August 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



181 



The Great Shenncater in Scottish Waters. By Alfred Ncwtun, 

 M.A., F.B.s. (A HHiih of Scottish y,tt Hist., July, 1900, jip. 1 1:.'147 ) 

 Tliis is a very intorosting oontribiition from tlie pon ol' Prof. Xewrou, 

 who. in couipauy with Mr. UciirT Kvaiis, on two sppiirato occasions 

 saw an extraordinary number of these birds off the west coast of 

 Scotland. On the L'Tth of June. 1891, between thirty and fifty pairs 

 werv seen between Lewis and North Hona, while on June L'lth, 1895, 

 a still greater number were seen near St. Kddn. I'rior to ths the 

 known instances of the occurrence of the Great Shearwater in Scottish 

 waters did not amount to many more than six. A point of great 

 general interest was brought out by this " visitation " of Great 

 Shearwaters. Several specimens were obtained by the fishermen of 

 St. KUda. From the examination of these birds, other skins and 

 figures. Prof. Xewton comes to the conclusion that members of the 

 group Tuhinares, which contains some of the birds best endowed with 

 the power of Uight, so moult their wings as to become almost, if 

 not quite, incapable of it. 



Scnps Old in Shetland. [Annals of Scottish Xat. Bist.. July. 

 19«k), p. 184 ) Mr. Eagle Clarke has received a wing and leg from 

 the island of Foula, which he identifies as those of Scops rjiu. The 

 birtl was first seen in April of this year, and was eventually captured 

 and kept in conlnement. The recorded instances of this Owl in 

 Scotland are very few m number, and it has never before been known 

 to visit the Shetland Islands. 



All contributions to the column, either in the way of notes 

 or photofir,i}>h.t, shotdd he forwardtd to Haery F. NVitherby, 

 at 1, Eliot Pltice, Blachiieath, Kent. 



♦— 



The Annual Awards of the Royal Geographical 

 Society. — The annual awards of the Society have been 

 made as follows for the present year : The Founder's 

 Medal to Captain H. H. P. Deasy, for the exploring 

 and survey work which he has accomplished in Central 

 Asia; the Patron's Medal to Mr. James McCarthy, for 

 his great services to geographical science in exploring 

 and mapping all parts of the Kingdom of Siam ; the 

 Murchison Award to M. H. Arctowski, for the valuable 

 oceanographical and meteoi'ological work which he per- 

 formed on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition ; the Gill 

 Memorial to Mr. Vaughan Cornish, for his researches 

 on sea-beaches, sand-dunes, and on wave-forms in water ; 

 the Back Grant to Mr. Robert Codrington, for his jour- 

 neys in the region between Lakes Nyasa and Tang- 

 anyika; the Cuthbert Peek Grant to Mr. T. J. 

 AJldridge, for his journeys during the past ten years in 

 the interior of Sierra Leone. 



iJoti'ccs^ofJ3oofts. 



" Pre-Hi.storic Times." 6th Edition. Br the Rt. Hon. Lord 

 Arebury. xxiii. and 314 pp. Illu.strated. (Williams and Norgate.) 

 18s. The distinguished author ibetter known as Sir John Lubbock) 

 of this ever-popular work is to bs heartily congratulated on the 

 issue of its sixth edition. Since the publication of the second 

 edition in 1869 no special preface has appeared, and it is therefore 

 necessary to compare the present volume with the fifth edition 

 (1890) in order to see how much it has been improved. The 

 number of pages is somewhat less than in its predecessor, but the 

 plates have been greatly increased in the present issue, partly 

 owing to many of the figures which formerly appeared in the text 

 having been incorporated in the plates. Specially noticeable is 

 the replacement of the coloured frontispiece of the fifth edition 

 by an ex((uisite photogravure of the well-known tumuli at I'jisala ; 

 and there can be no question in its present guise, so far as 

 illustrations are concerned, that the sixth edition is immea.surablv 

 superior to the fifth. 



Xumerons a'lditions have likewise been made in the text in order 

 to aid in bringing the book abreast of modern advances in science, 

 the work of the Messrs. Sarasin on the V'eddas of C'evlon being 

 alluded to (perhaps too briefly) on p. 415, while Prof" Hughes s 

 memoir on prehistoric and other cattle receives mention on p. 

 195. Strangely enough, however, the author seems to be unaware 

 of the existence of a work entitled "Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Goats 

 of All Lands," published by Mr. Rowland Ward in 1898, in wliich 

 nvmy of the views advanced in the present volume are controverted. 

