October 25, 1900] 



NATURE 



621 



That is to say, although the length of the albino was only 4^ 

 per cent, less than that of the normal hake, the deficiency in 

 girth amounted to II per cent, and the deficiency in weight 

 to 23 per cent. 



The question arises whether the emaciation of body, and lack 

 of pigmentation, should be regarded as results of some disease 

 (which was not otherwise apparent) ; or whether the lean con- 

 dition should be attributed to the insufficient nutrition of a 

 predaceous fish whose stalking powers had been reduced by its 

 conspicuous appearance. 



The hake is a predaceous and nocturnal fish, which preys on 

 mackerel, herring and other active fish, especially at night. 



The bulk of evidence appears to favour the view that albinism 

 in fishes is a congenital, and not an acquired character {cf. colour 

 variation in flat fishes) ; and I am not aware that leanness of 

 body is specially correlated with the albino condition. 



Perhaps some of your readers could refer me to other records 

 which would throw light on this case? 



Plymouth, October 10. Walter Garstanc. 



Tenacity of Life of the Albatross. 



Sir William Corry told me some time ago that on one of his 

 steamships coming from New Zealand, an albatross, supposed 

 to have been choked dead, kept in an ice box at a temperature 

 which was always much below freezing point, was found to be 

 alive at the end of fourteen days. He has been kind enough to 

 obtain for me the following statement in writing from Captain 

 Reed. Of course the birds mentioned in this statement could 

 not really have been choked dead, but I think the facts are 

 very interesting. John Perry. 



October 11. 



The bird referred to was supposed to be killed by being 

 strangled with twine tied as tightly as possible round the neck. 

 This twine was not removed. The beak was closed and tied 

 and the legs crossed behind the tail and tied. It was then 

 wrapped in an old meat cloth and put with three other birds in 

 the return box at the end of the port snow trunk. It remained 

 there for certainly not less than ten days at a temperature of 

 from zero when machine blowing on that side to 18" F. 

 when blowing on the starboard side. The snowboy com- 

 plained that the bird "grunted" when he went near it 

 with his lamp, and Mr. Coombes, the ist Ref. Eng. 

 brought it out. When put down on the engine-room floor, it 

 could move its neck about and open its beak, and the eyes were 

 open and lifelike. The lower half of the body and the legs were 

 frozen hard. The fastening on the beak had come off. It was 

 alive for two hours after being taken out, and was then strangled 

 and put in the snowbox. 



There was another bird treated in the same way, and hung 

 up by the beak in the meat chamber for over four days, and 

 then found to be alive and able to make a "grunting" noise. 

 The temperature of the chamber was never higher than 4"F., 

 and often 8' to 10° below zero. Mr. Coombes, then ist Ref. 

 Eng., now in Star of Australia, and Mr. Boyes, then 2nd, now 

 1st Ref. Eng., both declare this to be quite true. 



If opportunity offers on the passage home I will try how long 

 it is possible for these birds to live in these low temperatures, 



S.S. Star of New Zealand, Wellington, Wm. J. Reed. 

 August 22. 



The Peopling of Australia. 



In the issue of Nature for October 4, Mr. J. Mathew 

 has questioned the accuracy of certain observations upon the 

 linguistic part of his book, " Eaglehawk and Crow," which 

 were made by me at the request of Prof. A. C. Haddon, and in- 

 cluded by him in the review of Mr. Mathew's book in Nature 

 for December 28, 1899. 



I shall be glad if you will permit me to reply as briefly as 

 possible to the complaints in Mr. Mathew's letter. 



Mr. Mathew charges me with being " unnecessarily caustic " 

 in my remarks on his theories, and with attending to " petty 

 points " instead of the main issues. To the former charge I 

 must plead zeal for accuracy, and fear of the formation of hasty 

 conclusions. To the second I may be allowed to say, that as 

 the whole of Mr. Mathew's theory (linguistically at least) is 

 based upon the " petty points," their accuracy is vital to the 

 whole structure. Although on p. 44 of his book Mr. Mathew 



NO. 161 7. VOL. 62] 



disavows the fallacy that " likeness of words in sound and 

 meaning is a proof of a common origin," he nevertheless 

 adopts it in very many of his comparisons. Take, for ex- 

 ample, the Malay and Central Australian words on p. 59 ; 

 the south-west Australian and New Guinea words on p. 72, the 

 examples in his chapter on the Malay element in Australian, 

 and the satisfaction expressed in his letter to Nature at a 

 comparison between Australian, Malay and New Hebridean, 

 because the " terms for father and skin are the same." 



