G4. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[MATicn 1, 1901. 



Zoological. — The micro-organism of distemper in the 

 dog is described by Mr. M. C. Potter in the Proceed ingf! of 

 the Koyal Society. It is shown tliat a cnltnre can readily 

 be jiroduced, which tliere is good hope will lead to a very 

 considerable mitigation of the disease in question. 



Por several years Herr G. Tornier has been studying 

 examples of lizards, newts, and frogs with double tails or 

 additional limbs, and has shown {ZooL Aiizelger, 1897-98) 

 how such abnormalities can be produced artificiaUy. In 

 his most recent contribution to the subject (Ihid., 1900, 

 No. 614) he figures several newts showing various ty23es of 

 bifid tail, and describes in detail the manner in which 

 regeneration of the tail produces such abnormalities. 



Mr. Walter Rothschild's long-expected monograph of 

 the cassowaries, together with Mr. W. P. P)'craft's dis- 

 sertation on the structure and relationshijDs of the 

 ostrich-like birds, has just been published in the 

 Transact io7is of the Zoological Societj^, illustrated by no 

 less than eighteen coloured plates. It is a magnificent 

 piece of work, admirably carried out from first to last. 

 Eight species of cassowaries, which naturally fall into 

 three groups, are recognised, several of them being divi- 

 sible into a larger or smaller number of local races. 

 Morjihologists will, of course, be most interested in 

 Mr. Pycraft's communication. lu his opinion, the 

 Eatitfe (or, as he prefers to call them, Palreognathre) have 

 divero-ed in several separate branches from iioiuts verv 

 low down in the avian stem, which is continued up- 

 wards to split up into the various groups of Carinatte 

 (Ne(it;nathi3e). It is, however, difficult to realise how 

 these birds became flightless comparatively so soon after 

 the acquisition of wings by the class in general. And 

 it is still less easy to understand how the Ratitte can be so 

 much older than the cretaceous Carinates of the United 

 States as the author considers to be the case. All the 

 available palaeontological evidence (especially as Mr. 

 Pycraft excludes the eocene Gastornis and Biatryma 

 from the Ratite group) points exactly in the opposite 

 direction. 



The attention of all interested in the molluscs and 

 brachiopods of the British seas should be directed to- a 

 classified list of species drawn up by a comnrittee of 

 experts and published in the January number of the 

 Journal of Ooiichologi/. The nomenclature appears 

 to have been revised with great care, and it may be 

 hoped that its publication will tend to promote uni- 

 formity in this respect among conchologists. 



A most interesting exhibit is now on view in the Central 

 Hall of the Natural History Museum. It consists of a 

 wax model of the African tsetse fly, enlarged to the dimen- 

 sions of a big bat. Alongside are models of red lilood- 

 corpuscles, enlarged to the dimensions of medium-sized 

 biscuits, and between them two models, on a similar scale, 

 of the tsetse parasite. The whole exhibit is beautifully 

 executed and most iustractive. 



According to the investigations of Miss Lee, of which 

 an abstract appeal's in a recent issue of the Proceedinrja 

 of the Royal Society, the skull-capacity of a large 

 number of individuals does not tend to support the 

 theory that relative brain-weight, cither in the 

 individual ^ in the sex, is associated with relative 

 intellectual power. It is stated that " one of the most 

 distinguished of Continental anthropologists has less 

 skull-capacity than 50 per cent, of the women students 

 of Bedford College; one of our leading English anato- 

 mists less than 2>5 per cent, of the same students." 



#otu cg of IS oofeg. 



