August 3, 19 16] 



NATURE 



469 



can judge of the differences between the various move- 

 ments in the water. This movement was like that of 

 a serpent." A. F. Robbert writes to Svenska Dag- 

 btadet (June 21) that last year he observed a similar 

 phenomenon due to sudden gusts of wind raising small 

 regular billows which interfered with the reflection of 

 the sun from the water and thus intensified the effect. 

 Had he not been possessed of a scientific training and 

 a critical spirit accustomed to observation, he would 

 certainly have regarded the phenomenon as produced 

 by a sea-serpent. 



The Brooklyn Museum Science Bulletin, vol. iii.. 

 No. 4, is devoted to the description of the sharks of 

 lx>ng Island. The authors, Messrs. J. T. Nichols and 

 R. C. Murphy, have brought together some valuable 

 information on this theme, in regard to the life- 

 histories of these fishes. In referring to the food 

 of- the blue shark, the " junior writer " remarks that 

 captured blue sharks, as well as certain other species, 

 have the power of everting the stomach, so that the 

 whole organ, turned inside out, trails a foot or more 

 from the mouth. Possibly, it is suggested, this denotes 

 a habit of ejecting indigestible material such as most 

 sharks frequently swallow. In regard to the strange 

 hammer-head shark, he remarks that its food includes 

 squids, barnacles, and crabs, as well as menhaden and 

 other fishes. But on one occasion, from an eleven-foot 

 specimen, many detached parts of a man, together 

 with his clothing, were taken. Outlines of the 

 several species described aod materially to the value 

 of this report. 



Dr. jAJkCES Ritchie's paper on a remarkable brackish- 

 water hydroid (Rec. Ind. Mus., xi., part vi.. No. 30) 

 is well worth the attention of students of the Hydrozoa. 

 The organism described, Annulella gemtnata by 

 name, comes from a brackish pond in Lov.-er Bengal. 

 It consists of solitary, naked polyps temporarily 

 attached by an adherent basal bulb which is sur- 

 rounded by perisarc embedded in a gelatinous secre- 

 tion. The usual mode of reproduction is by asexually 

 produced buds, which break away from the parent as 

 minute planulae. Dr. Nelson Annandale, who collected 

 the hydroid and studied it alive, believes that he saw 

 gonosomes borne in a circle round the hydranth and 

 breaking away as free medusae, but Dr. Ritchie finds 

 no trace of such an arrangement in the preserved 

 material. 



In the Journ. Agric. Research (vi.. No. 3) J. H. 

 Merrill and A. L. Ford describe two nematode worms 

 parasitic on insects. Both worms belong to the genus 

 Diplogaster, the host of one being the longhom 

 beetle, Saperda tridentata, of the other Leucotertnes 

 lucifugus. The life-histories of the nematodes are 

 described, and the termite-infecting species may be 

 deadly to its host. 



Under the title of "Staircase Farms of the 

 Ancients," Mr. O. F. Cook, in the National Geo- 

 graphic Magazine for May, gives a striking account 

 of the system of terrace cultivation and irrigation 

 carried out in Peru during the Inca period. The 

 writer, an accomplished botanist, remarks that, 

 Peru being the home of the potato, it may be re- 

 garded as the source from w-hich will be derived new 

 stocks to maintain the varieties of this great food 

 staple. Peru has many kinds of potatoes, superior 

 in quality to the varieties now under cultivation in 

 the United States, but most of them would not meet 

 with approval, because the tubers would be difficult 

 to peel on account of their irregular form and deep 

 eyes. But with such an infinity of new forms to draw 

 upon in South America, it should be possible by care- 



NO. 2440, VOL. 97] 



ful selection to combine all the desirable features. 

 Peru offers a specially important field for economic 

 botany, as many of the agricultural plants of this 

 region are still entirely unknown in other countries. 



"Pinus longifolia, a Sylvlcultural Study," by R. S. 

 Troup, is the latest issue in the series of Indian 

 Forest Memoirs (Calcutta, 1916). This pine is one 

 of the most useful trees in the Himalayas, where it 

 forms at low altitudes extensive gregarious forests, 

 which are accessible and easily worked, yielding a 

 timber of fair quality. The tapping of the tree for 

 resin and turpentine promises to develop into a con- 

 siderable industry, and the revenue from this source 

 in the Naini Tal division is now much greater than 

 that derived from timber and fuel. The memoir is 

 profusely illustrated, but lacks an index and also a 

 map of the distribution of the forests of this valu- 

 able tree. The botanical account is elaborate, and 

 errors in current text-books concerning the period of 

 shedding of the leaves and the time required by the 

 cones to ripen are corrected. This species is very 

 liable to " twisted fibre," which renders useless a con- 

 siderable percentage of the timber, as it cannot be 

 sawn into planks. The cause of this phenomenon, 

 which may be often obser\-ed in sweet chestnut grow- 

 ing near London, is obscure, but some evidence is 

 adduced to show that it may be attributed to damage 

 done during youth by fire or other injurious agency. 

 Full information is given concerning the natural and 

 artificial modes of regeneration and the best methods 

 of management of forests of this pine, as well as of 

 the ways by w-hich danger from fire and grazing can 

 be averted or lessened. Numerous tables relating to 

 rate of growth and yield f)er acre are appended. 



Dr. Erwin F. Smith, to whose researches we owe 

 so much of our knowledge of plant diseases, has ex- 

 pounded his views on the parasitic nature of cancer in 

 an address before the Washington Academy of Sciences 

 (Science, June 23). With refreshing vigour he claims 

 a close analogy- between the malignant tumours of 

 animals and the crown-gall of plants due to Bad. 

 tumefaciens. Great weight is laid on the peculiar 

 group of sarcomatous tumours of birds, discovered by 

 Peyton Rous, and shown by the latter to be due to an 

 ultra-microscopic virus, while the fact that the majority 

 of bird tumours have not been reproduced in the same 

 way is ignored. The paper on "Crown-Gall" in the 

 Journal of Cancer Research (vol. i.. No. 2, 1916) is a 

 monument to Dr. Smith's industry, and gives a very 

 complete picture of the varied effects of B. tumefaciens 

 in a variety of plants. The results of animal inocula- 

 tion with this organism are in no way comparable 

 with tumour growth, a failure which does not greatly 

 detract from the interest of the author's ingenious 

 speculation. 



Mr. R. Bullkn Newton has contributed to the 

 "Reports on the Collections made by the British 

 Ornithologists' Union Exf>edition to Dutch New 

 Guinea, 19 10-13," an important description of some 

 fossiliferous limestones from Mount Carstensz, widi 

 photographic illustrations of their microscopical struc- 

 ture. The limestones obtained from the snow-line at 

 14,200 ft. apfjear to be of Miocene age, and corre- 

 spond with limestones already known from the Philip- 

 pines, Formosa, Christmas Island, Sumatra. Borneo. 

 Celebes, and Australia. They are filled with Fora- 

 minifera of the genera Lepidocyclina, Cjcloclypeus, 

 and Amphistegina, besides abundant Nullipores of the 

 genus Lithothamnium. Pebbles from the bed of the 

 Utakwa River seem to represent another much older 

 limestone, perhaps of Lower Jurassic age. Fragmehts 

 of lignite of uncertain origin also occur. Mr. Newton 



