232 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[OCTOEBR, 1903. 



Novembor 'iGtli, 1898? 



17 X 11 



30 



1898 

 19 



99, and ninainder 17. 



(>, ami romainder 7. Adding "iO, and 8, as 



November is 8tli mouth from March, we have 41, which, 

 less 29, is 12 days old. 



While not absolutely accurate, this is near enough for 

 manv purposes. Edwin Holmes. 



♦ 



Botanical. — Arclnvulnaia, Vol. LVIIT., contains a 

 rt'poit bv Mr. Clement Reid on the material collected 

 during 1902 by Mr. A. H. Lyell from the rubbish pits and 

 old wells of Eomau Silchester. This material furnished 

 numerous seeds and other parts of plants of which 

 twenty-four species have been determined, all being 

 additions to the already known flora of the town as it 

 existed in Roman times. With one exception all the 

 plants enumerated are common wild species in this country 

 at the present day, and many are very familiar weeds, 

 such as Ranunculus ncris, Galium Aparine, Centaurea 

 nicfra and Taraxacum officinale. The one exception is 

 Bii.nis! Bempervirens, the Box, represented by clippings 

 associated with various weeds and the common Elder. 

 It is not possible to say with certainty whether the tree 

 was indigenous or only cultivated at Silchester, but Mr. 

 Reid thinks from the association of the clippings that 

 they probably belonged to withered garlands made from 

 wild trees, and were not garden refuse. This evidence is 

 especially interesting in view of the fact that there has 

 been some controversy as to whether the Box is really a 

 native of this country or not. In his Haridboolc of the 

 Briti/ih Flora Mr. Bentham says that the Box is " found in 

 Britain only in some localities in southern England, and 

 even there it is doubted whether it may not have 

 been introduced, as it has long been much planted in 

 shrubberies.' Mr, H. C. Watson ignores it altogether in 

 his Topograplical Botany, while in his Cybele he calls it a 

 denizen. Mr. Reid's reference to the Box recalls to notice 

 three important communications published in the Journal 

 of Botany for 1901. The first of these, by Mr. G. Murray, 

 deals chiefly with the trees growing on Box Hill in Surrey, 

 and the second by Mr. C. Bucknall, with those in 

 Gloucestershire. The evidence submitted by these writers 

 leaves scarcely any doubt that the Box is truly indigenous 

 at the former place, and also at Boxwell, near Alderley, in 

 Gloucestershire. — S. A. S. 



Entomological. — All students of the Lejiidoptcra in 

 general, and the Hawk-moths in particular, owe a debt of 

 gratitude to the Hon. Walter Rothschild and Dr. Karl 

 Jordan for their monumental " Revision of the Lepidop- 

 terous Family Sphingidae," which has lately been issued 

 from Tring {Noviiates Zoologicse, jVol. IX., Supplement, 

 1903). Every species of this important family is carefullv 

 described, and the monograph marks a great advance in 

 the study of Moths on account of the attention paid to 

 structural details. Classification is no longer made to 

 depend chiefly on the shape and pattern, or even the 

 neuration of the wings. The form of the palpi, the arma- 

 ture of the legs and feet, and the claspers of the male 

 insects, are all accorded their value in the systematic 

 arrangement, while innumerable anatomical features are 

 figured for the first time. 



The current volume of the Transactiong of the Entomolo- 

 gical Society (1903, pp. 39—52, pis. 2, 3) contains an 

 interesting account by Mr. L. R. Crawshay of the life- 

 history of the beetle Brilus fiaviscciis as observed in Sussex 

 during the last three years. The larvse have the curious 



habit of preying upon various small snails. A larva 

 captures a snail and pushes it to some convenient, hidden 

 spot ; then it creeps within the shell and slowly devours 

 the mollusc. If the snail, when the shell is seized by the 

 lieetle-larva, comes out and tries to escape or to drive tl e 

 assailant away, the latter attacks it fiercely with its man- 

 dibles. Larval life may last for two or tliree years, and 

 the insect passes the winter in a passive and somewhat 

 pupa-like condition. — G. H. C. 



Zoological. — To the August issue of the Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society Mr. Lydekker contributes an 

 article on the nature of the callosities (the mallenders and 

 salleuder.s of the old veterinary books) on the limbs of the 

 horse family. The view that these represent vestigial 

 foot-pads is disputed on palseontological grounds, and it is 

 suggested that they may be remnants of decadent glands. 

 The fact that modern horses have lost the facial glands of 

 their extinct ancestors may, it is urged, lend some support 

 to the latter opinion. 



The description in the same journal by Mr. de Winton 

 of a new species of pigmy antelope (Neotragns batesi) from 

 the Cameroons is a matter of considerable interest, that 

 genus (in its modern restricted sense) having hitherto 

 been represented only by the royal antelope ( N. pygmaeus) 

 of Liberia. 



In the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 

 for July, Mr. H. Ferguson describes two cetaceans captured 

 on the Madras coast at Trivandrum. One of these is 

 identified by Mr. Lydekker with Ps^vdorca cias»idens 

 (first known by a sub-fossil skeleton from the Lincolnshire 

 fens), while the second is regarded as representing a new 

 species of bottle-nostd dolphin, under the name of Tvrsiops 

 fergusoni. 



One object of the light-coloured area on the hind- 

 quaiters of so many ruminants, as well as quaggas and 

 wild asses, is explained by Mr. R. I. Poeock in a recent 

 issue of Nature. It has been shown by an American 

 artist, Mr. Thayer, that the light under-parts of many 

 ungulates which live habitually in the open in strong 

 sunlight are for the purpose of counteracting the effects 

 of the dark shaele cast by the body, and thus rendering 

 the animals inconspicuous. It has now been deuKmst rated 

 that when an animal, with a light area on the buttocks, 

 like the true quagga and the kiang, or Tibetan wild ass, 

 is lying down, these light parts come into line with the 

 white of the belly, and thus accentuate the inconspicuous- 

 ness. Mr. Pccock has further shown that the reason why 

 the true quagga and Burchell's bonte-quagga have departed 

 from the fully-striped black and white coloration of 

 Grant's bonte-quagga of the north-east of Africa by the 

 development of white under-parts, buttocks and legs, the 

 ton'ng-down of the black stripes to brown, and the inter- 

 calation of pale " shadow- stripes," is for the purpose of 

 rendering the animals inconspicuous in the sun-lit open 

 veldt and karru ; Grant's bonte-quagga and the other 

 fully-striped asses, as well as the true zebra and Grcvy's 

 zebra, inhabiting more broken or bush-clad country. 



According to Mr. O. Thomas {A7inals of Natural Higtory 

 for August) quite a number of small spotted South 

 American cats allied to the tiger-cat may be recognised. 

 It is stated, however, that individuals of the same species 

 display an extraordinary amount of variation, both as 

 regards colour, and the form and size of the skull, so that 

 the study of the group is beset with unusual difficulties. 



According to the latest report of the commission sent 

 to investigate the nature and cause of the •' sleeping- 

 sickness " in Uganda, there is good reason to suppose that 



