256 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[NOVEMBEB, 1902. 



as Mercury, would be required to produce the outstanding 

 changes in the orbit of Mercury, it no longer seems 

 possible to attribute these perturbations to bodies of con- 

 siderable size between Mercury and the sun. It is not 

 considered impossible, however, that the litiely-dividc 1 

 malter composing the Zodiacal Lisht is suflicient in the 

 aggregate to cause the recorded disturbances of Mercury's 

 orbil.— A. V. , .. 



Botanical. — The method of dispersal of the seeds of 

 Viola caniua are, perhaps, generally known through the 

 observations of Kerner. When the capsule dehisces, ihc 

 hard smooth seeds, which are attached to each of the three 

 valves, are subjected to so much pressure by the contrac- 

 tion of the sides of the valves, that they are squeezed out 

 and sometimes thrown to a distance of three feet. Mr. 

 11. Ct. Leavitt has noticed the seed dispersal of another 

 species, V. roliaiiUfolia. In some instances, he states in 

 Bhodora for September, the seeds are merely pushed out ; 

 many of them fall within a foot of the capsule that con- 

 tained them ; but olhers arc thrown a distance of tive 

 feet, and he shows that in one case the distance reached, 

 apparently by these means alone, was nine feet. 



IMonsieur C. De Candolle has published two papers on a 

 curious Indian Jf'icus, remarkable ia having all its leaves 

 transformed into small pitchers. The second paper 

 appears in the last number of the BitUctin de V Rerhicr 

 Boissier. Prof. Buchenau has recorded an instance of a 

 ])itcher-shaped leaf in the common fig (Ficus Carica), but 

 this was merely accidental, and, as is usually the case, the 

 inside of the pitcher was formed by the upper side of the 

 leaf. In the plant investigated by Monsieur Ue Candolle 

 the leaves appear to be normally pitcher-shaped, and the 

 pitchers are extraordinary in haying their interior formed 

 by the under side of the leaf. 



The botanical collections made during the visit of the 

 Danish Expedition to Siam, in 1899—1900, have been 

 investigated by various botanists, and the results are being 

 published in the Botanisk Tidsskrift, in ti series of papers 

 edited by Dr. J. Schmidt. All the plants were obtained 

 from Koh Chang and other smaller islands in the Gulf of 

 Siam. The last part published (part 7) contains several 

 new species of Dipterocarpaceie, which have been described 

 by Prof. Heim. Of the fourteen species enumerated no 

 less than seven are new. This order appears to be 

 exceptional with regard to the number of novelties, for 

 on the whole the collections contain very few previously 

 unknown plants. All the nineteen Composita) brought 

 from the islands are found in the eastern part of British 

 India. — S. A. S. , , , 



Zoological. — In an article on four-horned she?p 

 jiublished in Knowledge for July, 1901, it was suggested 

 that the duplication of the horns in those breeds was due 

 to splitting of the normal pair. This suggestion has been 

 made a practical certainty by a skull of a South African 

 ])iebald ram recently presented to the British Museum by 

 Mr. W. P. Pycraft. In this specimen each horn is cleft 

 to within a short distance of its base ; the minor branch, 

 which is inferior in position, lying close alongside the 

 larger. It may be added that the shce|) of this breed, 

 which apjiear to have come originally from Zululaud, but 

 have been introduced into many parts of Europe (inclusive 

 of Great Britain), frequently develo]) two pairs of horns. 

 These differ from tlio.sc of the ordinary four-horned sheep 

 of the Hebrides m>i only by their colour, which is black, 

 but also in form. 



From a bed of gravel near Greenhithe, Kent, known, 

 on account of the number of shells of that genus it con- 



tains, as the Neritina-bed, Mr. E. P. Newton, in the Sep- 

 tember number of the Oeolojical Magazine, describes a 

 large roilent incisor which he believes to be referable 

 to the giant beaver (Tror/oiil/ifiriuni ciivifri). Hitherto 

 remains of lh:it S|)ecies have been known only from the 

 Norfolk forest-bed. If the present specimen be correctly 

 identified, it tends to show that the latter deposit is of 

 Pleistocene, and not, as supposed by some, of Pliocene age. 

 In the Annals and Magazine of Natural Jlintonj for 

 September, Mr. O. Thomas describes from S/.echusn a 

 larger form of that beautifully colourel animal the panda, 

 or cat-bear, of the Himalaya, under the appropriate name 

 of JEliirus fulfjcns xtijani, bestowed in honour of Mr. 

 Styan, who has done so much to increase our knowledge 

 of the fauna of North- Western China. 



An even more interesting animal is described in the 

 October issue of the same journal by Mr. Thomas. This 

 is the eastern form of that large and handsome antelope 

 commonly known as the bongo {Traijelaphiin ennjreros), the 

 first skin of which to be reeeived in this country was ob- 

 tained by M. du Chaillu on the AVest Coast. Of the eastern 

 representative of this antelope a fine series of skins and 

 horns from the forest district to the eastward of the 

 Victoria Nyauza have recently been presented to the 

 Natural History Museum by Mr. V. \V. Isaac. These speci- 

 mens show that, in the eastern race at any rate, the bongo 

 differs from its cousins the bushbueks in that the females 

 as well as the males carry horns. This necessitates the 

 reference of the former animal to a distinct genus, which 

 it is proposed to call Bijucercus, in allusion to the tufted, 

 ox-like tail. Since the eastern race differs somewhat in the 

 horns and skull from the typical western form, Mr. Thomas 

 designates it B. eiirijceros isaaci. It is a remarkable 

 circumstance that the elands and bongos, the two repre- 

 sentatives of the tragelaphine antelopes with horns in both 

 sexes, also differ from their relatives in having tufted, in 

 place of fully haired, tails. 



In the same number Mr. E. I. Pocock publishes a 

 revised classification of the existing members of the horse 

 family. After assenting to the view that the Asiatic 

 members of the family, namely, Przewalski's horse, the 

 domesticated horse, and the kiang, or chiggetai, form a 

 group by themselves, the author points out that the North 

 African wild ass and the mountain zebra of South and 

 South- West Africa are very closely related to one another. 

 Burchell's zebra and its subspecies, on the other baud, 

 come so close to the true quagga (whjse name they have 

 usurped) that Mr. Pocock regards the whole series as 

 local variations of a single species, for which the name 

 Equus quagga stands. Very distinct from all the rest, in 

 the author's opinion, is Grcvy's zebra, of Ab3'^ssinia and 

 South Somaliland. From this it will be gathered that 

 Mr. Pocock attaches little or no importance to the 

 presence or absence of striping iu this group as indicative 

 of affinity. 



The discovery of a new vertebrate fauna of Middle 

 Cretaceous age in the north-west territories of Canada is 

 a circumstance of more than ordinary interest, especially 

 eince among the remains are teeth of two species of 

 mammals. The new fauna, so far as it is at present known, 

 is described by Messrs. Osborne and Lambe in Contribu- 

 tions to Canadian Fahcontology (Vol. III., pt. 2); Pro- 

 fessor Osborne dealing with its general characters and 

 relations, and INlr. Lambe discussing the genera and 

 specits. The reptiles include several chelonians and 

 dinosaurs ; among the latter being a species of Trachodon 

 (a relative of the iguanodon, but with pavement-like 

 teeth), of which the impression of a portion of the skin 



