i8 



KNOWLEDGE cS: SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[January, 1907. 



icni'diiifT, refractiiiff, and ahsorI)in(j proportics Iiavc all bccTi 

 measured on the .sanu' spccinion. The valuo of these pro- 

 perties are all theoretically connected with one another. 

 Films suitable for the purposes are obtained by usint;^ a 

 carbon cathode in a vacuum and placiuj;' slips of k'''"'^ >" 

 the path of the cathode discharije ; a lllm is gradually de- 

 posited on the j^lass. ICxperiments have also been made 

 upon the lilms deposited in incandescent lamps. The chief 

 conclusions come to are that lh<' properties of carbon fdnis 

 vary with the method of formin).j the deposit ; there is an 

 anomalous refractive index in the red (\ = 610 fitt); the re- 

 llection curves confirm this. .Scarcely any difference has 

 been detected, however, in the transmission curves of either 

 kind of film. 'I'he transmission of calhodic films decreases 

 .ilmost uniformly from extreme red to X -^ 226.6 /</< (i.e., in 

 the ultr.i-violel), beyond which the films are opaque. 



ZOOLOGICAL. 



I.Vni'KKICR. 



Some Ncvtf Mammals. 



.■\ CONSIDKRABLF. amount of interesting matter relating to 

 mammals has been published since my last communication. 

 Specially noteworthy is a paper by Mr. .\I. W. I.yon, published 

 in the I'roccediiirjs of the I'.S. National .Museum on a new 

 species of great anteater (.l/i/rHiiro/iAor/n nnfrnlis) from Cen- 

 tral .America, which differs from the typical M. jubata (or 

 tri(lacfylit) of Brazil in several important features of the 

 skull. That the last-named animal should range (as it has 

 hitherto been supposed to do) without marked local differ- 

 ences from tiuatemala to Brazil was in the highest degree 

 improbable. In another issue of the above-named serial the 

 same author has been enabled to demonstrate that the slow 

 lorises of the genus Kjicficchiia inhabiting the islands of 

 Borneo and Bauka differ from their more eastern relatives 

 in the conformation of the skull of the adult, and probablv 

 also in the number of front teeth. 



.\ third paper on mammals to which reference may be 

 made is one by Dr. P. Matschie, of Berlin, on the forest-hog 

 of the Ituri Forest, published by the authorities of the Congo 

 Museum at Tervueren, near Brussels. The author is of 

 opinion that the Ituri animal is specificallv distinct from 

 the one inhabiting Mount Kenya and the Nandi district 

 [ Hiiliirkcrnix mrinertzhai]cni}, and he accordingly proposes 

 that it should be known as H. ifwrienais. It may be added 

 that an illustrated description of the former animal, by 

 Baron Maurice de Rothschild and Mr. H. Neuvllle, recently 

 appeared in the Paris Bulletin de la Socictc Philomatique. 



Cavern Exploration. 



In a paper recently contributed to the Irish Naturalist, 

 Mr. R. J. Ussher, the well-known authority on the birds of 

 Ireland, gives a preliminary account of the exploration of 

 certain caves near Donnerail, in County Cork. The most 

 interesting result of the investigation is' the addition of the 

 cavern race of the spotted hyaena of .Africa to the extinct 

 Irish fauna. The occurrence of a number of remains of 

 immature mammoths is also a matter of interest. On the 

 opposite side of the Atlantic the exploration of caverns in 

 California has been conducted with great energy, and with 

 results which may prove of great interest to the early 

 history of man in America. .An account of the exploration 

 of one of these storehouses — The Samwel Cave — is given by 

 .Mr. E. L. Furlong in the .September number of the Amcri- 

 rn-i Journal of .'Science. After a list of the mammalian 

 fauna, reference is made to certain objects discovered in 

 this and other caves which may be of human workmanship, 

 some of these objects being apparently contemporaneous 

 with the cave fauna. Apart from certain stone flukes, of 

 which the age is uncertain, the most important of these 

 objects are polished splinters and spikes of bones, occa- 

 sionally showing a perforation. These have been described 

 in \'ol. VIII. of the American Anfhrnpiiloijisf by Prof. F. W. 

 Putnam, who is strongly of opinion that they are the work 

 of man. 



Hovtf the Whelk Bores Oyster Shells. 



