44 



NATURE 



[March 9, 1916 



Hogarth have promised to assist in the proposed edition 

 of Strabo, and it may be hoped that after the close 

 of the war the Hellenic Society will be in a iX)sition 

 to undertake this important work, which will be of 

 the highest value to historians and geographers. 



A VERY acceptable addition to our knowledge of the 

 nesting habits of the Australian mistletoe-bird 

 {Dicaetim himndinaceum), by Messrs. S. A. Lawrence 

 and R. T. Littlejohn, appears in the Emu for January, 

 rhe authors were so fortunate as to be able to study 

 the final stages of the building of the nest, and later 

 to obtain photographs, both of the parents and nest- 

 lings. The former displayed extraordinary confidence, 

 allowing the nestlings to be removed from the nest 

 and feeding them on the hand of one of the photo- 

 graphers. The tameness of these birds enabled the 

 authors to watch closely the peculiar method employed 

 by them in extracting the seeds of Loranthus berries, 

 which constituted a large portion of the food of the 

 young, insects completing the dietary. The same 

 number also contains some valuable notes by Mr. 

 Charles Barrett on the spotted bower bird, with a 

 photograph of its remarkable bower, or playing 

 ground. This most interesting bird is unfortunately 

 incurring the resentment of the fruit-growers on 

 account of the damage it is said to inflict on the 

 orchards, a. charge, however, which does not seem to 

 have been established. 



In the January number of that admirable journal, 

 California Fish and Game, it is announced that an 

 attempt is to be made to interest the fish-dealers of 

 San Francisco in a project for the production of 

 caviare from the roes of salmon and shad. M. CotofT, 

 a Russian expert, is the moving spirit in this project, 

 which, it is to be hoped, will meet with success, since 

 about half a million pounds of salmon roe from the 

 canning stations in San Francisco are thrown away 

 annually. It is claimed that caviare thus made will 

 exceed in quality the imported caviare made from the 

 sturgeon. The same number contains a lucid account 

 of experiments which have been made recently to test 

 the effect of strychnine sulphate on the California 

 Valley quail. Barley soaked in this poison is now 

 used to eradicate the ground squirrels, and hence it 

 was feared the quail might be involved in their de- 

 struction. Experiments have shown, however, that 

 the squirrels are very susceptible to strychnine, while 

 the quail, under natural conditions, may consume rela- 

 tively large amounts of this poison without hurt. 

 This conclusion has been arrived at in consequence 

 of a series of experiments on a number of captive 

 quail. In one case 280 grains of barley containing 

 no fewer than 40 milligrams of strychnine were in- 

 gested, and yet without any toxic symptoms, while, in 

 a squirrel, 19 grains of barley containing as little as 

 27 milligrams of poison sufficed to p,roduce convulsions 

 and death within ten minutes. The grain in this case 

 was not swallowed, but merely taken into the buccal 

 pouches, where the poison was absorbed through the 

 mucous membrane of the pouch. The maximum dose 

 of poison taken by a squirrel was 57 milligrams taken 

 up with 40 grains of barley, death taking place within 

 an hour. 



NO. 2419, VOL. 97] 



Symons's Meteorological Magazine for February in- 

 augurates the commencement of the second half- 

 century of its issue. A tentative summary of the rain- 

 fall over the British Isles for January shows that the 

 general rainfall for England and Wales was 89 per 

 cent, of the average, that for Scotland was 147 per 

 cent., for Ireland 86 i>er cent., and for the British Isles 

 as a whole 109 per cent. An article on "The Mildness 

 of January, 1916, in London," presumably from the 

 observations at Camden Square, shows the month 

 to have been unique for its temperatures com- 

 pared with the observations from 1858 to the present 

 time. The mean temperature for the month was 45-7°, 

 which is 72° above the average, and exceeds by 18° 

 the next highest value, 43-9°, which occurred in 1884, 

 A discussion by Mr. H. A. Hunt, Commonwealth 

 Meteorologist, on the "Temperature Departures in 

 Australia, 1915," exhibits the remarkably warm winter 

 and greater part of the year 1915, the excess of tem- 

 perature in June and July being more than 5° over 

 Central Australia. The article is illustrated by a 

 series of temperature charts embracing the whole of 

 Australia. 



The series of articles on the " Economic Resources 

 of the German Colonies " in the Bulletin of the Impe- 

 rial Institute is concluded in the current number 

 (vol. xiii.. No. 4) with an article on Germany's recent 

 possessions in the Pacific. The large amount of zinc 

 required for war purposes and the resulting increased 

 demand lend special interest to an article on the 

 sources of the metal within the British Empire. 

 By far the most important zinc deposits in the Empire 

 are those of the Broken Hill Mines, New South 

 Wales, the output of which alone is sufficient to supply 

 the entire demands of the United Kingdom. The 

 Broken Hill ore before the war went mainly to Ger- 

 many for smelting, but the Australian Government 

 has adopted measures which will prevent this in the 

 future. The issue also contains useful reports based 

 on the work done at the Imperial Institute on Indian 

 opium, tobacco from Cyprus, copra from Queensland, 

 cocoa from Nigeria, piassava from British West Africa, 

 and asbestos from South Africa. 



The January number of the Journal of the British 

 Science Guild contains a^ number of articles dealing 

 with organisation and education and with the applica- 

 tion of science to warfare. A letter written by the 

 president. Sir William Mather, to the Prime Minister 

 in July last, dealing with the application of the scien- 

 tific resources of the countr}- to the prosecution of the 

 war, is printed in full. Of particular Interest to 

 opticians and glass manufacturers are the specifica- 

 tions of three types of microscopes and a list of educa- 

 tional institutions which have undertaken to use only 

 British-made chemical glass apparatus during the war 

 and for a period of three years after. Dr. H. S. 

 Willson contributes an article on organisation and 

 education. The part played by science in war is dealt 

 with by "Anagapa." Prof. R. A. Gregory contributes 

 a timely article on the introduction of the metric 

 system. Experience of the past eighteen years has 

 shown that permissive legislation is not of much prac- 

 tical effect. The Weights and Measures Act of 1897 

 rendered it lawful to use the metric svstem in this 



