APRIL 23, 1914] 
in the definition of that group. It is ‘distinguished 
by the combination of characters afforded by the un- 
jointed antennal scale, the short entire quadrangular 
telson, and the form of the pleopods in the male.” 
AN important contribution to our knowledge of the 
zoology of the Austro-Malay Archipelago is made by 
the appearance in vol. xix. of Bijdragen Tot de Dier- 
kunde of the full scientific results of Dr. L. F. de 
Beaufort’s journey in that region during the years 
1909 and 1910. As we learn from the introduction, 
by Dr. de Beaufort, the main object of the expedition 
was to collect the fresh-water fauna of Buru, Ceram, 
Waigeu, and other islands, and thus complete, so far 
as possible, the work initiated by Prof. Max Weber, 
who was the first to collect systematically the fishes 
and other members of the fresh-water fauna of 
Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and other Sunda islands. 
But collecting, although not indiscriminate, was by 
no means restricted to the rivers and lakes, as may 
be seen by reference to the list of contents, which 
comprises ten articles by specialists, including one, 
with a coloured plate, on the fishes by Dr. de Beaufort, 
with remarks on the zoogeography of the region. 
Tue aforesaid article by Dr. de Beaufort on the 
fishes of the eastern islands of the Austro-Malay 
Archipelago is supplemented by one in the same 
fasciculus on those of Celebes by Prof. Max Weber. 
This issue also contains the results of Dr. C. Kerbert’s 
study of the various local forms of long-beaked 
echidnas of the genus Zaglossus (Proéchidna), to 
which reference has been made previously in NATURE. 
It is illustrated by a plate showing the marvellous 
similarity between the walking pose of these strange 
beasts and that of a giant land-tortoise. 
At the price of one penny, the London County 
Council has issued ‘‘A Handbook to the Collections 
Illustrating a Survey of the Animal Kingdom,” in the 
Horniman Museum and Library, Forest Hill. 
Although the text conveys a large amount of informa- 
tion, it would have been better suited to its purpose 
if a larger use had been made of the vernacular and 
fewer technicalities employed. It would also have 
been well to avoid the misstatement (p. 58) that the 
lower teeth of a dog are equal in number to the 
upper; whilst the merest tyro in natural history ought 
to be aware that Sibbald’s fin-whale (p. 71) does not 
belong to the same genus as the Greenland whale. 
It is, moreover, unnecessary to add to the brain- 
worry of students by introducing so-called orders, like 
Ancylopoda (p. 65), which have long 
abolished. 
since been 
Tue Bulletin Hydrographique of the International 
Council for the Study of the Sea for the year July, 
Igt1, to June, 1912, records the hydrographical ob- 
servations carried out in the North Sea and adjacent 
waters during the period named. The observations 
do not appear to have been carried out upon as exten- 
sive a scale as in former years, and a chart of surface 
salinities for the North Sea is only provided for one 
month, viz., May, 1912. The mean surface tempera- 
tures are more fully shown in a series of charts which 
N@22321, VOL. (93 
NATURE 
ney 
give the surface isotherms for periods of ten days, 
three charts being given for each month. A number 
of sections showing the conditions in the North Sea 
below the surface are also provided, based chiefly on 
Scottish and English work. The Finnish and Danish 
investigators contribute the results of numerous gas 
analyses of sea-water, the measurements given refer- 
ring to the amounts of oxygen present at different 
depths at certain stations in the Gulf of Finland, in 
the Belts and Kattegat, and at the Faroes. 
Tue fauna of the great Ringk bing Fjord, on the 
west coast of Jutland, in the neighbourhood of Holms- 
land, forms the subject of an elaborate memoir by 
Dr. A. C. Johansen, published at Copenhagen in the 
volume entitled ‘‘ Mindeskrift for Japetus Steenstrup,” 
1913. The subject has been treated by several previous 
writers, notably by Rambusch, in his ‘“Studier over 
Ringk@bing Fjord,’’ published in 1900, while a large 
amount of literature relating to the fisheries has 
appeared. Of all these sources of information the 
author has availed himself to the full, especial interest 
attaching to the physical changes recorded as having 
taken place between the middle of the seventeenth and 
the middle of the nineteenth century. 
AN important study in European geography was 
contributed to the Bulletin international de l’ Académie 
des Sciences de Cracovie during 1912 by L. Sawicki, 
entitled ‘‘ Beitrage zur Morphologie Siebenburgens.” 
The explanatory method is followed, and a broad view 
may be gained of the changes that have taken place 
in the eastern Carpathian mass since the coastal plain 
of the Pontian sea was uplifted and a consequent 
system of westward-running rivers was established on 
its slope. This system was greatly interfered with by 
volcanic outpourings ana cone-building in the Hargitta 
region, and the present young gorges of the Maros 
and the Alt are due to the escape of water that was 
ponded back in a series ot lakes, and thus kept for a 
time from flowing westward. The same author 
describes glacial landscapes in the Westbeskiden, 
where the somewhat feeble local ice has left more 
evidence in the way of cirques and moraine-barriers 
than has previously been observed. 
Tue ninth paper by Dr. E. van Rijckevorsel on the 
periodicity of secondary maxima and minima in 
meteorological phenomena appears in No. 16 of the 
Mededeelingen en Verhandelingen of the Royal 
Meteorological Institute of the Netherlands. As any 
subsequent papers on this subject will be continued in 
the same publication, a brief statement of some of the 
results hitherto arrived at is given in the present 
number. In the yearly march of temperature certain 
small maxima were found about every ten or eleven 
days, which were constant in time and space. These 
zigzag curves (‘‘Zacken’’) were also shown to exist 
for air-pressure, rainfall, etc., with important modifi- 
cations relating to the occurrence of maxima and 
minima in different seasons. The author assumes that 
these zigzags are only special cases in a whole series 
of small periodical variations, and he has undertaken 
the laborious task of investigating these variations 
in detail. 
