May 2 1, 1903] 



NATURE 



67 



The study of ecological botany has not been so vigorously 

 pursued during recent years in Great Britain as in other 

 countries, but the few papers that have appeared have been 

 the outcome of thoroughly sound work. A botanical survey 

 of the West Riding of Yorkshire has been completed, and 

 the results obtained by Dr. W. G. Smith and Mr. C. E. 

 Moss for the south-western district are incorporated in an 

 article published in the Geographical Journal. Both the 

 descriptions and photographic illustrations are exceedingly 

 good, but the main feature is the representation of the 

 various formations on a map on the scale of two miles to 

 the inch, which should be carefully studied by all ecological 

 workers ; also the origin and relationships of the types of 

 vegetation are critically discussed. 



No. 5 of the Proceedings of the Chester Society of 

 Natural History contains a list of the species of Lepidoptera 

 recorded from Chester and four adjacent counties, drawn 

 up by Mr. G. O. Day, with the assistance of two other 

 gentlemen. 



We have received vol. iv. of " El Peru," a work on the 

 geology and mineralogy of that country published by the 

 Geographical Society of Lima. It appears that by the 

 decease of Dr. Antonio Raimondi in 1890, the publication 

 of this work, which commenced in 1874, was interrupted. 

 The present volume is based on that observer's manuscripts, 

 which it has taken a long time to prepare for publication. 

 The bulk of the volume is devoted to the rocks of the 

 country, both igneous and sedimentary ; but the latter 

 part includes a series of miscellaneous observations, in- 

 cluding the description of a lower jaw of Mastodon andiutn 

 from a Peruvian locality. The work should be invaluable 

 to Peruvian geologists and petrologists. 



A VERY important and interesting contribution to the 

 study of the venation of the wings of dragon-flies appears 

 in No. 133 1 of the Proceedings of the U.S. Nat. Museum, 

 illustrated by no less than twenty-four plates and many 

 text-figures. The author, Mr. J. G. Needham, treats the 

 subject from a phylogenetic point of view, and claims to 

 have discovered features in wing-development which will 

 be applicable to insects generally, as well as others affect- 

 ing the classification of dragon-flies. He finds, for ex- 

 ample, that the same type of wing, in accordance with the 

 needs of the mode of life, has been independently developed 

 in totally different sections of the group. This, of course, 

 largely affects the determination of fossil dragon-flies, which 

 have been to a great extent named on the evidence of the 

 wings, or portions of the same, and it is shown that in 

 several instances these determinations are wholly incorrect. 

 Libellulium kaupi, for instance, is probably not a dragon-fly 

 at all, while L. agrias belongs to the /Eschnidae, the details 

 of the specimen figured by Westwood being entirely different 

 to those characteristic of the Libellulidae. 



Visitors to the Natural History Museum will not fail 

 to notice a great improvement in the appearance and in- 

 structiveness of the exhibits in the reptile and fish galleries, 

 which were left at the death of Sir W. H. Flower in their 

 original condition. Until the director undertook the 

 rearrangement, the cases were crammed with a number 

 of faded and " khaki "-coloured specimens, unaccompanied 

 by any descriptive labels. The duplicate and superfluous 

 specimens have now, for the most part, been weeded out, 

 and those that are left placed so that they can be well seen 

 by visitors. In many instances old specimens have either 

 been replaced by new ones or have been painted up so as 

 to give them, so far as possible, some sort of resemblance 



NO. 1 75 1, VOL. 68] 



to the living animals ; and this process of replacement and 

 renovation is being actively continued. A large specimen 

 of a thunny which has been for many years in the museum 

 affords an excellent example of what can be done by judicious 

 painting. The splendid colouring of the Malay python is 

 displayed in a specimen presented by Mr. Rothschild, as well 

 as by a second example, on which an artist was still engaged 

 at the time when this was written. In the reptile gallery, 

 which is in the more forward condition, descriptive labels 

 have already been placed in several of the cases, in which 

 the specimens have been removed from the old hideous 

 sycamore stands and set on sanded ground-work. 



The fourth part of vol. Ixxiii. of the Zeitschrift fUr wissen- 

 schaftliche Zoologie is entirely occupied by the first part 

 of an exhaustive menio'r on the structure of the cell, the 

 author. Prof. E. Rohde, in this section devoting his atten- 

 tion to the nucleus and nucleolus. No less than nine 

 beautifully coloured plates (some of which are double) illus- 

 trate this section of the subject. To the first part of the 

 succeeding volume (Ixxiv.) Herr E. H. Zietzschmann con- 

 tributes an account of the morphology and histology of 

 the scent-glands which occur on the face and limbs of 

 different members of the deer family. Very full details are 

 given of the nature of these structures in the greater 

 number of the generic groups, and the existence of a small 

 metatarsal gland in the elk is confirmed. It is perhaps 

 a matter for regret that the author did not see his way 

 to express any opinion as to the existence of an homology 

 between the limb-glands of the deer and those of other 

 ungulates. The scent-gland of the centipede lulus com- 

 munis forms the subject of an article by Dr. G. Rosse in 

 the same fasciculus, which also contains papers on the sper- 

 matogenesis of Ccelenterata, and on the development of 

 Dolomedes. 



That our village ancestors were not devoid of artistic 

 sense is apparent from many old articles of furniture that 

 are bought up and treasured by the more wealthy classes. 

 In a paper on the decorative arts of our forefathers as 

 exemplified in a Southdown village in the Reliquary for 

 April, Mr. W. Heneage Legge has given some in- 

 teresting examples of beautiful objects still to be found in 

 a single village, but the trend of modern ideas is to induce 

 a dead monotony of machine-made shop goods. In the 

 same journal Mr. F. W. Galpin gives an illustrated account 

 of the Portland reeve staffs. These are notched quad- 

 rangular rods, by means of which the annually appointed 

 reeve, or steward, keeps his account of the rents due to 

 the King as Lord of the Manor. 



Marriage customs are generally interesting on account of 

 the often rude symbolism that accompanies them ; students 

 of this branch of ethnology will find many marriage customs 

 of various southern Indian tribes related by E. Thurston 

 in Bulletin vol. iv., No. 3, of the Madras Government 

 Museum. Ethnologists are fully aware of the value of 

 the Bulletins of this museum, and the current number con- 

 tains a mass of valuable material contributed by the 

 energetic director of the museum. A short account of fire- 

 walking in Ganjdm does not record any new feature. Our 

 schoolmasters are not likely to adopt any of the forty-two 

 kinds of punishment inflicted on naughty boys in native 

 schools. 



We have received the April number of the Journal of 

 Hygiene (vol. iii. No. 2). Several papers deal with pre- 

 ventive medicine, e.g. the significance of the presence of 

 the colon bacillus in ground waters, by Mr. Horton ; the 



