October i, 1891] 



NATURE 



529 



small Lamellibranch ; and a number of empty annelid tubes, 

 some of which were constructed of Foraminifera shells, while 

 others consisted of agglutinated silky (siliceous) threads. 



Mr. W. L. Dallas, assistant meteorological reporter to the 

 Government of India, has written a valuable paper on the 

 meteorology and climatology of Northern Afghanistan, the facts 

 having been collected by officers connected with the Afghan 

 Delimitation Commission. Taking the whole of the record 

 into consideration, Mr. Dallas thinks it may safely be main- 

 tained that in the great majority of cases the disturbed weather 

 which appears over North Western India during the winter and 

 spring months is the result of disturbances, which either effect 

 simultjineously the whole region comprising Afghanistan, 

 Baluchistan, and North- Western India, or which have appeared 

 first over Afghanistan and secondly over India, and that these 

 disturbances have seldom originated in India itself or are 

 confined to India. 



We have received from the Meteorological Council their 

 Quarterly Weather Report for July to December 1880, and 

 Monthly Weather Report for May to December 1887. The 

 Quarterly Reports, which commenced with the year 1869, 

 contain, in addition to the monthly and five-daily means of the 

 observations made at the seven observatories, plates of the con- 

 tinuous curves of the self-recording instruments, which have 

 been etched at the Office, and are perhaps the most complete 

 and perfect series of meteorological curves hitherto published, 

 and also a condensed account of the most important meteoro- 

 logical changes of the period. The Quarterly Reports are now 

 discontinued, and the publication of a Monthly Weather Report 

 was undertaken in 1884 in substitution for the Quarterly Report, 

 while the hourly observations and means have been published 

 in a separate volume. This Report contains the results of ob- 

 servations made at a considerable number of stations, together 

 with a chronicle of the weather, and charts showing the average 

 conditions of the various elements. Both the Quarterly and 

 Monthly Weather Reports also contain a number of elaborate 

 discussions of various allied subjects. The Monthly Reports in 

 the form hitherto issued have been modified ; and instead of 

 appearing as a separate work, a Monthly Summary of the 

 Weather, on a more concise plan, has been added to the Weekly 

 Weather Report, commencing with the year 1888, With the 

 exception of the years 1881-83 we have therefore a continuous 

 and valuable record of the weather — in addition to such as is 

 afforded by the Daily and Weekly Reports — since 1869, and we 

 believe it is the intention of the Council to connect the gap 

 between the Quarterly and Monthly Reports at an early date, by 

 a discussion of the weather for that period. We shall refer in a 

 future number to the publications which deal with the observa- 

 tions and results at the Stations of the Second Order, which are 

 more particularly of a climatological character, without dis- 

 cussions of current weather. 



The Park Commissioners of Boston, U.S., have set apart 

 three parcels of land for the establishment, by the Boston Society 

 of Natural History, of zoological gardens and aquaria. It is 

 essential that 200,000 dollars should be raised before any attempt 

 can be made to realize the scheme as a whole, but if a third of 

 the amount were subscribed, one of the two proposed aquaria 

 might at once be instituted. An appeal has been made by the 

 Society to the people of Boston for the necessary funds, and it 

 will be strange if it does not meet with a ready and liberal 

 response. The Society is sanguine enough to think that every 

 public-spirited citizen will see in the scheme "an addition to the 

 forces which increase the intelligence of the voter, and thereby 

 tend to make Boston a more desirable place of residence." 



Students of the Ice Age will read with interest a paper by 

 Mr. N. S. Shaler on the antiquity of the last glacial period, 

 submitted to the Boston Society of Natural History, and 



NO. II 44, VOL. 44] 



printed in the latest instalment of the Society's Proceedings. 

 Mr. Shaler differs decidedly from those geologists who suppose 

 that the end of the glacial period is probably not very remote 

 from our own day. One of the strongest of his arguments is 

 derived from the distribution of the vegetation which in America 

 has regained possession, by migration, of the glaciated district. 

 W^e must conceive, he points out, that as the ice retreated and 

 gradually disappeared from the surface a considerable time elapsed 

 before existing forests attained their organization. He assumes as 

 certain that the black walnut and the pignut hickory, between 

 Western Minnesota and the Atlantic coast, have advanced, on 

 the average, a distance of 400 miles north of the ancient ice 

 front to which their ancestors were driven by the presence of the 

 glacial sheet. For several reasons he believes that the north- 

 ward progress of these forms must have been due mainly, not to 

 the action of streams or tornadoes, but to the natural spread of 

 the seed from the extremities of boughs, and to the carriage of 

 the seed by rodents. But allowing for every conceivable method 

 of transportation, he argues that a period of ten or even twenty 

 thousand years is wholly inadequate to account for the present 

 distribution of these large-seeded trees. If they occurred only 

 sporadically in the northernmost part of the field they occupy, 

 their implantation might be regarded as due to chance action. 

 The fact, however, that they extend from the Atlantic to Minne- 

 sota indicates that the advance was accomplished by causes of a 

 general and continuous nature. 



" Water-birds that live in the Woods" formed the subject 

 of an interesting paper read lately by Mr. G. B. Sennett before 

 the Linnaean Society of New York. About a dozen species 

 were dealt with, the most interesting of them perhaps being the 

 tree ducks {Dendrocygna autumnalis et fulva). The former 

 is found in the heaviest timber along the Rio Grande of Texas, 

 at Lomita, and as this river furnishes no sort of food, it adapts 

 itself to circumstances and feeds upon seeds or grain. These 

 ducks will alight upon a stalk of growing corn with the ease of a 

 blackbird, and are quite at home among the lofty trees where 

 they make their nests. They do not resort to the river, which 

 is so cold and muddy, from the melting snows of the mountain s 

 whence it flows, that all vegetable and animal life save the gar- 

 pike is wanting. No ducks of any kind are found upon it. A 

 flock of cormorants, about four miles long and one mile and a 

 half wide, was once seen by Mr. Sennett in Minnesota. 



Sparrows do not seem to lose in New Zealand any of the 

 audacity for which they are famous in Europe. In a paper read 

 some time ago before the New Zealand Institute, and now 

 printed in the Transactions, Mr. T. W. Kirk gives an example 

 of what he calls their " daring and cool impudence." Between 

 Featherston and Martinborough he heard one day a most un- 

 usual noise, as though all the small birds in the country had 

 joined in one grand quarrel. Looking up, he saw a large hawk 

 (C gouldi — a carrion-feeder) being buffeted by a flock of 

 sparrows. They kept dashing at him in scores, and from all 

 points at once. The unfortunate hawk was quite powerless ; 

 indeed, he seemed to have no heart left, for he did not attempt 

 to retaliate, and his defence was of the feeblest. At last, ap- 

 proaching some scrub, he made a rush indicative of a forlorn 

 hope, gained the shelter, and there remained. Mr. Kirk 

 watched for fully half an hour, but he did not reappear. The 

 sparrows congregated in groups about the bushes, keeping up a 

 constant chattering and noise, evidently on the look-out for the 

 enemy, and congratulating themselves upon having secured a 

 victory. 



If we may judge from the Report of the Department of 

 Agriculture, Victoria, for the year 1889-90, the farmers of that 

 colony are likely to benefit largely by the work of the agri- 

 cultural authorities. The Department is efficiently organized, 

 and has a thoroughly scientific conception of the nature of its 



