December 26, 1895] 



NA TURE 



73 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. \ Mr. Prigg in his paper gives the briefest possible description 



,_, _.., , ,,:,,■ ,r -i, J- ■ ■ of the skull fragment, which consists of a considerable part of 



{.The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- a frontal bone with five inches of the coronal and a little over 



pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake two inches of the sagittal sutures, and an anterior third of the 



to return, or to correspond with the writers of rejected left parietal bone, and a small anterior portion of the right. At 



manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. | the time when Mr. Prigg's paper was read, the Spy crania had 



No notice is taken of anonymous communications. ] not been discovered. 



anonymous 



The Bury St. Edmunds Human Skull Fragment. 

 In 1884 the late Mr. Henry Prig^, of Bury, exhibited before 

 the Anthropological Institute a portion of a human skull sup- 

 posedjto be of Paleolithic age. The paper was printed, with an 



\ 



\ 



\ 



-View of left side of the Bury skull fragment placed ( 

 Halfnatura size 



illustration from my pencil, in the /(7?<r^ja/ of the Anthropologica 

 Institute, vol. xiv. p. 51. The relic was found in 1882, in the 

 parish of Westley, in brick-earth at a depth of 7^ feet. Mr. Prigg 

 wasjn the pit on the morning after the discovery, and could see 



Fig. 2. — Inferior surface of Bury skull fragment placed over the sutures of 

 Spy skull No. 2. Half natural size. 



no traces of a grave, or old disturbance. A few yards from the 

 pit mentioned, a workman reported the discovery of an entire 

 human skeleton in the brick-earth, at a depth of 8 feet, some 

 thirty years previously. 



not been discovered. 



When the Bury fragment was in my possession in 1884, for 

 illustration, I carefully drew not only the plate published, but the 

 left side and inferior surface. These two illustrations have re- 

 mained in my possession, and are now photographically repro- 

 duced for the first time to one-half the natural size. 



The coronal suture is very clearly 

 seen in the left side view (Fig. i, a a). 

 The upper a shows the point of junc- 

 tion of the coronal with the sagittal. 

 This point is also well marked in the 

 Spy skull No. 2, as well as the line of 

 \ descent to the lower a. If the point 



of junction of the two sutures is taken 

 as a fixed position, the close agreement 

 of the line of descent of the sutures 

 and the contour of the two skulls is re- 

 markable. The Bury contour and suture 

 is shown by solid lines, and the con- 

 tour and suture of the Spy skull by 

 dotted lines. The point B shows the 

 inner plate of the frontal sinus, and 

 indicates the near position of the ophy- 

 ron and supraorbital prominences on 

 the outer plate. 



A comparison of the inner surface of the Bury fragment is 

 equally confirmatory of its affinity with the Spy form. In Fig. 2, 

 the junction of the coronal with the sagittal suture is again used 

 as a fixed point, and the line of the coronal at c c is determined 

 by the line of the sagittal at D. It will be seen by the illustra- 

 tion that the course of the coronal towards the right and left 

 temporal bones is identical in the two examples. Part of 

 the glabella showing the two plates of bone and air chamber is 

 shown at E. 



The mere identity of the course of the sutures is not of much 

 importance ; but the interesting point is, that when the sutures 

 are taken as fixed guides for putting the Bury fragment in a 

 natural position, the Spy contour results. 

 Dunstable. Worth ington G. Smith. 



_€>l^€i 



the contou of Spy skull No, 



The Coronal Rays of Passion-flowers. 



The filaments, or rays, forming the corona of Passion-flowers 

 are structures of much interest. In 1790, Sowerby described 

 them in Passiflora carulea as a " double row of horizontal, thread- 

 like, radiated nectaries." His subsequent remarks, however, 

 do not assure us that he regarded them as glandular, or as 

 nectaries as we now define them. In Dr. Masters' " Contri- 

 butions to the Natural History of the Passifloraceae " { Trans. 

 Linn. Sac. xvii. ) no mention is made of distinct glandular 

 structure, but Morren's opinion is quoted that " the coronals the 

 seat of the perfume of the flower in Passiflora (juadr angular is — 

 a fact which he considers proved by the anatomical structure of 

 the coronal threads, as also by the circumstance that if the pro- 

 cesses in question be early removed the flowers remain scentless. 

 In repeating this experiment, however," continues Dr. Masters, 

 " I have not been able to satisfy myself of the absolute correct- 

 ness of this statement. . . . Prof. Morren attributes to the 

 conical pimple-like cells of the epidermis of the coronal 

 filaments the formation of the odoriferous principle. These 

 peculiar cells are found on the surface of the petals, and in the 

 nectariferous portion of the tube of the flower. . . . We must 

 await further evidence before we assume that in the Passion- 

 flowers these cells really secrete the odorant principle." In 

 Vines' " Students' Text-book," recently published, an emphatic 

 statement is made that the coronal rays " are not glandular." 



I have not yet had opportunity of studying P. quadrangularis, 

 but a strongly and rather pleasantly scented hybrid, named P. 

 Buonapartea, the parentage of which is stated to be P. alata x 

 P. quadrangular is, has been under careful observation. In it 

 the rays bear an apical tuft of glands, visible to the naked eye as 

 a whitish knob. When magnified the glands are multicellular, 

 relatively large, and in form remind one of. those found in 

 Ritbiacea. The rays of the common P. carulea are devoid of 



NO. 1365, VOL. 53] 



