July 



I] 



NATURE 



207 



The Central Meteorological Observatory at Tokio, Japan, 

 has begun the publication of hourly meteorological observations, 

 commencing with January 1890. The observations are con- 

 tained in monthly Bulletins, and include all the usual elements, 

 together with vapour tension, humidity, earth temperature, 

 bright suoshine, and hourly and daily means. Meteoro- 

 logical observations have been made for some years in various 

 parts of Japan, including hourly observations at Tokio since 

 January i, 1886, but have hitherto only been published for 

 certain hours. The observations are all made without self- 

 recording instruments, excepting those of wind and sunshine. 

 Some years ago the Director of the Service, I. Arai, visited 

 this country, and other European countries, for the purpose of 

 studying the various meteorological organizations, and we have 

 no doubt that this important publication will be very valuable 

 for meteorological researches referring to the North Pacific 

 Ocean, where information is comparatively scanty. 



M. Masi'ero has an interesting article in the current number 

 of La Nature on the dog in ancient Egypt. It is illustrated by 

 representations of dogs reproduced from Egyptian monuments, 

 and by a mummy of a dog recently opened and sketched by 

 M. Beckmann. In ancient Egypt, as in modern Europe, the 

 dog was regarded both as a friend and as a useful servant. He 

 also received the honours of a god, and there are cemeteries of 

 dogs (corresponding to the cemeteries of cats) where mummies 

 have been found by the thousand. Attempts have been made 

 to identify the various species of dogs represented in wall 

 paintings, but those naturalists who have investigated the 

 subject have not always arrived at the same conclusions. M. 

 Maspero points out that mummies supply more trustworthy 

 materials for study, and urges that men of science should lose 

 no time in examining some of them, as cemeteries of animals 

 are being very rapidly "exploited." 



A COMMERCIAL company has for some time been working 

 quarries in the neighbourhood of the well-known glacial grooves 

 at Kelley Island, Ohio ; and it was feared that these remark- 

 able relics of the glacial epoch might be wholly destroyed. 

 Fortunately the president of the company understands the 

 . interest of the phenomena, and has taken care to prevent the 

 most striking of them from being injured. VVe learn from the 

 Cleveland Leader that some of the grooves have now been 

 rendered safe, the company at its recent annual meeting having 

 decided that the rocks on which they are furrowed should be 

 made over to the president, by whom they will be transferred to 

 a scientific or historical society, "to be preserved in perpetuity 

 for the benefit of science." 



Mr. C. Davies Sherborn is, we are glad to find, making 

 satisfactory progress with the stupendous task he has undertaken 

 in the production of his "Index Generum et Specierum Ani- 

 malium." Mr. Sherborn has found it absolutely necessary to 

 accept the year 1758, the date of the tenth edition of Linnaeus's 

 " Systema," instead of the twelfth edition (1766), as the starting- 

 point of binomial nomenclature in zoology, and this decision 

 was greatly strengthened by the advice of Prof. Sven Loven, 

 Dr. D. Sharp, and others who had carefully studied the question, 

 •This is the only alteration which has been made in the original 

 scheme (see Nature, vol. xlii. p. 54). During the year, five 

 hundred volumes have been worked through, page by page, 

 and a total of forty thousand species have been recorded, in 

 duplicate, involving a use of 80,000 slips. Each species is 

 recorded on a separate slip (5 inches x 24), the whole of the 

 reference, with the sole exception of the page, being printed with 

 india-iiibber type, thus insuring perfect accuracy of date and 

 parts of volumes : as the pages are also checked during work, 

 the chances of misquotation are reduced to a minimum. As 

 the volumes mentioned include the whole of the publications of 

 NO. II 3 I, VOL. 44] 



Linnaeus, many of Fabricius, Thunbei^, and other voluminous 

 authors of that early period, it is, perhaps, permissible to think 

 that more rapid progress may be made in future years. The 

 dates of publication of the separate parts of a work have been 

 carefully attended to, and much valua ble information has been 

 obtained. Some of this has appeared in the Annals of Natural 

 /I'lV/^rj' (Pallas's " Icones Insect.," "Nov. Spec. Quad.," and 

 White's "Journal"), while much remains in manuscript until 

 the final completion of detail admits of its publication. As is 

 well known, the authorities of the Natural History Museum 

 have rendered every facility to Mr. Sherborn for the prosecution 

 of his work, and the storage of the manuscripts within the walls 

 of that institution, reducing the risk of loss by fire to a minimum, 

 is a concession highly valued by the author. One set of the slips 

 is arranged in order of genera, and, on application, is available 

 for reference to anyone compiling a monograph of a genus. The 

 manuscript is frequently consulted by those working at the 

 Natural History Museum, even in its present imperfect state, 

 and will, from the very nature of the method of recording, prove 

 of increasing value as it grows to larger proportions. 



In the report of the trustees of the South African Museum for 

 1890 it is stated that the curator, Mr. R. Trimen, has completed 

 a thorough rearrangement of the fine collection of South African 

 Diurnal Lepidoptera in accordance with the monograph of those 

 insects recently published by him, incorporating many additional 

 species, and replacing imperfect or worn examples by fresher 

 and more characteristic specimens. He has also begun the 

 rearrangement of the more numerous and less known Crepus 

 cular and Nocturnal Lepidoptera. Mr. Trimen has completed 

 for publication two papers— one on the very interesting series 

 of butterflies collected in South- West Tropical Africa by Mr. A. 

 W. Eriksson, and presented by that explorer to the Museum in 

 1888 ; and the other on some additions to the list of extra- 

 tropical South African butterflies since the publication of the 

 concluding volume of his work. 



An interesting account of the nest and eggs of the cat-bird 

 {Ailuradus viridis, Latham) is given by Mr. A. J. North in 

 the latest number of the Records of the Australian Museum 

 (vol. i.. No. 6). The habitat of the cat-bird is the dense scrubs 

 of the coastal ranges of New South Wales. Although the bird 

 is common, authentic specimens of its nest and eggs seem to 

 have been unknown until lately. For an opportunity of examin- 

 ing such specimens, Mr. North is indebted to Mr. W.J. Grimes, 

 an enthusiastic oologist, who recently secured two nests of this 

 species on the Tweed River. The nest is a beautiful structure, 

 being bowl-shaped, and composed exteriorly of long twigs, 

 entwined around the large broad leaves of Ptarietia argyroden- 

 dron, and other broad-leaved trees, some of the leaves measuring 

 eleven inches in length by four inches in breadth. The leaves 

 appear to have been picked when green, so beautifully do they 

 fit the rounded form of the nest, one side of which is almost 

 hidden by them. The interior of the nest is lined entirely with 

 fine twigs. The eggs are two in number for a sitting, oval in 

 form, being but slightly compressed at the smaller end, of a 

 uniform creamy white very faintly tinged with green, the shell 

 being comparatively smooth and slightly glossy. Although the 

 cat-bird is usually included in the family of bower-building 

 birds, Mr. North has never known or heard of its constructing 

 a bower. 



A catalogue of the Australian birds in the Australian 

 Museum, at Sydney, by Dr. E. P. Ramsay, is being published. 

 Part III., which has just been issued, deals with Psittaci. 



As a substance peculiarly fitted, by reason of its high dis- 

 persive power, and transparency for ultra-violet rays, for study 

 of the ultra-violet part of the spectrum, Herr Wolter has recently 

 recommended, in a Hamburg serial, a-monobromnaphtalin. 



