146 



NATURE 



[April 13, 19 16 



on the part of the chief scientific and technical 

 societies, and the time seems ripe for a similar 

 movement towards co-operation between the research 

 staffs of the chief colleges and technical institutions. 



Miss Margaret Murray contributes a very interest- 

 ing paper to vol, xlv. of the Journal of the Royal 

 Anthropological Institute, under the title of " Royal 

 Marriages and Matrilineal Descent." She begins by 

 quoting the well-known case of matrilineal descent in 

 the kingdom of Travancore, and then proceeds to 

 show that the same law prevailed under the Old and 

 New Egyptian kingdoms, in the Ptolemaic period, 

 and among the Hebrews in the time of David and 

 of Solomon, the latter being reported by tradition to 

 have gained possession of the kingdom of Sheba by 

 marrying its Queen. She reaches more unfamiliar 

 ground when she seeks to apply the same principle 

 to the succession of the Roman Emperors. Not that 

 indications of the same rule are wanting. Thus it 

 is significant that Julius Caesar, free to adopt whom 

 he pleased, should have followed the same law of 

 matrilineal descent by adopting Augustus, while some- 

 thing of the same kind may be gathered from the 

 marriages of Octavia and Julia. So Caligula, son of 

 Agripplna, succeeds Tiberius, who naturally wished 

 his own son to succeed him, and there Is some reason 

 to believe that the circumstances surrounding the 

 death of Messalina are only explicable by the custom 

 of female inheritance and succession by right of mar- 

 riage with the heiress. All this Is very cleverly worked 

 out, but the facts are not quite conclusive, and a 

 further examination of the royal genealogies, so far 

 as they can now be recovered, is needed before the 

 theory can be fully established. 



The Psychological Bulletin (vol. xIII., No. 2) re- 

 ports the papers given at the meeting of the American 

 Psychological Association. The range of subjects 

 treated is very wide, and the detailed Investigations 

 are of considerable interest. M. F. Meyer describes a 

 rare case of colour-blindness. It Is customary to 

 recognise two groups of two antagonistic colours each, 

 red-green and blue-j'ellow, and writers on the subject 

 give details of the corresp>ondlng forms of colour-blind- 

 ness, in addition to total colour-blindness. The author 

 of the article before us describes a case of a somewhat 

 unique kind, the subject regarding blue and green as 

 one colour, and red and yellow as another. For him 

 the division point in the spectrum occurs in the 

 yellowish-green region : on one side everything is one 

 colour, which he calls indiscriminately either green or 

 blue ; on the other side everything Is another colour, 

 which he calls indifferently red or yellow. He has no 

 need for the four names. The author suggests that at 

 a time when only two chromas existed, Nature vacil- 

 lated between one type of animals having the dividing 

 point in the spectrum In the (normally) bluish-green 

 region, and a second type having the dividing point 

 in the yellowish-green region ; ordinarily the former 

 type has prevailed, but there is still a trace of the 

 latter. 



We have just received the report on Cetacea 

 stranded on the British coasts during 1915. This is 

 the third of its kind issued by the trustees of the 

 British Museum, and prepared by Dr. S. F. Harmer, 

 F.R.S., the keeper of the Zoological Department. 

 Each of these reports not only adds to the value of its 

 predecessor, but also emphasises the importance of 

 this attempt to determine the precise character of the 

 Cetacean fauna of our seas, and its seasonal migra- 

 tions. Already it is clear that species hitherto supposed 

 to be but rare and accidental visitors may prove to 



NO. 2424, VOL. 97] 



be, at any rate, annual visitors to our shores. This 

 seems to be true, for example, of Cuvier's whale 

 {Ziphius cavirostris), which, as Dr. Harmer has 

 demonstrated, may easily be confused with the bottle- 

 nosed whale (Hyperoodon), at any rate in the case of 

 Immature specimens. One of the two specimens re- 

 cently acquired by the museum was at any rate thus 

 mistaken. From the evidence in this report it would 

 seem that Mesoplodon is represented in our seas by two, 

 and perhaps three, species. Thus from a faunistic, as 

 well as from an economic, point of view It Is plain 

 that the task which Dr. Harmer has set himself is 

 one of extreme importance. 



The Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural 

 History Society (vol. v.. No. 9) contains a paper by 

 Mr. C. VV. Hoblev on the alleged desiccation of East 

 Africa, which will be read with Interest by anthropo- 

 logists, as well as by those for whom It is more 

 especially written. The author remarks that between 

 KIsmayu and Port Durnford there are said to be sixty 

 miles of coast full of ruins, and, again, north of Port 

 Durnford, there are innumerable ruins of stone build- 

 ings. No record remains of the builders, but they 

 are commonly supposed to have been early Persian 

 settlers. But the settlements seem to have been 

 formed since the establishment of the Mahommedan 

 religion, for there are numerous remains of well- 

 built stone mosques, and myriads of stone graves of 

 the Moslem type. The author is inclined to believe 

 that they may date back to as far as Himyarltic 

 times. In the Somali hinterland, in Juba-land, there 

 are large numbers of artificial mounds, many as much 

 as 30 ft. high, which are believed to be the funeral 

 mounds of an extinct race. At the earliest opportunity 

 these mounds should be explored. 



The Journal of the Franklin Institute for February 

 contains a useful survey of what is known In regard 

 to the production of light by animals. This survey, 

 which began with the January issue, and is not yet 

 completed, is devoted to the coelenterates. Herein 

 the phosphorescent discharge takes the form of 

 granules mixed with mucin secreted by special cells 

 of the epithelium. The discharged matter — luciferlne 

 — becomes luminous on coming into contact with the 

 free oxygen contained In the sea-water. The author, 

 Prof. U. Dahlgren, of Princeton University, cites a 

 number of experiments made to determine the nature 

 of the stimuli which produce luminescence, and these 

 all show that light production is at its best at the 

 optimum temperature at which the animals usually 

 live. The eggs of ctenophores have often been said 

 to emit light, but the author is unable to confirm this 

 statement. The early segmentation stages, however, 

 develop luminosity, and this increases in Intensity 

 from the gastrula stage onwards. Among the echino- 

 derma, which, with the MoUusca, are reviewed in the 

 March issue, luminescence has been demonstrated only 

 in the "brittle-stars," or Ophiurids. It is exceedingly 

 rare among the Mollusca. The author discusses at^ 

 some length the well-known case of the pelagic Phyl-j 

 llrrhoe, and the remarkable instance of Pholas dac- 

 tylus, which, though always buried, yet has large 

 areas of the body provided with luminous glands. 

 The light from these shines brightly when the animal 

 Is removed from its shell, but during life is mani- 

 fested only by means of a mucous slime, discharged 

 from the exhalant siphon, which alone is exposed to 

 the outer world. k 



An extensive ecological study of the fauna of prairie 

 and forest regions near Charleston, Illinois, has 



