424 



NATURE 



[August 30, 1900 



Fielding-Ould, accompanied by a short explanatory text. The 

 diagrams were originally intended to illustrate a lecture 

 delivered at the Royal Institution, to which reference is made 

 in Nature of March 29. The authors adopt the name 

 Haemamofebidfe for the intracorpuscular amoeba-like bodies 

 which occur in the blood of certain animals. Of these, three 

 species occur in human beings (producing the various types of 

 malarial fever), one in monkeys, three in bats, and two in 

 birds. Only the human and avian forms are illustrated. The 

 development of four of these has been followed in gnats ; the 

 three human forms living in Anopheles, while the bird infesting 

 species dwells in the common Culex pipiens. To this paper 

 Prof. E. Ray Lankester appends a separate communication 

 describing the generative process in the aforesaid " Hzema- 

 moebids" and in the allied Coccidiid?e, which are parasitic in 

 cuttle-fish. Sexual conjunction, or " zygosis," has recently been 

 demonstrated to bccur in the former group, and shortly before 

 certain peculiar bodies known as microgametes and macro- 

 gametes were found to occur in the latter. These Prof. Lankester 

 now shows respectively correspond to the spermatozoa and ova 

 of higher organisms, specimens of the Coccidiidse being figured 

 in which the process of fertilisation by the microgametes is 

 actually taking place. 



To vol. xiii. Part i of the Annals oi\\\& New York Academy of 

 Sciences, Prof. H. F. Osborn contributes an important paper on 

 the correlation between the Tertiary mammalian horizons of 

 Europe and America. The author is of opinion that the Puerco 

 Eocene of the United States has no parallel in the European 

 series, and that the Egerkingen beds of Switzerland are newer 

 than the Wasatch. The three main divisions of the European 

 Miocene are correlated with the Loup Fork and a portion of the 

 John Day groups of America. But the most generally interest- 

 ing portion of the paper is that in which Prof. Osborn enunci- 

 ates his views with regard to former land connections. The 

 theory of an extensive Antarctic continent synchronously con- 

 necting South America and Australia, and also communicating 

 at some epoch with Africa, is deemed to be demonstrated. And 

 it is considered that South America has experienced four dis- 

 tinct streams of faunal migration. In the first it received its 

 peculiar Ungulates and Edentates ; in the second it yielded the 

 ancestors of Aard-varks, Pangolins, and perhaps Hyraces, to 

 Africa ; during a third land connection Marsupials immigrated 

 from Australasia ; and in the fourth the modern North American 

 types effected an entrance. In contradistinction to the general 

 view that Africa received its fauna from the north, the author 

 is of opinion that the Dark Continent was itself the great dis- 

 persing centre and theatre of evolution ; but whether South 

 America received its original fauna from Africa or from North 

 America is left an open question. 



American zoologists continue to devote their attention to 

 the mammals of the Old World ; and in the Proceedings of the 

 Washington Academy of Sciences for July, Mr. G. S. Miller 

 publishes two papers on the squirrels of Siam and Malacca, as 

 well as a third on the European red-backed field-mice. Mr. 

 Bonhote has just been writing on the former subject in the 

 Annals of Natural History, and it seems a pity that naturalists 

 cannot agree to divide their work so as to avoid overlapping and 

 consequent unnecessary multiplication of names. 



The Zoologist for August contains an interesting account of a 

 visit to Lundy Island during the nesting season, by Mr. F. L. 

 Blathwayt. In the course of the paper allusion is made to the 

 tradition that the Great Auk, or some equally large unknown 

 bird, formerly inhabited ihe island. Only one or two pairs of 

 this bird were known to the islanders, but an egg (subsequently 

 broken) was secured in 1839. This subject seems worthy of 

 further investigation. 



NO. 1609. VOL. 62] 



We are glad to see that in its September issue the GirPs 

 Realm is endeavouring to awake an interest in the animal life of 

 the sea-shore among its numerous juvenile readers, by publishing 

 an illustrated article, entitled "An Hour in a Drang," by Mr. 

 E. Step. "Drang," we learn, is Cornish for a deep cleft ; and 

 in his admirable description of such a cleft among' the rocks at 

 low tide, the author introduces his young friends to its living 

 inhabitants in such a delightful manner that he can scarcely fail 

 to gain many converts to the study of natural history. The 

 photographs of crabs and lobsters with which the article is illus- 

 trated are admirably presented. 



A Bulletin (Technical Series, No. 8) just issued by the U.S. 

 Department of Agriculture (Division of Entomology) contains 

 contributions towards a monograph of the American Aleurodidje, 

 by Mr. A. L. Quaintance, and a paper on the Red Spiders of 

 the United States (Tetranychus and StigmTeus), by Mr. Nathan 

 Banks. We have only one or two species of the interesting; 

 homopterous family Aleurodidae in England. They are garden 

 insects, which have a superficial resemblance to small white 

 moths. In the present monograph forty-two American species 

 of Aleurodes (Latreille) are described, most of them for the first 

 time, and ten others belonging to the genus Aleurodicus 

 (Douglas). To these the plates refer. The second paper, which 

 is illustrated by wood-cuts, relates to the mites improperly 

 called Red Spiders, which are equally troublesome in gardens 

 and greenhouses in Europe and America. Of the two genera 

 here discussed, ten species of Tetranychus_(Dufour) and one 

 of Stigmseus (Koch) are described ; several as new. It is 

 rather a pity that the term entomology is used in England so 

 narrowly as practically to exclude mites, spiders, centipedes, 

 &c., from entomological publications, and thus to hinder the 

 popularisation of knowledge respecting them. In America, 

 entomology is given the wider extension which it possessed at the 

 beginning of the century, as may be seen by the inclusion of 

 mites in the present publication. 



The members of the Manchester Microscopical Society deserve 

 a word of encouragement for the efforts they make to extend a 

 knowledge of natural history. One section of the society is 

 entirely concerned with this work, and the members of it propa- 

 gate the gospel of natural history by lecturing and demonstrating 

 wherever their services are required. A programme containing 

 a list of nearly fifty subjects tias been issued, and the honorary 

 secretary, Mr, George Wilks, 56, Brookland Street, Eccles New 

 Road, Manchester, will arrange for lectures or demonstrations 

 upon any of them if a communication is made to him. 



The two last numbers of the Bulletin of the Free Museum of 

 Science and Art of Philadelphia show that this institution is 

 growing rapidly under the care of Mr. Cu'in. The more im- 

 portant recent additions are figured. In vol. ii. No. 3 is an 

 account of the historical Dickeson collection from the Mississippi 

 mounds, and in the following number is a descriptive catalogue 

 of the Berendt collection of books and manuscripts on the 

 languages of Central America in the Museum Library, carefully 

 compiled by the late Dr. Brinton. 



Those interested in the decorative art of primitive folk should 

 consult two fully illustrated papers in ih^ American Anthropologist 

 (N.S. vol. ii. No. 2, 1890). One, by Mr. R. B. Dixon, deals with 

 basketry designs of the Maidu Indians of California, in which 

 animal and plant forms, feathers, arrow heads, mountains and 

 clouds are plaited in a very conventional manner. The author 

 makes the significant remark, " The knowledge of the designs 

 is almost exclusively confined to the older women, the younger 

 generation knowing only very few." The second paper is one by 

 Mr. B. Laufer, on the Amoor tribes, and is a preliminary account 

 of the work done by this observer on the Jesup North Pacific 



