142 
Chandler enunciates a law that as the distributional 
area of any given group of animals increases, the 
number of species increases in proportion to the 
genera, that of genera to the families, and so on. 
The theoretical explanation of this law involves the 
consideration of problems relating to’ evolution and 
species-development. 
THREE important additrons to the Natural History 
Branch of the British Museum are recorded in the 
March number of the Museums Journal, namely, a 
series of more than goo zeolites collected and pre- 
sented by Mr. F. N. A. Fleischmann, a. collection of 
800 specimens of plants made in the Eket district of 
Southern Nigeria by Mr. and Mrs. P. A. Talbot, by 
whom they were presented, together with descriptions 
and coloured sketches, and, lastly, a collection of more 
than 10,000 specimens of Hymenoptera (including 1500 
types), brought together by the late Mr. P. Cameron, 
and purchased from his. executors. 
THE most interesting feature in the March number 
of the New York Zoological Society’s Bulletin is Mr. 
Townsend’s account of the capture and transport of 
the bottle-nosed dolphins, or porpoises (Tursiops 
tursio) in the New York Aquarium. There is a regu- 
lar fishery of these cetaceans at Cape Hatteras, N. 
Carolina, and in November last a small ‘‘school”’ of 
them was captured and dispatched to New York in 
special water-tanks. Nine reached their destination 
in safety, and of these five were alive and in excellent 
health at the time the article was written. They are 
kept in a salt-water pond of 37 ft. in diameter by 
about 7 ft. in depth, and constitute a unique and 
highly attractive exhibit. 
AMPHIBIANS and reptiles loom large in the March 
number of Douglas English’s Wild Life, Mr. E. G. 
Boulenger communicating an exquisitely illustrated 
article on some of the well-known species of European 
toads, while in a second he figures the first living 
example of the saddle-backed giant tortoise (Testudo 
abingdoni), of Abingdon Island, Galapagos group, 
received alive in this country. In a note regarding 
other giant species the author mentions that about 
1760 no fewer than 25,000 of these chelonians were 
exported from Rodriguez to Mauritius for food in a 
single year. Little wonder that the species of the 
former island soon became exterminated. In connec- 
tion with giant tortoises, it may be mentioned ‘that 
remains of an extinct species from the Pleistocene of 
Minorca are described by Miss Bate in the March 
number of the Geological Magazine. 
NEW serial, of the first number of which we have 
received a copy, has been started at Buitenzorg, under 
the editorship of Dr. J. C. Koningsberger, and pub- 
lished by the Department of Agriculture, Industry, 
and Commerce, with the title of ‘‘Contributions A la 
Faune des Indes Néerlandaises.” It is specially in- 
tended for papers. emanating: from the Zoological 
Museum and Laboratory of Buitenzorg, and the Bio- 
logical Station at Batavia, which have hitherto 
appeared in another local publication. The new issue 
appears, however, as a section of the well-known 
NO. 2319, VOL. 93] 
NATURE 
[APRIL 9, I914 
“’s Lands Plantentuin,’” dating from 1817. Its con- 
tents include an article by Dr. C. P. Sluiter on holo- 
thurians collected by Mr. P. N. van Kampen in the 
Malay Archipelago, and a list of chelonians from the 
Dutch East Indies in the Buitenzorg Museum. 
IN a recent number of the Memorias do Instituto 
Oswaldo Cruz (vol. v., part 2), a memoir, illustrated 
by beautiful coloured plates, is published by Drs. 
Aragao and Vianna on the disease known as Granu- 
loma venereum. The authors deny that a treponeme 
is the cause of the disease, which is quite distinct from 
syphilis. They associate the disease with a peculiar 
bacterium occurring in the cells of the granulomatous 
tissue. The most striking characteristic of this 
organism is the possession of a peculiar capsule, for 
which reason they propose to put it in a distinct genus, 
Kalymmabacterium (or Calymmatobacterium; the 
name is spelt in both these ways in the same para- 
graph). The authors have obtained very remarkable 
success in the treatment of this disease with injections 
of tartar-emetic; they state that this treatment has 
effected a complete cure in every case treated by them, 
and the photographs given of cases before and after 
treatment are quite astounding. Full descriptions are 
given of a number of cases and of the progress of the 
treatment. Incidentally, it is mentioned that injec- 
tions of tartar emetic have been found most efficacious 
in the treatment of leishmanioses in Brazil. 
Tue Carnegie Institution of Washington has pub- 
lished together a paper by Prof. W. E. Castle, 
‘Reversion in Guinea-pigs and its Explanation,’’ and 
one by C. C. Little, ‘‘Experimental Studies of the 
Inheritance of Color in Mice” (Publication No. 179, 
issued September, 1913). Prof. Castle shows that 
some red guinea-pigs when mated with black give 
blacks, black being dominant, but that other appar- 
ently similar reds when mated with blacks give agouti. 
A series of breeding experiments proves that the cause 
of the difference is that some reds contain a factor 
which brings about. striping in the hair. It has no 
effect in the red, from which black pigment is absent, 
but black, in the presence of the striping. factor, 
becomes agouti. Mr. Little’s paper adds some new 
and probably valuable ideas to the already extensive 
literature of coat-colour in mice. He points out that 
yellow, brown, and black pigment are produced by 
three successive stages of oxidation of a chromogen. 
He suggests that. albinos lack the factor Y (yellow) 
which produces the first stage, and that the higher 
factors Br (brown) and B (black) are then unable to 
act. Brown is produced by the presence of Y and 
Br, black by Y, Br, and B. Yellow, which in all 
the cases he has used is dominant to other colours, 
is caused by a factor inhibiting the action of Br and 
B. There are in addition two classes of ‘‘ distribu- 
tive’ factors.” One of these causes full development 
of pigment; its absence causes dilute colour. Another 
is necessary for full development of Br and B; in its 
absence the mice are pink-eyed with pale-coloured 
hair. Both these factors are somewhat variable in 
intensity. The other pair of distributive factors are 
that for the agouti barring of the hair, and that which 
more or less completely inhibits Br and B, giving 
