498 



NA rURE 



[June 



0> 



1910 



In the second issue for the present year of the Bulletins 

 et Memoires of the Soci6te d'Anthropologie of Paris, Dr. 

 A. F. Legendre publishes an elaborate anthropometrical 

 study of that strange race, the Lolos of the Kicn Tch'ang 

 Valley, who have hitherto been a puzzle to ethnologists. 

 In spite of the domination of the Chinese, who have taught 

 them many vices, such as alcoholic drinking, they preserve 

 some measure of independence, and in consequence of the 

 ill-treatment to which they are accustomed they are so 

 suspicious of strangers that there is much difficulty in 

 investigating their ethnical characteristics. They seem to 

 have decided affinity with the Tibetan stock, but they com- 

 bine certain negroid characters with a curious fairness of 

 skin. Dr. Legendre does not venture to give a decided 

 opinion on their origin, but the elaborate measurements 

 which he supplies will greatly assist in the solution of the 

 problem. 



In reference to the confirmation of the existence of 

 pygmies in New Guinea, referred to in Nature (p. 433), it 

 should have been noted that Dr. A. B. Meyer in 1908 

 wrote (" Die Papuasprache in Niederlandisch-Neuguinea," 

 Globus, Bd. xciv., p. 192) : — " The question whether the 

 Papuans are a uniform race with a great breadth of varia- 

 tion or a mixed race was pronounced by me to be not yet 

 ripe for decision (' Negritos,' 1893, 87, and 1899, 87). 

 Now, however, after Ray's discovery of the Papuan 

 linguistic family, I incline to the view that they are a 

 mixed race of ' Negritos ' and Malays (in the wider sense). 

 I am eagerly looking forward to the exploration of the 

 interior of the great island, when here too the Negrito 

 element may perhaps be brought to light in its old and 

 more constant form as still existing in the Philippines, 

 Andamans and Malakka." 



In the April number of Biometrika there is an article 

 by Prof. Karl Pearson on " Darwinism, Biometry, and 

 some Recent Biology." The article, which apparently is 

 to be continued in the next issue, is a general criticism of 

 recent biological work in which more or less inadequate 

 statistical methods have been used, with unfortunate 

 results, but the greater part is devoted to a useful dis- 

 cussion of some of the difficulties that arise if the theory 

 of " pure lines " is accepted in its most stringent form — 

 i.e. the hypothesis that there is absolutely no individual 

 inheritance within the "pure line." As Prof. Pearson 

 correctly points out, if this conception were true the corre- 

 lation between offspring and parent, and that between 

 offspring and grandparent, would be the same in any case 

 in which the reproduction was mono-sexual. The work 

 of Warren on Daphnia and on Hyalopterus, and that of 

 Johannsen himself on Phaseolus, indicate that this is not 

 the case, the grandparental coefficient being very distinctly 

 smaller than the parental coefficient. The fact that 

 Johannsen, Raymond Pearl, and Jennings have failed to 

 find any sensible effect of selection within the pure line 

 may probably be ascribed to the fact that they have all 

 been working with characters for which the coefficient of 

 inheritance is exceedingly low ; to arrive at an appreciable 

 result a character should be selected for which the inherit- 

 ance is relatively high. In any case, of course, it remains 

 true that for breeding purposes it will be much better to 

 select by the method of pure lines than by selection of the 

 characters of individuals, but the effect of selection of 

 individuals from the mass of the population is of vital 

 importance for the theory of evolution. 



In the June number of the Selborne Magazine Mr. G. S. 

 Boulger directs attention to the enormous crop of seeds 

 borne by many elms in England in the spring of 1909, the 



NO. 2 12 I, VOL. 83] 



abundance of the crop being attributed to the fine autumn 

 of 1908 and the sunny character of the following spring. 

 The species which produced the seed is the smooth-leaved 

 elm (Ulmus glabra), the common U. surculosa (or 

 canipestris) being infertile in this country. To the same V 

 issue Mr. J. Buckland contributes an article on the- 

 slaughter of egrets for the sake of their plumage. 



Mr. N. N. WoRONiCHiN contributes to the botanical 

 section (parts iii. and iv., 1909) of the Travaux de la 

 SociHe dcs Naiuralistcs de St. PHersbourg a list, with 

 descriptions, of Rhodophycea^ collected in the Black Sea. 

 The number of species amounts to ninety-seven, of which 

 Polysiphonia and Ceramium supply twelve and ten re- 

 spectively ; some new varieties are distinguished. Twa 

 species are cited as endemic, while a Laurencia and 

 Ceramium are noted as being recorded from the Atlantic 

 Ocean and North Sea, but not from the Mediterranean. 



A REVISED catalogue of microscopes and accessories issued 

 by Messrs. W. Watson and Sons, High Holborn, London, 

 contains descriptions of the essential working parts and 

 full particulars of their various instruments, ranging from 

 the school pattern to the microscopist's van Heurck type; 

 a new introduction is the inexpensive naturalist's micro- 

 scope intended for general use. Great variety is offered 

 in the shape of objectives and condensers ; for low-power 

 photomicrographic use a series of holostigmatic lenses have 

 bten designed, which are used without eye-pieces. Acces- 

 sories of all kinds are listed for microscopists, bacterio- 

 logists, biologists, and for commercial purposes. 



A DESCRIPTION of a singular purple-flowered Cytisus 

 hybrid, for which an award of merit was given at the 

 Temple Show, is communicated by Mr. R. A. Rolfe in the 

 Gardener's Chronicle (June 18). The hybrid, Cytisusy. 

 Dalliinorei, was raised in Kew Gardens by Mr. Dallimore 

 from a crimson-winged variety of Cytisus scoparius crossed 

 with pollen of the white broom, Cytisus albus. Of two 

 seedlings obtained, only one produced purple flowers ; the 

 other bore flowei's of a bright yellow. The purple colour 

 of the seedling is traceable to the variety which is charac- 

 terised by a deep crimson pigment in the wings and a slight 

 tinge at the tip of the upper petal, the brown pigment, as 

 the author suggests, being probably a suffusion of purple 

 and yellow. Self-fertilised plants have been raised from 

 both the yellow and purple hybrids, but, so far, the latter 

 have not flowered. 



The steady progress that is being made in the applica- 

 tion of science to agriculture in the West Indies is well 

 shown by a comparison of the Bulletin of the Department 

 of Agriculture, Trinidad, recently issued (No. 64, vol. ix.), 

 with the corresponding number for last year (No. 63, 1909). 

 The earlier issue was filled with short notes, many of 

 which were extracted from other journals, and did not 

 represent anything in the way of original observations ; 

 the notes might be helpful to the planters, but they were 

 more of the nature of useful hints than of reasoned dis- 

 cussions of the planters' problems. The present issue is a 

 distinct advance. It contains papers by the members of 

 the staff on important problems connected with rubber, 

 cacao, and cocoa-nut. Mr. Carruthers discusses the possi- 

 bility of growing rubber successfully, and points out that, 

 in spite of certain obvious similarities, there are certain 

 fundamental differences in the conditions obtaining in 

 Ceylon or Malaya and those in Trinidad. Chief among 

 these is the supply of labour, which is only small in Trini- 

 dad ; in consequence, the planters could not keep the 

 plantations anything like so clean as is done in the East, 

 nor could the tapping be done as frequently. It does not 



