u 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Januaky, 190i. 



Great interest attaclies to the descriptiou b}- Dr. Mas 

 Sclilosser, of Berlin, in the Ahliandhnigen, of the Eoyal 

 Bavarian Aca<3emy, of a large collection of fossil teeth of 

 mammals obtained from the druggists' stores of various 

 jKirts of China, where they are sold as medicine. Many of 

 these teeth— locally known as dragons' teeth— appear to 

 be obtained from caverns, but others ]irobably come from 

 the loess, or alluvium, while yet others are derived from 

 older formations. Judging from the quantities in which 

 they are sold in the bazaars, these teeth must exist in 

 enornjous numbers in some parts of the Chinese Empire. 

 The remains include those of deer, antelopes, three-toed 

 horses {Hijjparion), rhinoceroses Chahcotherium, ances- 

 tral forms of camel {PanicameJus), giraffes, okapi-like 

 ruminants, pigs, hysenas, and sabre-toothed tigers One of 

 the hy»nas {Hyxna gigantea) is by far the largest of its 

 tribe," the upper earnassial tooth measm-ing tvro inches in 

 length agamst one-and-a-half inches in the existing 

 spotted species of Africa. Especial interest attaches to 

 the ancestral camel, since North America is supposed to 

 have been the original home of the Camelidas, and that 

 continent was in close connection with north-eastern Asia 

 in Tertiary times. Not less noteworthy is the occurrence 

 of remains of antelopes of an African type, as well as of 

 others alUed to the Indian nilgai. This seems to refute 

 tlie theory that the antelopes of Africa originated in that 

 continent (where the nilgai, which is a near relative of the 

 kudu and bushbucks, is unknown), and to confirm Prof. 

 Huxley's hypothesis that they are really immigrants from 

 Asia. 



At the first meeting of the Zoological Society for the 

 present session, Mr. O. Thomas described a gigantic rat 

 from New Guinea, which he regarded as representing a 

 new genus, and named Hyomijs meeki. 



A fortnight later, at the second meeting of the same 

 liody, Mr. E, I. Pocock called attention to a remarkable 

 habit of the Australian spiders of the genus Besis. These 

 spiders live in the crevices of rocks between tide-marks on 

 the shore, and by spinning a closely-woven sheet of silk 

 over the entrance, imprison a mass of air in which they 

 are able to live during flood-tide. 



Two interesting additions have been reeentlv made to 

 the British vertebrate fauna. Till 1899, when it was 

 detected on the coast of Brittany, the giant goby (Gohitis 

 capito) was believed to be a jmrely Mediterranean fish. 

 During the past summer, Mr. F. Pickard-Cambridge, by 

 carefully searching the rock-pools, has discovered this fish 

 on the Cornish coast. One of his specimens is figured in 

 The Field. 



The second addition is an entirely new species of bank- 

 vole (Evotomya skoinvreiisis), from Skomer Island, off the 

 Pembrokeshire coast. According to its describor, Captain 

 Barrett-Hamilton, this species differs from the common 

 bank-vole (E.glareolus) not only in colour and size (being 

 much larger), but also in the structure of the skull ; it 

 belongs, in fact, to a distinct group of the genus. The 

 description of this new species appears in the Proceedings 

 of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The Americans are coutcmjilating a great undertaking ; 

 nothing less than a complete biological survey of the 

 Eastern Holarctic (or Palajatcticj region, that is to say, of 

 the greater part of the extra-tropical area of the northern 

 hemisphere. The proposed survey is to be undertaken on 

 the lines of the one which is being brought to a conclusion 

 in the United States, and it is calculated that it will take 

 ten years to accomplish. The funds are to be supplied by 

 the "Carnegie Institute. Such a survey, it is urged, would 



alone enable us to understand the true relationship of the 

 fauna of Northern Asia and Europe to that of North 

 America, and would likewise help to espilain the origin of 

 both faunas. According to American ideas, the vast 

 amount of material contained in the museums of Europe 

 is of little or no use for such a purpose ; and it is in 

 contemplation to collect the whole vertebrate fauna of this 

 vast area section by section. If the project be carried 

 tlu'ough, we may expect to be inundated with descriptions 

 of so-called new species, comparable to the seventy which 

 have just been named from the islands of Malaysia, by 

 Mr. G. S. Miller, in a paper published in the " Mis- 

 cellaneous Collections " of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Dr. W. G. Eidewood recently exhibited to the Linneau 

 Society the frontal bones of a horse showing a pair of 

 rudimentary horns, , very similar in position to those of 

 some of the ruminants. In the opinion of the exhibitor, 

 this feature can hardly be regarded as an instance of 

 reversion, since none of the extinct ancestors of the horse, 

 of which (as indicated in an article in our present issue) 

 the .series is remarkably complete, show any traces of 

 similar appendages. It is unfortunately not known 

 whether the bony cores were covered in life with horn. 

 This interesting specimen has been pi-esented by Mr. A. 

 Broad, of Shepherd's Bush, to the British "(Natural 

 History) Museum, where it is now exhibited. 



I^otfccs of Boons. 



'•British Mammals: An' Attempt to Describe and 

 Illustrate the Mammalian Fauna or the British 

 Islands fro.m the Comjiexcemext of the Pleistocene 

 Period down to the Present Dav." By Sir Harry John- 

 ston. (Hutchinson.) Illustrated. Price 12s. Od. — The author 

 o£ this handsome addition to the ''Woburn Library" is 

 apparently convinced that it is illogical to separate the animals 

 of to-day from those of yesterday, and he accordingly includes 

 in his account of the mammals of the British Islands not only 

 those now to be met with there in a wild state, but likewise 

 those that have been exterminated within the historic period, 

 together with those extinct forerunners of the latest geological 

 epoch. Whether this method is any more logical than the one 

 which excludes extinct types may well be a matter of opinion, 

 for if the animals of yesterday come witliin the sco])e of the 

 work, there is no reason why those of the day before should be 

 left out in the cold. Accepting, however, both his extension 

 and his limitation of the subject, we think that Sir Harry 

 Johnston has succeeded in producing a very readable and 

 attractive book, and one which may, in its general scoi)e and 

 style, well form a model which more scientific zoologists would 

 do well to copy. An absence of details is noticeable, and the 

 relations of the few surviving British mammals to their 

 relatives in other lands and to their extinct predecessors are 

 sketched in a manner which cannot fail to interest. Indeed, the 

 work is much more than is indicated by its title, since it treats 

 largely of mammals in general. 



While commending the general style of the work, we must 

 at the same time warn our readers that h must by no means 

 be accepted as an exhaustive account of Briti.sh mammals, or 

 one that is free from errors. For instance, while in the case of 

 one species of the mouse tribe the local sub-species are given, 

 in some of the others they are omitted. This, of course, is 

 inexcusable. It woukl'have been perfectly legitimate to ignore 

 bub-species i» toto, but to notice them in one case and omit them 

 in others, can only be taken to mean either that the author is 

 inexcusaljly careless, or that he knows his subject imperfectly. 

 We might also refer to certain inconsistencies in regard to 

 nomenclature, did space permit. To justify the assertion that 

 the book is by no means free from serious errors, we may cite 

 the statement on p. 20'J to the effect that ancestral rhinoceroses 

 had four toes on each foot, and also the one on p. o7u that 