.More than halt a century ago the late Prof. T. II. Huxley 

 (in a paper publis'ied in the I'liil. Trans, for 1K53) announced, 

 .IS the result of his own dissections and observ.'ilions, that 

 Ihe whelk and other boring gastropeds perforated the shells 

 i>f molluscs by a kind of chain-saw action of their lingual 

 ribbon, or " radula," the s.ime action being continued 

 during Ihe process of licking out the soft contents of the 

 viclim in the case of univalve species. Subsequently this 

 ii|)inion was disputed by other observers, with the result 

 ih.il two divergent views have obl.iined with regard to Ihe 

 manner in which the boring is effected. On Ihe one view it 

 is assumed lh.it the radula is stationary in relation to its 

 supporting cartilage, and, consequently, that the rasping 

 .iclion is brought about by movements of the latter. Ac- 

 coriling to Ihe second view (that of Huxley) the radula 

 moves independently of its support, playing backwards and 

 forw.-irds over Ihe latler like a band over a pulley, so that 

 Ihe rasping action is due to the motion of the radula itself. 

 The question, it may be hoped, has been finally set at rest 

 by the careful investigations of Mr. J. C. Ilerrick on a 

 Large .American whelk (.S'l/'c'i//'!/.'! canaliculafus), the results 

 (if which are published in lh<' American Nafuralisf for 

 October last. These, in the main, confirm Huxley's con- 

 clusions, with the reservation that the rasping action of the 

 " cli,iin-saw " takes place only during the return pull. 



The Attis Spider's Eyes. 



We have received cuttings from the Hastirn Daili/ Mail 

 of October T,n and subsequent dates containing .an article by 

 Mr. \V. Strickland, of .Singapore, on the wonderful pheno- 

 menon exhibited by the eves of a spider of the Attis group. 

 .Ml the mendjers of the group have, in addition to numerous 

 smaller ones, a pair of large eyes which the author compares 

 to gig-lamps ; but in the particular species referred to these 

 eyes are of exceptionally large size. The one specimen which 

 the author has hitherto been able to obtain was captured at 

 Buitenzorg, Java. When captured, the " gig-lamp " eyes 

 were dark brown, like the body, but while Mr. .Strickland 

 was watching his prize, they suddenly changed to bright 

 grass-green. " In a few minutes the creature with the 

 same deliberation changed its eyes from grass-green to dark 

 brown, and repeated the operation, which was completely 

 under the control of its will, several times in succession. It 

 almost seemed as though it took a pride in showing off its 

 strange power ; at any rate it evidently enjoyed the proceed- 

 ing. It was as though a veil now of green now of dark 

 brown diffused itself from above downwards behind the 

 cornea." It is added that the colour of either one or both 

 eyes could thus be changed. I'nfortunatelv the creature 

 arrived at the museum in a dying condition, and the offer 

 of reward has failed to bring in other examples ; but the 

 same phenomenon was found to be exhibited bv a smaller 

 and commoner species. The phenomenon, according to 

 the author, is unknown not only among other spiders, but 

 in animals generally. 



Papers Read. 



.At the opening meeting of the Zoological Society for the 

 session 1906-7, held on November 13, a communication was 

 read from Prof. R. Burckhardt on an embryo of the okapi, 

 and a second by Mr. F. F. Laidlaw on a new turbellarian 

 worm from Tanganyika. Mammals from Western Austra- 

 lia formed the subject of a paper by Mr. O. Thomas ; while 

 that gentleman and Mr. H. Schwann contributed a joint 

 communication on Transvaal mammals. The last of a 

 series of papers by Messrs. Melvill and Standen on the 

 molluscs of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea was 

 likewise communicated to the meeting. At the meeting of 

 November 27, Mr. P. A. Coward discussed certain habits of 

 the lesser horseshoe bat; Messrs. E. A. Smith and H. II. 

 Bloomer communicated observations on East .African 

 molluscs ; while Mr. W. Woodland offered suggestions with 

 regard to the origin of the renal portal system of blood- 

 vessels, and likewise described the anatomy of Centroplwrus 

 calceus. The skull and skeleton of an extinct crocodile, 

 froniopholi.i crassirlens, from the Wealden strata of the Isle 

 of \\'ight, formed the subject of a paper read by Mr. R. W. 

 Hooley at the meeting of the Geological .Society on Novem- 

 ber 21, 



