40S 



NA rURE 



[June 2, 1910 



dd was to clear away the trees in order to cultivate the 

 land. This checked the tigers, and not only did the white 

 man defend himself with courage when attacked, but 

 became the aggressor. The tigers came to distinguish 

 between Chinese and Coreans on the one hand and white 

 men on the other, and, unless circumstances prevented, 

 avoided the latter. 



A USEFUL " Catalogue of Nearctic Spiders," by Mr. 

 Nathan Banks, has lately been issued as Bulletin 72 of the 

 United States National Museuin. It includes more than 

 1300 species, and the author anticipates that at least 2000 

 will be recognised " when the west and south are explored 

 as thoroughly as New England now is." The arrangement 

 follovi'ed is on the whole that of Simon's " Histoire 

 naturelle des Araign^es. " It is of interest to note that a 

 large proportion of genera and a small proportion of 

 species are common to the European and North American 

 faunas. The inclusion of the southern States in the 

 " Nearctic Region " leads to the appearance of some 

 characteristically tropical spiders, such as the large 

 Theraphosidae, but there is no information as to the distri- 

 bution of northern species in Canada. 



Of the various agricultural students' publications, few 

 are more interesting than the Proceedings of Armstrong 

 College Agricultural Students' Association. The current 

 issue (part ii., vol. ii.) contains a paper by Dr. Stevenson 

 on Aberdeen Angus cattle, their breeding and management, 

 and a very readable essay by Mr. Walling on a typical 

 north Devonshire farm. The association encourages its 

 members by the offer of prizes to prepare papers on agri- 

 cultural subjects, and to carry out agricultural experi- 

 ments. The membership during the past year is stated to 

 have been 130. 



The prospects of vanilla-growing in the West Indies are 

 discussed in a recent issue (No. 204) of the Agricultural 

 News, the problem having arisen because of the recent 

 rise in price of vanilla. Hitherto there has been some 

 fear, not altogether unfounded, that the synthetically pre- 

 pared vanillin would drive the natural product out of 

 cultivation, but since the passage of the American pure- 

 food law has necessitated a declaration of the materials 

 used, it has been found that people prefer the natural 

 vanilla, the sale of which is said to have increased in 

 consequence. It appears that the general production and 

 consumption are both increasing, but only in the French 

 colonies is there any immediate likelihood of over-produc- 

 tion. The reports from various markets which are sum- 

 marised in the article seem to be favourable on the 

 whole. 



Mr. J. W. Small has recorded in the Ceylon Observer 

 the occurrence of a cocoa-nut palm at Jaffna, Ceylon, with 

 sixteen branches arising near the base of the plant. A 

 similar instance, but with only five branches, is described 

 by Dr. S. Pulney Andy in the Transactions of the Linnean 

 Society, Botany, xxvi., 66r. A list of branched specimens 

 of Cocos is given by Morris in the Journ. Linn. Soc, 

 xxiv., 1892, 294, in a paper on the occurrence of branching 

 and forking in palms. Ridley, in the Annals of Botany, 

 xxi., 45, and xxiii., 338, enumerates nineteen genera of 

 palms in which branching of the stem takes place, and 

 states that this occurs most commonly in Cocos nucifera, 

 although the percentage of branched trees is not large. In 

 most cases the branching appears to be due to the develop- 

 ment of lateral buds, and the rapidly growing shoots so 

 produced soon equal in size that from which they 

 originated. It has been stated, though not clearly proved, 



NO. 2 II 8, VOL. 8j] 



that the destruction of the terminal bud by insect or other 

 agency may be followed by the production of lateral buds. 

 No instance of branching in monocarpic palms has been 

 recorded. 



A PAMPHtET on the origin of typhoons has been prepared 

 by Mr. J. I. Plummer, chief assistant, Hong Kong Ob- 

 servatory. The author points out that although his paper 

 has not received the imprimatur of scientific opinion, it is 

 at least the outcome of twenty years' experience of 

 typhoons, with exceptional means for their examination. 

 Much still requires to be known about the tracks followed 

 by such storms, the cause of their re-curvature, rate of 

 translation, and frequency. They have been under special 

 observation in the vicinities of Mauritius, Bay of Bengal, 

 Eastern Archipelago, south-east of China, and West Indies. 

 Their frequency varies considerably in these localities ; in the 

 Bay of Bengal and the West Indies the storms, the author 

 states, appear to be more noted for their severity than for 

 their number, while the northern part of the China Sea 

 appears to be more troubled by them than any other portion 

 of the globe. Among the main conclusions drawn are, (i) 

 that although the open sea is the point where they become 

 appreciable, the earliest beginnings of typhoons must be 

 sought for on land ; (2) that one typhoon is never the cause 

 of another ; if several proceed from a limited area within a 

 few days, they are caused by separate impulses ; (3) that 

 a typhoon, once formed, does not tend to coalesce with 

 another, but rather repels it, with the result that one 

 becomes intensified at the expense of the other. 



In the second number of the Bulletin of the Calcutta 

 Mathematical Society (1909), recently received. Prof. C. E.\ 

 Cullis continues his discussion of Mobius's cubic surface, 

 the nature of which was explained fully in the first number.' 

 In addition to several other original papers, a translation 

 is given of the late Prof. H. Minkowski's address on' 

 space and time, and the notes, abstracts, and lists of 

 current literature render this second number as valuable 

 a book of reference to the mathematician as its pre- 

 decessor. 



An intei'esting new " record " in connection with the' 

 possibilities of microscopic vision is mentioned in the 

 Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society (April) by Mr. 

 Edward M. Nelson. In 1898 Mr. Nelson observed, for the 

 first time, tertiary markings on the diatom Coscinodiscus 

 aster omphalus mounted in realgar in a slide of " Notting- 

 ham " deposit. Although he has tested hundreds of 

 objectives with a balsam mount of the same diatom, it 

 has been found impossible to resolve the tertiaries in this 

 medium until a month or two ago, when a new Zeiss 's 

 long tube | apochromatic of numerical aperture 1-4 

 rendered them conspicuous. A comparison of this test with 

 the previous ones leads the author to assert that the new 

 lens marks a distinct advance on its predecessors. 



Under the title "The Most Curious Craft Afloat," Dr. 

 L. A. Bauer gives in the March number of the 

 National Geographic Magazine (Washington) an interesting: 

 popular account of the work of the non-magnetic yacht^ 

 Carnegie. The article is well illustrated from photographs 

 taken by various expeditions sent out by the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington, and some of the illustrations' 

 enable one to appreciate very thoroughly the difficulties ofj 

 magnetic survey work in the remote parts of Canada, India^j 

 and China. j 



Separate copies have reached us of several papers which 

 the staff of the Reichsanstalt at Charlottenburg have com- 

 municated to the " Annalen der Physik " during the last six 



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