462 
NATURE 
[JULY 2, 1914 
good, and the list of additions large. Among the 
latter are a number of specimens of Indian and African 
big game, inclusive of a proportion on loan. Nature- 
study exhibitions formed a feature of the year’s work. 
In the report of the council of the Natural History 
Society of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne, for 1904-10, published in vol. iv., part 1, 
of.the new series of Transactions, attention is directed 
to the serious falling off in the number of members, 
which at that date was only 395. Had it not been 
for the Crawhall bequest of 6000l., the position of the 
society would have been serious, and the maintenance, 
to say nothiag of the improvement, of the museum 
jeopardised. 
Various hls of interesting ‘‘animals”’ and birds 
in the Zoological Gardens form the subject of an illus- 
trated article in the July number of the Children’s 
Magazine, issued by the publishers of the ‘ Children’s 
Encyclopedia.”” Most striking of all is a photograph 
of the long-beaked echidna of New Guinea, despite 
the circumstance that the creature is referred to 
merely as the ‘‘egg-laying echidna,” without regard 
to the fact that it represents a genus apart from the 
ordinary echidna, and also that it is alluded to “‘as a 
link with the ancient 1eptiles before the mammals 
” 
came. 
AccorDING to the Annual Report on Sea-Fisheries, 
issued, in two parts, on June 19, the value of the catch 
landed in England. and. Wales during 1913 was no 
less than 10,337,000l., an increase of considerably more 
than a million over that of the previous year, which 
was the highest on record. Exclusive of “ shell-fish,’’ 
the weight of the food thus gathered amounted to 
something like 16,000,000 cwt., a very considerable 
proportion of the increase over 1912 being due to the 
prodigious take of herrings. A portion of this 
immense food-supply was diverted from the British 
Isles to go to foreign—mainly Dutch—ports, where a 
brisk and increasing trade in this commodity has 
sprung up of late years. 
ALBEIT reported to be somewhat unwholesome, hilsa 
(Clupea ilisha) is by far the most succulent and tasty 
native fish served, during the rainy season, at Cal- 
cutta tables. With a view of increasing the supply, 
attempts at artificial propagation of the species were 
made in Bihar in the autumn of 1911 and 1g12, when 
the fish are ascending the big rivers. These, however, 
according to a report by Mr. T. Southwell in a recent 
issue of the Bihar Agricultural Journal, proved un- 
successful, partly owing to the lack of ripe fish, and 
partly to the fact that the natural breeding places have 
not yet-been discovered. Other attempts, on the lines 
of the shad-hatcheries in the United States, are to be 
attempted. 
Mr. J. H. Orton, one of the naturalists of the 
Marine Biological Association’s Laboratory at Ply- 
mouth, has for some time past been engaged in a 
comparative study of the ciliary mechanisms of various 
invertebrates and protochordates, and his latest con- 
tribution to the subject appears in a recent number of 
the Journal of the association (vol. x., No. 2). Mr. 
Orton shows that the ‘ gill’’ in such widely separated 
NO 233 vOlnogy 
animals as Crepidula, Lamellibranchiate’ Mollusca, 
Ascidians, and Amphioxus, is in the main an organ: 
for collecting food and passing it to the alimentary 
canal. His views with regard to the mechanism of 
the process differ somewhat from those of certain 
earlier observers. Apparently the endostyle serves. 
merely to secrete mucus and sweep it into the gill 
filaments, not as a food channel. One of his most 
interesting results is the discovery of an ‘' endostyle” 
in the gasteropod Crepidula, which histologically 
closely resembles that of Amphioxus, and thus con- 
stitutes an extremely interesting case of convergent 
evolution. 
In Nature of June 4 (p. 350), Lieut.-Col. Manners- 
Smith challenged some statements as to the destruction: 
of bird-life in Nipal, made by Sir H. H. Johnston in 
an article on ‘‘ The Plumage Bill,’’ contributed to our 
issue of December 11, 1913. Sir Harry Johnston 
based his remarks partly upon reports by Mr. C. 
William Beebe, curator of birds, New York Zoological 
Society; and he has now sent us a letter from Mr. 
Beebe, from which we print the following extract :—‘‘ In’ 
that part of my pheasant monograph which deals with 
the pheasants and tragopans of Nipal, I have spoken 
of the havoc which the Nipalese shepherds are work- 
ing, at least in the eastern part of the country. This 
I know from my own observations. There seems 
practically no way to put an end to the trapping of 
these men which goes on throughout the year. When 
I was in Calcutta, I was shown large boxes and bales 
of pheasant and other skins being exported for sale to 
milliners. The British officials told me that they 
were powerless to interfere, as the freight was sealed 
by the Rajah of Nipal’s Government, and they, of 
course, had no authority to stop the exportation of 
goods from an independent country.”’ 
Tue Hawaiian Voleano Observatory, which was 
built in 1812 on the edge of the crater of Kilauea, 
near the well-known Volcano House, is doing most 
useful work under the direction of Dr. T. A. Jaggar. 
Every week a bulletin appears giving an account of 
all changes taking place within the crater, and the 
varying activities of the several vents within it. The 
observatory was built, and is supported by, sub- 
scribers belonging to the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, and by other voluntary helpers in the 
Hawaiian Islands. The Whitney Laboratory of Seis- 
mology, which is established in the basement of the 
observatory, is furnished with the improved Omori 
seismometers and tromometers, their records being 
published in the same weekly bulletin. Scientific men 
desirous of carrying on vulcanological investigations 
are welcomed by the board of directors, and recently 
the facilities afforded at the observatory have per- 
mitted of very valuable observations being made on 
the gases emitted from the vents. The bulletin, of 
which, in its collected form, a second volume is being 
published, can be supplied to annual subscribers and 
to workers in vulcanology and seismology, as well as 
to scientific libraries in exchange for other publica- 
tions. 
Ir may be interesting to note that while, generally 
speaking, the second half of April last was ‘very 