My summary of his chapter on the Malay element in Aus- 

 tralian is quoted by Mr. Mathew in his letter as "ridiculous 

 nonsense." I maintain that it is a perfectly fair summary of his 

 actual words. He states on p. 5 that " Malay refers gener- 

 ally to the people of that race to the north of Australia without 

 distinguishing nationality," and on page 61 that the Malay in- 

 vasion came from the north. Speaking of »the invaders, he says 

 on page 61, "The straggling stream winds about here and there, 

 touches the shore at various places and recoils back inwards," 

 but when I state that the meaning of this is " wandering about 

 the interior," he says the latter phrase is a "pure invention of 

 Mr. Ray's." 



Although Mr. Mathew declares in his letter that the Malays 

 came from an indeterminable (though probably Sumatran) 

 locality, all the Malay words in his proofs are those of the 

 current literary or colloquial Malay, and several of them {e.g. 

 tangan, gigi, kapala, bapa, rambut), are by no means the com* 

 mon words used by the Malayan peoples of the Archipelago. 

 In two instances his words are incorrect : kaka is wrongly given 

 kaku (p. 59), so as to agree with Australian words \\V^koko, 

 kakkonja, and ' dtiwaii ' (p. 60), said to mean ' ear ' is pro- 

 bably meant for daun, " leaf," which only means the " external 

 ear," i.e. the ' leaf of the ear,' when conjoined with telinga. 



That Mr. Mathew believes the Malay words were "scattered 

 all over the island continent" plainly appears from his examples. 

 He shows so-called Malay words on the coast of New South 

 Wales, East (Queensland, and the extreme east (p. 58) ; others 

 across ihe centre of Australia from the Gulf of Carpentaria 

 southward, and on Cloncurry River (p. 59), and others in West 

 Australia (p. 60). 



Mr. Mathew states that in ihe Journal o{ the Anthropological 

 Institute for 1894-5, I have used languages as the basis of a 

 classification of the New Guinea Islanders. That is so, but my 

 method is not comparable with Mr. Mathew's. I showed that 

 certain New Guinea languages (Motu, Keapara, &c.) should be 

 called Melanesian because they agreed with the languages of the 

 Melanesian islands, almost entirely in grammar, and very largely 

 in vocabulary, and that others should be called non- Melanesian 

 because they had no agreements whatever with the Melanesian. 

 Can Mr. Mathew show by a similar grammatical and lexical 

 comparison, that the Australian is related to any other group of 

 languages? With regard to terms like 'bapa' and 'mama' 

 for ' father ' and ' mother,' my argument was that no depen- 

 dence can be placed on these words to show a connection of 

 languages. They are among the earliest vocables uttered by a 

 human being, and in very many languages of the world have 

 become appropriated to the earliest recognised human relation- 

 ships. 



This is not the time or place to reply to the somewhat contra- 

 dictory propositions in Mr. Mathew's letter. He wishes me to 

 prove : (i) That words of ' mama' type are not adopted words 

 in Malay ; (2) that they were not earlier in use in the East 

 Indian Archipelago ; (3) that they are not more markedly 

 Papuan than the ' bapa ' type. I may, however, be permitted 

 to /remark: (i) That words for father containing the syllable 

 ma (of which mama is a reduplication) are the commonest in the 

 vocabularies of the tribes of Borneo, Celebes, Philippines, &c., 

 least subject to Malay influence, whilst words containing the 

 .syllable ba or pa are confined to the nearest connections of the 

 Malay. Hence the words of ma (or mama) type are the 

 original, not adopted words, and (2) were necessarily the earlier 

 in use. Mr. Mathew's second proposition thus contradicts his 

 first. Also (3), the languages of the Papuans in West New 

 Guinea have forms of bapa for ' father,' those in Central 

 New Guinea have babe or apai. One Papuan and all the 

 Melanesian have forms of ma (ama or tama). 



Mr. Mathew complains that I have not explained the New 

 Guinea numerals. Could I do this within the limits of a review ? 

 The convergence of Australian forms towards Cape York, stated 

 by Mr. Mathew, does not necessarily imply that the words came 

 from New Guinea, and his examples only show that the Saibai 



