Marcu 19, 1914] 
NATURE 67 
shapeless mass, which sticks persistently to the point, 
and is with difficulty transferred to any other object. 
Mr. Hawkshaw suggests that this structure serves as 
a protection against ants, which are constantly seen 
to be searching the trees inhabited by the Lyonetia. 
An ant wishing to seize the cocoon would first have to 
wade through the loose, flattened web, which forms an 
outwork in the defence, and in this its legs would 
become hopelessly entangled. If the ant ventured 
further, its head and antennze would also become 
entangled, and would carry the whole away with it. 
The assailant would probably be quite unable to bring 
its biting apparatus to bear on the cocoon. A speci- 
men was exhibited lin illustration, in which the 
supporting strands and flanking webs were clearly 
seen. 
Tue list of the zoological gardens of the world drawn 
up by Capt. S. S. Flower, and apparently published 
at Cairo by the Egyptian Government, has been re- 
vised, and a new issue printed, bearing date January, 
1914. Inclusive of a few large private collections, 
such as that of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, 
the number of establishments of this nature known 
to the compiler is 166. 
AccORDING to an illustrated article by Dr. F. A. 
Lucas in the January number of the American Museum 
Journal, the late Mr. E. T. Booth, whose well-known 
collection of British birds is now the property of the 
Corporation of Brighton, has the best claim to be the 
founder of the plan of exhibiting in museums groups 
of animals mounted amid artificial imitations of their 
natural surroundings. He was followed by Mr. Mon- 
tagu Brown, then curator of the Leicester Museum, 
and soon after by the late Dr. R. B. Sharpe, in the 
Natural History Branch of the British Museum, where 
a group of coots formed the commencement of the 
splendid series of exhibits which is now the delight of 
visitors to the bird gallery. The rise and progress of 
the practice—especially in America—are fully described 
in the article, of which a continuation is promised. 
PAPERS on various groups of insects from the 
Philippines and Japan form the greater part of 
vol. viii., No. 4, of Section D of the Philippine 
Journal of Science. In one of these, dealing with 
Japanese termites, Mr. Masamitsu Oshima _ reproves 
Mr. N. Holmgren for having given new specific names 
to certain members of that group, previously named 
by himself in Japanese. Whether technical names 
proposed in languages unfamiliar in western Europe 
should be accepted may, perhaps, be open to argu- 
ment, although it would be somewhat difficult to 
decide where to draw the line. In papers written in 
Russian the names of new species and genera are 
frequently printed in English characters, which at least 
renders them legible by zoologists of other nationali- 
ties. If this was not done in the case of the Japanese 
papers, the argument for the rejection. of the names 
is strengthened. The names proposed, both by 
Oshima and Holmgren, were published in 1912, but 
only the latter appear in the Zoological Record for 
that year, although some of Oshima’s publications are 
quoted in the volumes for r909 and rort. 
NOI23 10, VOL..93)| 
In an article in The Indian Forester, December, 
1913, p. 568, Mr. H.: M. Glover directs attention to 
the difficulty of protecting the forests of Pinus longi- 
folia in the Panjab from disastrous fires. The accu- 
mulation in a few years of fallen needles, dead wood, 
and old grass render such forests very inflammable; 
and the fires which are inevitable, owing to the care- 
lessness of the natives, are very fierce, and cause much 
damage. Mr. Glover advocates, as the result of 
numerous experiments, the running of a slow fire over 
limited areas in these forests during winter, when the 
soil covering is much less inflammable than in the 
hot weather. Such fires do no harm to pines more 
than 6 in. in diameter, as stems of this size are 
covered with a protective thick bark. This method 
has proved very efficacious, the artificial firing being 
done during December, January, and February, over 
areas well under control, from which young growth 
is absent. Burnt-over sections can be artificially 
seeded, as seedlings come up in profusion when the 
refuse has been destroyed. 
As a supplement to the paper on the monthly and 
annual rainfall normals at Indian stations (NATURE, 
June 26, 1913), the director-general of observatories 
has recently published a volume containing averages of 
the monthly and annual number of rainy days at all 
stations where records for at least five years are avail- 
able. For some purposes this summary is perhaps 
even more valuable than the previous one, as it shows 
whether the monthly amounts were distributed over 
several days instead of possibly being due to torrential 
downpours. In the absence of any discussion of the 
normals it may be interesting to quote the average 
annual number of rain-days referring to some of the 
extreme values at stations quoted in the issue of 
NatuRE above-mentioned :—Cherrapunji (Assam), 
159:1; Malcompeth (Bombay), 122-3; Launglon 
(Burma), 145-6; Rujanpur (Panjab), 7-7; Rohri (Bom- 
bay), 6:3; Jhatput (Baluchistan), 6-1. The definition 
given of a rainy day is one on which o-1 in. or more 
rain is recorded. This differs materially from the 
definition for a rainy day in this country, viz., o-o1 in. 
or more. 
THE January number of Le Radium, which reached 
us at the beginning of the present month, contains a 
valuable collection of tables of radio-active constants 
brought up to date by M. L. Kolowrat. It is proposed ; 
to publish the table annually in order to keep readers 
supplied with the most trustworthy data. References 
to the original authorities are given, and the tables 
are accompanied by a few pages of explanations and 
remarks. 
Part 2 of the Verhandlungen of the German 
Physical Society for 1914 contains a communication 
from Dr. G. Wiedmann and Prof. W. Hallwachs, of 
the Technical High School, Dresden, on the part 
played by the surrounding or absorbed gas in the pro- 
duction of the photo-electric effects exhibited by metals. 
Although the observations of Prof. Hallwachs and his 
pupils have all tended to show that the gas plays an 
essential part in the phenomenon, the idea that the 
| photo-electric process is due to the metal only seems 
