

 No. I, p. 15^ renames two species of Aphis. Mr. 

 Friend (vol. li.. No. 3, p. 119) gives details of an 

 Oligochaete as a new species, though he mysteriously 

 says that he had "described" it more than a year 

 earlier. Among Hymenoptera Mr. Bloomlield (vol. ii.. 

 No. 3, pi. 9, p. loi) gives excellent figures of Neurotes 

 iridescens, male and female, assigning them on the 

 following page to " Netirotis iridescens (Enoch)," name 

 of fenus and author's name misprinted. Nearly a 

 year later (vol. ii., No. 4, p. 178) that author, 'the 

 late Mr. Fred Enock, fully describes the genus and 

 the species, both still considered as new, of this 

 interesting addition to the family of Mymaridae or 

 fairy flies. 



Apart, however, from the impolicy of publishing 

 novelties of classification in local records, Mr. Enock's 

 account of the family is well worth reading, as is 

 Mr. Friend's notice of the Oligochaeta. In view of 

 the common demand for significant names in biology, 

 he amusingly notes that in these Annelids, named for 

 few setae, "sometimes the total number of setae is 

 two thousand, though the worm may not exceed half 

 an inch in length." 



In other branches of knowledge things are not 

 always what they are called. In a lecture to which 

 Mr. Anthony Belt, the editor, directs attention, Mr. 

 J. E. Price, a soldier, explains that " smokeless 

 powder" is not a powder at all. This author, 

 speaking in 19 12, suggests that the scientific perfec- 

 tion of arms, by rendering the prospect of war too 

 awful to contemplate, "may materially contribute to 

 the preservation of that peace of nations which is so 

 much desired by everv' thoughtful man to-day." 

 Meanwhile, some of these " thoughtful men " were 

 engineering a conflict which is reckoned to have cost 

 more than four millions of lives of men, not to speak 

 of heart-aching to millions of women that no one can 

 number. 



As might be expected with Mr. Thomas Parkin, 



• Hastinc^ ""'^ Ens* Sussex Naturalist, vol. ii., Nos. i-6 ; vol. iii., 

 No. I (December 31. 1Q12-18). 



NO. 2588, VOL.. 103] 



sometimes as president and always as enthusiastic 

 supporter of the society, the journal may be said to 

 be on the wing with bird-life, and his well-illustrated 

 articles on historic houses — the Grey Friars, Winchel- 

 sea, and its rookery (vol. ii.. No. 2), Ashburnham 

 Place (vol. ii.. No. 4), and Brickwall and Brede Place 

 (vol. ii., No. 6) — must be of continuing interest. In 

 the last he shows how legends may arise. On a vast 

 oak beam there was a great iron hook, of which he 

 said to a companion, " Look where the old lord used 

 to hang his vassals." Lo and behold, " two or three 

 years afterwards I went there again, and the cus- 

 todian, having forgotten me, repeated my own words 

 as authentic history." Naturally, in speaking of 

 i heronries, Mr. Parkin is all in favour of the noble 

 birds, but those who wish to keep goldfish in orna- 

 I mental waters have been heard to denounce herons as 

 : abandoned pirates. There are two sides to many 

 problems, as Mr. Ticehurst shows in regard to the 

 introduction of the little owl (vol. ii., No. 2). 



Remarkably full of interest are the paf>ers on 

 Eoanthropus ' dawsoni by the late much lamented 

 Charles Dawson (vo\. ii., Nos. 2 and 4). But here 

 again we must take into account what Mr. Anthony 

 ! Belt has to say in his article on prehistoric Hastings 

 I (vol. iii.. No. I, p. 6). Limits of space exclude from 

 notice many other notable essays, such, for example, 

 as that by Prof. Seward on Wealden floras. 



NEW IDEALS OF SCIENCE TEACHERS. 



A LITTLE more than a year has now elapsed since 

 the publication of the report of the Government 

 Committee which, with Sir J. J. Thomson as chair- 

 man, inquired into the position occupied by natural 

 science in the educational system of Great Britain. 

 In the meantime, the recommendations made in this 

 report have been carefully considered by science 

 teachers and others, and at a conference held on 

 May 30, under the auspices of the London County 

 Council, with Sir Cyril Cobb as chairman, the general 

 aims of science teaching were freely discussed. 



The main fact which seemed to be made clear by the 

 I discussion was that the science teacher of the present 

 day must have two well-defined aims : the one to 

 prepare children for the business of life, and the other 

 to prepare them equally well for the more difficult 

 business of living. On ethical grounds alone there 

 can be no doubt as to which of these is the higher, 

 for "the life is more than meat and the body than 

 raiment." To this we can add that without the meat 

 and raiment and the things of which these are but 

 symbols, life in its broadest, as well as in its more 

 restricted, sense is imp>ossible. Hence these two 

 aims, which appear to some incompatible, or even 

 antagonistic, are in reality convergent, and meet on 

 the common ground of national welfare. 



Sir J. J. Thomson, in the opening speech, gave the 

 key-note of the seeminglv more ideal theme. Science 

 teaching which is to add to the interests of life and 

 contribute to the joie de vivre by dispelling the bore- 

 I dom of unoccupied leisure must be of the popular 

 kind — that is, stimulating rather than feeding. It 

 must cover a very wide field, and be given in the 

 form of lectures, accompanied, when possible, by 

 practical work of a suitable kind. 



Such a course as this, essentially the same for boys 

 and girls up to the age of sixteen, must include biology 

 as well as chemistry, physics, and astronomy, for no 

 general course can be considered complete which does 

 not include the consideration of man in relation to his 

 environment. Moreover, if we are to change a C3 

 population to an Aj nation, we must seek the "elixir 