"By Land asi> Sky." By'the Rev. John M. Bacon, m.a., 

 F.R.A.s. (Isbister i^ Co.) illustrated. 7s. 6d.— Mr. Bacon's 

 book will probably be ,read more for its living interest and 

 spirit of adventure than for its scientific ciualities. His 

 narratives of balloon ascents by others and himself, and his 

 descriptions of observations made under these and other 

 conditions, possess the personal and general characteristics 

 appreciated by a large ])ublic. We hasten to add that the book also 

 contains many original observations on the transmission of 

 sound, and revises some of the views on that subject usually 

 found in text-books. Take, for instance, the belief that clouds 

 can produce echoes. Mr. Bacon says that he has " never 

 obtained an echo from a cloud, either from a hollow of such 

 cloud, from the under surface of a cloud canopy, or from the 

 upper surface of a cloud floor." No sky or cloud echoes were ob- 

 served by him even under the most favourable conditions. Some 

 remarkable observations in the whispering gallery of St. Paul's 

 are described, and they seem to dispose of the theory that 

 reflection from the opposite parts of the dome is the sole cause 

 of the phenomenon exhibited by the gallery. The suggestion 

 is made that the sound waves travel around the wall " as a ball 

 hugs the circular end of a bagatelle board," but this analogue 

 will not commend itself to the mind of a physicist. Incidentally, 

 attention is called to the fact that instead of going to a window 

 to listen to a distant sound, it is often better to open the case- 

 ment .aud to retire back into the room. As to the action of fog 

 upon sound, Mr. Bacon holds that though a uniform quiescent 

 fog may offer no obstruction to sound, rolling masses of fog of 

 varying temperature and density may impede sound waves, or 

 even reflect them. In one of his essay.s, IMr. Bacon throws 

 doubt on the statement that the sound of a bursting meteor has 

 been heard on earth, and suggests that when such a report has 

 been heard it probably had a terrestrial origin. We believe 

 that no shooting-stars have ever been accompanied by explosive 

 sounds, but surely there is ample e-vddence that actual meteorites 

 and fireballs have been heard to explode. Mr. Bacon gives the 

 impression that all meteor sounds are illusions. 



"Desion IX Nature's Story." By Dr. \V. Kidd. (Nisbet.) 

 3s. ('id. net. — In these days, when we hear so much of the evolu- 

 tion of animal organs and structures according to an assumed 

 " adaptation " to inanimate surroundings, and of the origin of 

 horns and antlers from the bruises produced on their heads by 

 contests between the males of the ox and deer tribe, it is 

 distinctly refreshing to find that there is a writer left among us 

 who has the courage to plead for the older conception of 

 " design " in nature, and for the direct supervision of a personal 

 Deity over the evolution of the animal life of our globe. 'V^^hether 

 the author has succeeded or not in proving his contention, we 

 may well leave our readers to judge for themselves, and we 

 will therefore be content with quoting his concluding paragraphs. 

 After referring to the fact that plants alone extract nutriment 

 from the soil, and that animals live upon the present or p.ast life 

 of plants, Dr. Kidd proceeds as follows : — " It were wearisome 

 to elaborate this well-known fact of nature. The simple fact 

 remains, and no scientific explanations of the ' natural ' laws 

 under which it takes place touch for an instant its striking value 

 as a broad argument for Design in Nature. . . . The objections 

 of Darwin, Romanes, and Milnes IMarshall, by the very earnest- 

 ness of the challenge, and the magnitude of the answer afi'orded 

 by the whole vegetable kingdom, constitute a body of evidence 

 against the blind mechanical force which they deify of obvious 

 cogency," 



" A Year with Nature.'' By W. Percival Westell. 

 (Drane.) Illustrated. 10s. Gd. — Under this title the author has 

 perpetuated, between handsome covers, and in au expensive 

 form, a series of oliservations of nature referable to each month 

 of the year, and previously published in various journals. We 

 can discover no permanent value, or imleed interest in these 

 papers, neither is there anything original in them. Indeed, 

 Mr. AVestell's observations are little more than a series of 

 platitudes badly strung together, and it seems a )iity that they 

 were not jillowed to remain in the comparative oblivion from 

 which they have been dragged. As far as the author's qualifica- 

 tions for writing are concerned we judge him by bis own words, 

 for he has " not tried to cultivate any literary style," and in his 

 opinion, the " rush and tear of present day life only allows us to 

 sip, rather than drink, at nature's sweet fountain." 



