5 6 2 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



toms and the signs of disease and of death, 

 and on the use of medicines ; Part II re- 

 lates to injuries and wounds and their treat- 

 ment; Part III, to sudden attacks, painful 

 attacks, pain in the chest, and pain in the 

 stomach ; Part IV, to some common ailments 

 and diseases of the skin ; and Part V, to dis- 

 eases of infancy and childhood; numerous 

 particular forms of attack being described 

 under each heading. 



A Manual of Physics for university stu- 

 dents, prepared by Prof. William Peddie, of 

 Edinburgh, has been issued by G. P. Putnam's 

 Sons (price, $2.50). It is a treatise of a high 

 grade, and is confined to pure science. It 

 makes large use of mathematics, but the au- 

 thor states that the student may assume the 

 results of the mathematical portions, and use 

 the remainder, which is much the larger part, 

 of the text in his study of experimental 

 physics. The volume has an index, and there 

 are over two hundred diagrams in the text. 



The ejection of blood from the eyes of 

 the lizards of the genus Phrynosoma popu- 

 larly called horned toads is now attracting 

 considerable attention. In the Proceedings 

 of the United States National Museum, 0. P. 

 Hay gives a very interesting account of his 

 experiments with this lizard. It appears that 

 upon irritating the animal blood spurts from 

 just above the eye. For what purpose the 

 horned toad thus besprinkles an enemy with 

 his own blood, what is the source of the blood, 

 and how is it expelled with such force, are 

 the questions that are puzzling biologists. It 

 is suggested that the purpose of the ejection 

 is to defend the animal from the attacks of 

 enemies, although it seems improbable that 

 the discharge would seriously pain or affect 

 an enemy ; however, Mr. Hay thinks it like- 

 ly that this is the purpose of the habit, and 

 he says: "A discharge of blood into the 

 eyes of some pursuing bird or snake might 

 so seriously interfere with its clearness of vi- 

 sion that the lizard might make its escape 

 while its enemy was wiping its eyes." 



The determination of the source of the 

 blood has offered serious difficulties to the 

 investigations of biologists, the most proba- 

 ble theory being that the blood or matter is 

 lodged in a blood sinus upon each side of the 

 head, a portion of the wall lying on the inner 

 surface of the eyelid. This sinus is supposed 

 to be surrounded with muscular tissue of 



sufficient force to cause the thin wall in the 

 lid to be ruptured and the blood to be eject- 

 ed to a considerable distance. These toads 

 are found in nearly all parts of California, 

 and are called by the Mexicans " sacred 

 toads," " because they wept tears of blood." 



In the Contemporary Review Prof. A. H. 

 Sayce contributes a valuable paper to philo- 

 logical literature, which he entitles The Primi- 

 tive Home of the Aryans. Until recent years 

 the accepted belief was that the parent 

 speech had its home in Asia, probably on the 

 slopes of the Hindu Koosh. The parent 

 speech of the Indo-European languages was 

 entitled the Ursprache, or "primeval lan- 

 guage " ; but, as linguistic history developed, 

 this supposition was abandoned, for it was 

 found to differ from Sanskrit or Greek only 

 in its fuller inflectional character. Sanskrit 

 then became the parent, and its home was 

 determined to be in Asia, the choice being 

 fixed upon two arguments, the first of which 

 is linguistic, the second being historical. 

 " On one hand it has been laid down by emi- 

 nent philologists that the less one of the de- 

 rived languages has deflected from the parent 

 speech the more likely it is to be geograph- 

 ically nearer to its earliest home " ; . . . and, 

 " as Sanskrit was held to be the most primi- 

 tive of the Indo-European languages to re- 

 flect clearly the features of the parent speech, 

 the conclusion was drawn that that parent 

 speech had been spoken at no great distance 

 from the country where the hymns of Rig- 

 Veda were first composed." Prof. Sayce, 

 however, draws attention to the fact that the 

 result of recent discoveries has been a com- 

 plete revolution in the study of Indo-Euro- 

 pean etymology ; and that whereas, ten years 

 ago, Sanskrit was invoked to explain Greek, 

 " it is to the Greek that the new school now 

 turns to explain Sanskrit." He claims, with 

 Dr. Penka, that " southern Scandinavia was 

 the primitive ' Aryan home,' " and he adds 

 that " a more profound examination of Teu- 

 tonic and Keltic mythology, a more exact 

 knowledge of the words in the several Indo- 

 European languages which are not of Indo- 

 European origin, and the progress of archaao- 

 logical discovery will furnish the verification 

 we need " to establish that in Europe and not 

 Asia was the home of the parent speech. 



The Birth of Invention is a most interest- 

 ing pamphlet, by Otis T. Mason, Ph. D., Cu- 



