134 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[June, 1903. 



ground some pieces of the endocarp between the more 

 prominent ridges fall out like miniature shutters, leaving 

 as many apertures as there are cells and seeds in the fruit, 

 and through these the radicle easily escapes. The tips of 

 the cotyledons remain in the cavities of the fruit till the 

 radicle has fixed itself to the soil, when they are completely 

 withdrawn. 



Monsieur Drake del Castillo has a paper in a recent 

 number of the Biilletim du Museum d Histoire Naiurelle 

 (Paris) on the curiou.s Didiereas, a genus of spiny trees 

 from Southern Madagascar, which has hitherto not been 

 satisfactorily assigned to any existing natural order. The 

 late Dr. H. Baillon, who established the genus, placed it 

 among the Sapindaceoe. Dr. Radlkofer, an eminent 

 authority on this family, did not concur with Baillon, but 

 thought that Bidierea should constitute an independent 

 order allied to Polygonacese and Amarautacew. It 

 approaches the former in its fruit, pollen, and other 

 characters, and recalls the latter in the structure of the 

 embryo, and in having the anthers deeply cleft at the two 

 extremities. It is pointed out, however, that Bidierea 

 has an anatropoiis ovule, whereas in Polygonacese it is 

 orthotropous. Monsieur Drake del Castillo has made it 

 the type of a new natural order, which he has called 

 Didiereacese, admitting, also, another genus, Alluaudia, 

 which is likewise a spiny tree from Madagascar. — S. A. S. 



Zoological. — According to a very interesting and well 

 illustrated article in the April number of the National 

 Geographic Magazine (New York), liy Mr. G. H. Grosvenor, 

 the introduction of domesticated reindeer from Siberia into 

 Alaska has turned out a thorough success. The Eskimo 

 have proved themselves well-fitted to keep and train the 

 animals ; and it is hoped that in the near future the 

 coimtry will have large herds of these valuable ruminants. 

 This will prevent the Eskimo becoming a burden to the 

 revenues of the United States, as would otherwise have 

 iuevitalily been the case owing to the diminution in the 

 numbers of the whales, seals, wabiises, bears, &.C., which 

 formerly constituted their means of subsistence. Mr. 

 Grosvenor graphically describes the difliculties experienced 

 in getting the Chukchis of Eastern Siberia to part with 

 their cherished reindeer. 



Naturalists will be greatly interested in a paper recently 

 read by R. J. Pocock before the Zoological Society of 

 Loudon on the geographical distribution of the "trapdoor" 

 and bird-eating spiders, in which it is pointed out that the 

 zoological regions into which the world may be mapped 

 out from the evidence of this gi'ouj^are j)ractically identical 

 with those indicated by mammals and birds. The imjJort- 

 ance of this can scarcely be over-estimated. We are glad 

 to see that the author discards the terms " Palaearctic " 

 and '' Nearctic " in favour of " Holaretie,'' which embraces 

 the northern portion of both hemispheres, and that he also 

 recognizes a " Mediterranean " and a " Souoran " region. 

 His scheme dili'ers, however, from some of those recently 

 proposed by the absence of a "Malagasy'" region; and 

 now that the lemurs of Madagascar have been shown to be 

 more closely allied to monkeys than was f onuerly supposed 

 to be the case, per-haps the arguments for the separation 

 of this island as a distinct region may be reconsidered. 



The death of Monsieur P. du Chaillu recalls the great 

 controversy which raged in the early sixties over the 

 " gorilla question." If that great and energetic explorer 

 had but been content with the honour of being the first to 

 bring complete skins of the great West African ape to 

 Europe, all would have been well. He was the discoverer 

 of that most remaikable mammal the Po^a ,)iO(/a/e, and also 



brought home the first skins of that lovely antelope the 

 bongo, which was not, however, as he supposed, an alto- 

 gether unknown species at the time. 



It would be difficult to overrate the importance of Dr. 

 C. W. Andrews' paper on the evolution of the Proboscidea, 

 an abstract of which appears in a recent issue of tlie 

 Proceedings of the Eoyal Society. Till the discoveries of 

 Messrs Andrews and Beadnell in the Eocene strata of 

 the Fayuni district of Egypt, the birthplace and origin of 

 the Proboscidea were unknown. Both are now ascertained. 

 Nor is this all, for Dr. Andrews is able to point out the 

 mode of evolution of the trunk of the mastodons and 

 elephants. In the ancestors of the group the lower jaw 

 was short and stout with a short symphysis. As the 

 animals increased in stature the lower jaw lengthened, this 

 being mainly accomplished by the prolongation of the 

 symphysis. In correlation with this a short trunk, formed 

 by the upper lips and nose, was developed. Gradually the 

 trunk increased in length, while the symphysis of the lower 

 jaw shortened, till the evolution culminated in the long 

 trunk and short lower jaw of the modern elephant. Pari 

 passu with this were changes and modifications in the 

 dentition, for the details of which our readers must refer 

 to the original memoir. 



A question as to the preoccupation and orthography of 

 zoological names is incidentally raised by Dr. Trouessart 

 in the April number of the Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History when describing the West Indian musk-rat. For 

 this rodent the Doctor had previously proposed the name 

 Megalomys. but as he finds this preoccupied by Megamys, 

 the new title of Moschomys is suggested. In this course 

 we believe the author to be f idly justified. Many natu- 

 ralists of the ]>resent day — especially Americans — will not, 

 however, admit this, urging that if a name be ungrammati- 

 cally formed or misspelt, it is entitled to stand as distinct 

 from the oiihodox name. The question urgently requires 

 settlement by an influential body of naturalists so as to 

 ensure uniformity of practice. 



We are delighted to associate om-selves with the con- 

 gratulations to our distinguished contributor. Miss Agnes 

 M. Clerke, upon her election as Honorary Fellow of the 

 Eoyal Astronomical Society, an honour in which she is 

 associated with Lady Huggins, the wife of the President 

 of the Eoyal Society. 



Bvttist) ©rntti^olosical Notes. 



Conducted by Harry F. Witherby, f.z.s., m.b.o.u. 



Gulls as Grain Eaters. — On April 23th, on the small island called 

 the Calf, that lies Just to the south of the Isle of Man, I noticed a 

 great number of small piles of what looked like chaff dotted here and 

 there about the rocks. On inspection these turned out to consist of 

 the shredded outside of grains of oats, the grain itself being repre- 

 sented, as a rule, onlv by small fragments. In some cases, however, 

 the grains were there intact. In one instance there was a small pile 

 of debris, half oats, half fish bones. There is no doubt that the 

 Herring G-ulls which were there in scores had been regaling heartily on 

 the oats recently sown intlie Isle of Man. and had ejected, on returning 

 to their nesting places, what they found indigestible. Sometimes 

 the " chaff" would be immersed in a Hidd secretion, having just been 

 brought up by the Gulls circling above. We have here a phenomenon 

 similar to the ejection of pellets by Owls and Ilawks, the only difference 

 being that the indigestible shreds were floating in a lluid instead of 

 being formed into a compact mass. — F. W. HEiiiLKV, Haileybury. 



Mortality among Cormorants, Shags, and Gulls during their First 

 Winter. — I noticed both near Scilly and at tlie Isle of Man during last 

 April what is certainly worthy of remark, viz., the very small niunber 

 of young Cormorants and Shags (i.e., last year's birds) compared with 

 the mature birds. The young Cormorant is easily distinguishable by 

 his dirty-white breast, and the young Shag by his brownish plumage. 



