282 



DISCOVERY 



rich harvest awaits any student," said Professor New- 

 berry, " who, knowing the language, will settle and live 

 throughout the year among the peasants in any village 



or town in the Lower Nile Valley or Delta." 

 ***** 



Much interest was aroused by the report at the 

 British Association's meeting that a domestic fowl 

 which had laid a number of eggs, and was to all 

 appearance a hen, had gradually become transformed 

 into a cock. Details of a further study of this strange 

 event are given — in highly technical language — by 

 H. B. Fell in the first number of the new British 

 Journal of Experimental Biology. It is in many ways 

 a tragedy — for the presumptuous creature eventually 

 fell into a drain and was drowned. It was a Buff 

 Orpington, " an unremarkable hen," which had raised 

 many of her own offspring. In June 1923 the 

 gradual change which had been coming over it for six 

 months or a year became complete — it looked like a 

 cock with short legs and an unusual stance. It was 

 mated with a hen, and two live chicks were hatched. 

 After its untimely suicide, it was found to be suffering 

 from tuberculosis — which in this instance was the 

 prime cause of the change of sex through disease of the 

 egg-bearing glands. Seven other fowls are described 

 as showing intermediate stages in this change, without 

 evidence of tubercular disease. 



***** 



Domestic fowl have been known to manifest this 

 disconcerting change of sex for many years ; a case 

 was reported by Shattock and Seligman in 1906, and 

 for scientists the chief interest of these observations 

 lies in the light they throw on the origin of sex. In 

 the cases here considered the new glands grew from 

 the membrane covering the egg-bearing glands, known 

 as the peritoneum, and this new growth always started 

 after the destruction by disease of the female glands, 

 or after they had shrunk and ceased to function. No 

 case is recorded of a cock becoming a hen, which would 

 be, from the chicken-rearer's point of view, a far more 

 desirable phenomenon. The change of plumage with 

 change of sex is in accordance with many well-known 

 observations on the transplantation of glands into 

 animals of opposite sex ; " secondarj' sexual character- 

 istics " such as the antlers of certain deer and the 

 manes of lions are due to the internal secretions of these 

 glands. It is probable that such metamorphoses as 

 that described by Dr. Crewe at the British Association 

 meeting are not uncommon among domestic fowl, 

 and it should add a fresh zest to the back-yard poultry- 

 farmer to keep an expectant watch on his stock. But 

 we cannot help being thankful that the seers of ancient 

 Rome, who foretold the future from an examination 

 of the entrails of fowl, never had to come to a definite 

 conclusion from the spectacle of some such intermediate 



creature as these of the British Association. Or are ; 



we wrong ? — do we remember a Roman disaster, i 



foretold in the days of Livy by a hen which crowed | 



like a cock ? | 



Our notes in a recent number on the subject of 1 

 vaccination have induced several correspondents who 1 

 differ from us to inform us of their own views. They 

 are far from complimentary. In one instance we are 

 stated to have exceeded the wildest statements of the 

 Yellow Press — we understand by that phrase, presum- 

 ably, such journals as The Times and The Lancet, whose 

 views on this subject may differ in expression but not 

 in essence from our own. We have received a long 

 series of statistics, and a repetition of several arguments 

 as familiar to our readers as to us ; some of them — such 

 as the fact that in some instances vaccination is followed 

 by serious effects to the vaccinated — are undoubtedly 

 valid, but, if vaccination really does prevent wholesale 

 deaths in epidemics, they are not an argument for 

 less vaccination, but for more care in v-accination to 

 prevent contamination of the scratch. Others — in 

 particular a statement that the illness following 

 vaccination is really allied to a peculiarly unpleasant 

 disease other than smallpox — have not a particle of 

 evidence to support them, and are to be compared 

 with the ridiculous statement that the Pasteur treat- 

 ment for hydrophobia does not cure, but in fact inflicts, 

 the disease. We cannot give space, in a journal of this 

 nature, to a general discussion on a rather trite 

 subject. Those who dift'er from us must accept our 

 attitude as a confession of faith rather than an attempt 

 to establish a position or controvert the many argu- 

 ments against vaccination which may be found in 

 journals which are not " yellow." 



ACROSS THE JORDAN 



Through the' great North Arabian Desert, which separates 

 Palestine from the plains of Mesopotamia, lay, for many 

 centuries, one of the great trade routes of the world. In the 

 days when the Caliphs were mighty in Baghdad, many rich 

 caravans brought silks, spices, and precious stones from the 

 East by this route ; but the discovery of an alternative route 

 via the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama in 1497 robbed 

 it of its importance as a line of communication, and to-day 

 it is one of those lost and unknown corners of the world where 

 anything — and chiefly unpleasant things — may happen to the 

 adventurer. In the middle of this desert is hidden the oasis of 

 Jauf, and in the Geographical Journal for October 1923 H. St. 

 J. B. Philby, C.I.E., describes his expedition thither on Ford 

 cars. There are two main industries in that desert — the 

 evaporation of brine, to procure salt, which is done on a small 

 scale, and the slaying of neighbours, which is done on quite an 

 ambitious scale. The story of the journey, in an atmosphere 

 of suspicion and revolution, and the excellent photos of this 

 strange and uninviting desert, remind us that, even in this late 

 century, the spirit of the Arabian Nights is still, somewhere, 

 an unpleasant but romantic reality. 