 -■Vn 1 in regard to both wild and tame members of the genus Bos 

 the author -would have done well to have consulted a specialist, 

 or at least to have walked carefully through the galleries o! the 

 Katural History Museum. We shouldnot then have been told that the 



European bison is now confined to Lithuaiu i y \'h], or that it is 

 identical with the aurochs. Neither would the reader have been 

 imzzled by the confusion in reganl to the proper scientilic name of 

 the extinct wil I ox of Europe (the true aurochs), as will be nparenb 

 by comparing the tables on pji. 188 and 22,'^. Again we find the 

 eik, roebuck Ij). 1881, and reindeer ip. 268), wliich respectively 

 represent three totally dill'erent genera, all inclu<led In tlie genus 

 Cervus, whereas the so-called Irish elk, which is a Catvus, figures 

 as a genus apart (p. 268). As another example we may notice that 

 the marten appears as Muslcla martes on ji. 188, and as Martes sp. 

 on p. 225 : and many other similar instances might be cited. 

 Xor are misprints by any means wanting, as, for instance. Sua 

 pulustris on the head line of p. 192, instead of I'aluslris, Cervus 

 elephas, p. 223, for Elaphus, and Lagomys fusillus, p. 279, for 

 pusiUus. 



These critical remarks are made in no hostile spirit, but rather 

 to emphasize the necessity for calling in the aid of a specialist 

 when an author has to deal with a subject in which he is noG 

 thoroughly at home. 



As a matter of fact, it is the portion relating to mammals which 

 forms the one weak part in the book, upon which in other respects 

 we have nothing but praise to bestow. Were it a new work, we 

 should call the reader's attention to the extremely interesting 

 chapters relating to stone and bone weapons of all kinds, and also 

 to the fascinating sectitm devoted to the manners and customs of 

 modern savages, but in the case of a work which has already 

 obtained such a world-wide reputatiim this would obviously be 

 superfluous, not to say impertinent. We may therefore conclude 

 by the exjiressitm of the hope that the patronage accorded to the 

 sixth edition of this famous work may be fully as extensive as 

 that with which its forerunners were received. 



" The Distribution of the Negritos in the Philippine Islands and 

 elsewhere." I'.y A. B. Meyer, m.d. pp. 96. (Dresden : 

 Stenzel & Co.) 1899. The chief object of this excellent little work 

 seems to be to disprove the widely spread idea that the short, 

 round-headed, frizzly-haired, black people commonly known as 

 Negritos form a substratum of the p<)pulati(m over a large extent 

 of the Malayan countries, and that they also occur in Formosa, as 

 well as in certain districts of China, Japan, India, etc. For this 

 theory, wliich was ado|ited by the late Sir William Flower, the 

 French anthropologist Professor Hamy is mainly responsible. As 

 the result of his investigations, the learned Director of the Dresden 

 Museum (who has personally visited the I'hilippines, New (iuinea, 

 and many of the Austro-Malayan islands) comes to the cunclusi(m 

 that the typical Negritos are restricted to certain islands of the 

 Philippine group, the Andamans, and some districts in the Malay 

 Peninsula. In the Philippines these people are more numerous 

 than elsewhere, although even there they form only a comparatively 

 small projiortion of the population. 



A very important section of the work is devoted to the consider i- 

 tion of the relation.ship of the true Negritos to the Melanesia!! 

 inhabitants of Papua, who are typically of taller stature, with a 

 long and narrow type of skull. Short-headed people are, however, 

 to be met with in Papua, who have been considered to represciit 

 a distinct Negrito race. But, following the lead of Mr. Muclay, 

 Dr. Meyer is of opinion that Negritos and Papuans are essentially 

 one and the same race. "A Negritic race," he writes, ".side by 

 side with the Papuan race nobody has been able to discover jusl 

 because it does not exist, and it does not exist because the Papuan 

 race, in spite of its variability, is on the one hand a uniform race, 

 and on the other as good as identical with the Negritos." 



Finally, Dr. Meyer is very emphatic on the futility of the 

 craniometry as now practised, remarking that " the jiractice of 

 describing a skull in detail will never lead to profitable results, and 

 only burdens the literature of the subject beyond measure." 



"Micro-Organisms and Fermentation." By Alfred Jorgensen. 

 Translated by A. K. Miller, pu.d.. and A. K. Lennliidm. Thi ■(! 

 Edition, xiii. and 318 pp. (Macmillan.) 10s. net. So rapid is the 

 growth of the branch of science with which this book deals that 

 though the first edition appeared only seven years ago the author has 

 found it necessary, in order to incorporate the new work accomplished 

 in the intei-val, to entirely rewrite a large jiortion of the book and to 

 enlarge it very considerably. The new edition differs from its pre- 

 decessors in containing a biological treatment of several English 

 high-fermentation yeasts, isolated from yeast used in breweries and 

 distilleries in various jiails of Great Britain ; an account of the 

 changes recently discovered occtu'ring in yeast during its use in 

 factories ; and a description of lactic acid bacteria, and the use of 

 pure cultures of them in dairies. We find with regret that the 

 volume is not provided with an index. This is a somewhat serious 

 omission in a technical book of this nature, which will be so largely 

 employed as a work of reference. Fortunately this defect can be 

 easily renieilied, and we trust tlie translators will see that a com 

 plete index is provided in the next issue. The text is accompanied 



