220 
many planters’ associations, commercial museums, 
chambers of commerce, Colonial societies, and similar 
bodies in this country and abroad has also been 
secured, and it is already known that at least forty 
countries will be represented -at the congress, ranging 
from our nearest neighbour France, to such remote 
places as Formosa, Hawaii, and Papua. A notable 
feature of the congress will be the organised discus- 
sions on certain questions of outstanding importance 
to tropical agriculture. Four of these have been 
arranged, viz., technical education in tropical agricul- 
ture; the organisation of tropical agricultural depart- 
ments in relation to research work; the defects. of 
plantation rubber and the means of avoiding them; 
and problems of cotton cultivation. The fact that the 
British Cotton Growing: Association, the International 
Federation of Cotton Spinners, the Egyptian, Indian, 
Nyasaland, Uganda, and Nigerian Government De- 
partments of Agriculture, and the German Colonial 
Economic Committee have each deputed officials to 
contribute papers in the discussion on problems of 
cotton cultivation, indicates the success attained by 
the organising committee fcr the congress in securing 
competent exponents of different points of view on 
these questions. Full particulars of these and other 
arrangements for the congress are given in the pre- 
liminary general circular and the members’ circular, 
copies of which can be obtained on application to the 
congress secretaries (Dr. T. A. Henry and Mr. Harold 
Brown) at the Imperial Institute, London, S.W. 
In the second part of Ancient Egypt Prof. Flinders 
Petrie, the editor, discusses the question of so-called 
“mummy wheat.’’ At Hawara in the Fayum he dis- 
covered a large store of corn of the Roman period, 
some of which was sown, but failed to germinate. 
The ““mummy wheat” legend is based on various 
accidents: some dealers in Thebes sell little pots of 
ordinary corn to tourists; Sir Joseph Hooker noticed 
accidental admixture of fresh raspberry seeds with 
some found in the Laurion Mine; there is, lastly, the 
desire of the gardener to make the experiment success- 
ful. Doubtless from time to time the story of the 
germination of ‘‘mummy wheat’ will be told, and 
only credulous people will continue to believe it. 
In the Museum Journal of the University of Penn- 
sylvania for December last Dr. Edith H. Hall de- 
scribes a fine collection of ancient glass, recently 
increased by numerous specimens from graves in 
Palestine and Italy. It includes fine examples of the 
primitive type, in which the decoration was achieved 
by laying threads of variously coloured glass over the 
surface of the vase while it was still hot, and then 
rolling the whole upon a smooth stone until the 
threads were pressed in. Besides these there is a 
good series of Roman mosaic glass, of which the 
best are the millifiori bowls, so called by the Venetians 
who valued them highly. The rapid increase of the 
art collections in this museum, due to the wise ex- 
penditure of its income and the munificence of 
American citizens, is noteworthy, 
A LARGE portion of the April number of the Irish 
Naturalist is devoted to a memoir, with portrait, of 
NO; 2322) VOL, .03|| 
NATURE 
[APRIL 30, 1914 
the late Major G..E. H. Barrett-Hamilton, by Mr. 
CB. Moffat. » & {4 
To the first part of vol. xxxvi. of Notes from the 
Leyden Museum, Dr..J. H. Vernhout contributes an 
) article on the land and fresh-water molluscs of Suri- 
nam, or Dutch Guiana, a subject which has hitherto 
received but scant attention at the hands of naturalists, 
the only complete list being one published by van 
Martens in 1873. Many new species are described in 
the part now issued. 
At, the conclusion of an article in the April number 
of. the American Naturalist, by Dr. A. F. Shull, on 
the biology .of the Thysanoptera (thrips, etc.), it is 
stated. that Anaphothrips striatus, hitherto known 
almost exclusively by females, recently produced about 
25 per cent. of males at Douglas Lake. This sug- 
gests that the theory of an alternating life-cycle in 
this and certain other members of the group, which 
was at one time formulated but subsequently rejected, 
may have some measure of justification. 
In the February number of the American Museum 
Journal Dr. F. A. Lucas concludes his account of 
groups of animals in museums, with reproductions 
from photographs of a large number of the most 
striking examples selected from various American 
museums. Among these, the great albatross colony 
on Laysan Island in the State University of Iowa and 
the scene illustrating North American mammalian life 
in the museum of Kansas University are perhaps the 
most wonderful. Nothing approaching them is to be 
seen in any English museum. 
THE thorough and exhaustive manner in which the 
German Government explores its colonial possessions 
in Africa is well exemplified by Ergdnzungsheft, 
No. 9a, of Mitteilungen aus den Deutschen Schutz- 
gebieten, which is devoted to the topographical results 
of several exploring expeditions in the southern and 
eastern Cameruns, as well as of one in Togo. Mem- 
bers of the various exploring parties have contributed 
their own notes, well illustrated with photographs of 
scenery, these notes including remarks on the anthro- 
pology, zoology, and botany of the districts traversed. 
WirH the view of improving the Zoological Gardens 
under his care at Giza, Egypt, Captain Stanley Flower 
made a tour of inspection of the establishments of a 
similar or kindred nature in India during 1913, the 
results of which are published, with a number of 
interesting illustrations, in a Report on a Zoological 
Mission to India, issued by the Ministry of Public 
Works, Egypt, as No. 26 of the Zoological Service 
Publications. The author observes that in every 
zoological garden visited in India there were features 
of interest, and in each there were new facts of 
menagerie-technique to be learnt. The gardens at 
Calcutta were notable for the extent of the collection, 
those at Trivandrum for the scientific method on 
which they are arranged, and those at Peshawar for 
the splendid condition of the animals. 
OpriMIsM pervades the report of the council of the 
Zoological Society for 1913, the total number of fel- 
lows and the income from their subscriptions continu- 
