May, 1901.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



113 



l\T the moon, ;uul not only so, but nmleitakos to supply 

 foreciists of weather some weeks ahead at a host of stations 

 in the nortliern hemisphere. The editor, M. Denitelunslcy, 

 irives a number of cases iu which he has successhdly fore- 

 told Russian weather during the past year, and he now 

 extends his systeiii. In the number before us (1st April, 

 No. -). we find charts for some seventy-eii^ht places iu 

 Europe and Xorth America, showiu-^ the probable course 

 of the Ixirometer and thermometer, etc., in the latter half 

 of April; also maps with isobars and isotherms for one 

 date iu each week. Such claims, it is obvious, must be 

 soon either justified or discredited, and we shall watch 

 the result with interest. M. Demtchinsky evidently has 

 faith in his system, and we wish liiiu success with it. We 

 regard with favour (personally) the rehabilitation of the 

 moon which seems to be now in progress, but if this 

 Kussiau engineer's claims can be established, then 

 meteorology has of late made, iu Russia, an unwonted 

 leap forward. A complete and uubmkeu success iu these 

 forecasts need not, of course, be looked for, nor does the 

 author expect it ; but there might, perhaps, be a i)ractically 

 useful perceutiige of success. In any case, the (piestiou 

 of lunar influence should be somewhat elucidated. 

 Besides these forecasts, the journal will publish various 

 meteorological papers, especially such as bear on the 

 moon's influence. The journal is iu four languages, 

 Russian, French, English, and German. We rather doubt 

 the utdity of this ; in perusing these polyglot serials, one 

 is apt to be reminded of the " halfpeuuy-worth of bread 

 to au intolerable deal of sack ! " — A. B. M. 



Zoological. — Much difference of opinion has prevailed 

 among naturalists on the question of the pedigree of the 

 leathery turtle {Dermochelys coriacea), some maintaiuiug 

 that it is a descendant from the same stock as ordinary 

 turtles, while others assert that it is of totally different 

 origin. In a paper recently contributed to the Bulletin 

 of the Royal Scientific Society of Brussels, Mons. L. 

 Dollo expresses himself in favour of the former view. 

 According to this, the tesselated shell of the leathery 

 turtle has been formed by a breaking up of the solid 

 shield of ordinary turtles. 



Perhaps a still more important contribution to phylo- 

 geuy is afforded by Mr. E. I. Pocock's paper on the 

 Scottish Silurian scorpion, which appears in the March 

 number of the QuaderJy Journal of Microscopical Science. 

 As the result of an exhaustive study of a lieautifully pre- 

 served specimen discovered in Lanarkshire iu 1885, the 

 author is inclined to countenance the idea that modern 

 scorfiions trace their ancestry to primitive Arthropods 

 more or less closely related to the marine king-crabs 

 (Limulus) of the Moluccas. 



According to Mr. Southwell's Report on AVhaling and 

 Sealing during 1900, published iu the March number of 

 the Zoologist, British whalers are not to be represented in 

 the Greenland seas dui-ing the coming season, owing to 

 the scarcity of whales. \VLat has become of the right 

 whale in that ocean is the question of the hour. Whale- 

 bone of fair size now stands at the enormous price of 

 £1400 per ton. 



Those of our readers interested in the classification and 

 pedigree of mammals should study an important memoir 

 by Mr. B. A. Bensley, in the February issue of the 

 American Naturalist. The relation of the marsupials to 

 the i^ilacentals is the chief theme ; and the author accepts 

 the view that the specialised character of the foot in the 

 former precludes their being the ancestors of the latter. 

 He ifl, however, indisposed to admit the theory that 

 marsupials are degraded placentals, and prefers to regard 



both as divergent offshoots from a common "motatherian " 

 stock. 



VViieu Pallas iu the latter part of the eighteenth century 

 descrilicd the littli> creature wc now term the laucelet as "a 

 kind of slug, under the name of Limax Idnccvlalus, he 

 little realised the interest and importance attaching to his 

 discovery. T,ittle by little the true alliuities of this lowly 

 chordate have been worked out ; aud we now know that, 

 instead of being represented only by a single species, the 

 lancelets include quite a number of different types, which 

 may be arranged under two generic and several subgeueric 

 groups. According to Mr. A. Willey (Quart. .Jouru. Micr. 

 6'c/i.'»cc, March, IS'Ol), tliese may be classified as follows: — • 

 Genus I. — Bkanchiostoma ; generative structures 

 bi serial. 

 Subgenus 1. — Branch iiistoma. 

 „ 2. — Dolichorhynchus. 

 (Jeiius II.— Epigonichthys; generative structures 

 uniserial. 

 Subgenus 1. — T<J/ii(ion!rlitlii/g. 

 „ 2. — Paruni/iliio.rus. 



„ 3. — Aiii/urmetron.' 

 In this table wc have ventured to make certain amend- 

 ments ill nomenclature in accordance with modern ideas. 



If any of our readers study marine worms they should 

 read an important communication on the uemcrtcaus 

 of the Alaska seas, by Dr. W. R. Coe, published in t\w 

 Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 

 as part of the results of the Harriman Expedition to Alaska. 

 Quite a uumber of new forms are described. 



The anatomy of a near relative of that remarkably 

 generalised Arthropod known as Peripntus forms the sub- 

 ject of an important jiaper contributed by Dr. W. F. 

 Purcell to the December issue of the Annals of the Souik 

 African Muneum. The form there described is referred to 

 the genus Opisthopatus ; and the author is of opinion that 

 the African representatives of the group should be assigned 

 to three generic types ; two of which are exclusively 

 South African, while tlit- third also occurs in America, and 

 possibly in India. 



A late issue of the Proceedinyn of the Royal Society, cou- 

 taius an abstract of Dr. Blanford's memoir on the distri- 

 bution of vertebrates in India, Ceylon, and Burma. The 

 author comes to the couchisiou that the Punjab differs so 

 remarkably iu its fauna from the rest of India that it 

 cannot be included in the Oriental region, but must be 

 assigned to the Mediterranean province, which is by some 

 regarded as a region by itself, but by others classed as a 

 subdivision of the Holarctic. To tlie latter belongs also 

 the Himalayan area aijovt; the forests, as does Tibet. India 

 proper, together with Ceylon, is regarded as a single 

 subdivision of the Oriental region, under the title of 

 Cisgaugctic, while the Himalayas and Burma form a 

 second subregion, tin,' Traiisgangctic, which also includes 

 Southern China, Tonquin, Siam, and Ca,mbodia. A third 

 subregion, the Malayan, is indicated in the area treated 

 of by Southern Teuasserim, which agrees but iu its 

 vertebrate fauna with the Malay Peninsula. 



The British and Gekman Antarctic Expeditions. — 

 With the launch of the " Discovery " at Dundee on 

 March 21st, and that of the " Gauss " at Kiel on April 

 2nd, the siege of the Antarctic regions nviy be said to 

 have already begun. Both vessels have been specially 

 designed and constructed, and it is hoped that both 

 will be completed and set sail in July or August for the 

 Antarctic regions. Moreover the two expeditions will 

 co-operate, in so far that the scientific work will be 



