620 
An elaborate study of the auditory ossicles of 
American rodents has been made by Messrs. Cockerell, 
L. Miller, and M. Printz, in the hope that it might 
elucidate the taxonomy and origin of the order they 
represent. The work, which is published as article 28 
of vol. xxxiii. of the Bulletin of the U.S. National 
Museum, has not, however, led to any very decisive 
result with regard to either point, Dr. W. D. Matthew 
remarking in an appendix that the frequent occurrence 
of parallelism and convergence is likely to be a bar 
to the taxonomic value of these structures. In refer- 
ence to the suggestion that rodents are derived from 
the multituberculates, the same paleontologist, in a 
footnote, states that is an altogether untenable theory. 
Tue Daily Malta Chronicle of July 22 records the 
stranding at Birzebbugia on July 20 of a “‘sea- 
monster.”’ It measured 163 ft. in length, was black in 
colour, and armed with eighteen pairs of teeth. 
Although referred to as a ‘“‘cachelat,’”’ it was probably 
a blackfish (Globicephala melaena). 
Tue August number of the Selborne Magazine con- 
tains that portion of the annual report of the Selborne 
Society for 1913, which deals with the natural history 
of the year. In the section on the protection of 
animals, it is recorded that the hawfinch nested—so 
far as known for the first time—in the Brent Valley 
bird-sanctuary. 
Tue July number of the Museums Journal contains 
a photograph of the model of the skeleton of the early 
Tertiary Egyptian ungulate, Arsinoétherium zitteli, 
to which attention was directed in our columns a few 
weeks ago. The Children’s Museum at Olympia, 
which has been so admirably arranged, under condi- 
tions not altogether the most suitable, by Mr. W. 
Mark Webb, and the Wilton Park Museum, Batley, 
Yorks, form the subject of other articles in the same 
issue. The Wilton Park Museum does not restrict 
its scope to local subjects, one room being devoted to 
illustrations of life in Biblical lands. 
In an appendix to a reprint of an article in the May 
number of Zoologica, it is stated that three of the 
school of bottle-nosed dolphins, or porpoises, in the 
New York Aquarium (to which reference has been 
already made in Nature) died early in June from 
tubercular pneumonia, and that the rest were suffering 
from ulceration of the skin, due to the low degree of 
saltness in the water of their pond. 
In the February issue of Section D of the Philippine 
Journal of Science (vol. ix., No. 1) Mr. D. C. Wor- 
cester records the occurrence off the coast of Palawan 
of what is definitely asserted to be a flying crustacean. 
The creature was seen thrice by Mr. Worcester, and 
once by Mr. Schultze, and on this evidence, despite 
the fact that no capture was made, it is asserted that 
‘there remains no doubt of the existence in the Philip- 
pines of a marine crustacean, from 15 to 25 centimetres 
in length, which has the power of rising rapidly from 
the water and flying, after the fashion of a flying- 
fish, for several rods.”’ Articles by A. Seale on the 
preservation of food-fishes and other commercial 
fishery products in the tropics and on the fishes of 
NO..233 7) Ol. 7G) 
NATURE 
[AUGUST 13, 1914 
Hong Kong, and a third, by Mr. Artemus Day, on 
the osteology of the Philippine “‘ slime-head”’ (Ophio- 
cephalus striatus), a fresh-water fish, are included in 
the same issue. 
In the April number of the Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 
(8), vol. xiii., 1914, pp. 380-9, Prof. Chas. Chilton 
records the presence of the well-known wood-boring 
‘ oribble ’’ (Limnoria lignorum) in Auckland Harbour, 
New Zealand. He believes that this isopod must been 
introduced into Antipodean waters many years ago in 
the timbers of some old wooden ship. In connection 
with this record, Prof. Chilton discusses the relation- 
ships of the six known species of Limnoria which are 
all closely related to each other, and describes in some 
detail L. segnis, a form indigenous in New Zealand 
seas, which does not bore into timber, but lives in 
seaweed. He regards the wood-boring habit as 
normal for the whole genus, and explains the wide 
distribution of the species as due to transport by float- 
ing logs. In a supplementary note he points out 
that Dr. W. M. Tattersall, in his’ account of some 
of the Crustacea of the Scotia expedition, records L. 
lignorum from the Falkland Islands. There is, how- 
ever, a characteristic L. antarctica—a seaweed-borer 
like L. segnis—which lives off South Georgia, the 
South Orkneys, and the South Shetlands. 
be that these far southern members of the genus 
show, rather than our European “‘ gribble,’”’ the primi- 
tive habit of the group. 
- Tue Clare Island Survey carried out by the Royal 
Irish Academy has published two further volumes : 
a full. report on Archiannelida and Polychaeta, by 
R. Southern; and a paper on Tree-Growth, by A. C. 
Forbes. The latter reaches the conclusion that the 
absence of such trees as the ash, alder, and wych elm 
from the whole of the western islands suggests that 
these islands possess only the oldest representatives 
of the Irish forest flora, and were separated from the 
mainland at an early period. Pine and birch were 
the principal species at first, but oak and_ hazel 
followed, and gradually dominated the pine. The 
present treeless condition of the island is largely due 
to human agency, but there is reason to believe that ° 
| the summers are cooler than when the oak was largely 
represented. 
Miss Lititian S. Grpps has contributed to the 
Journal of the Linnean Society (Bot., vol. xlii.) an 
extensive and valuable description of the flora and the 
plant associations of Mount Kinabulu and the high- 
lands of British North Borneo. Although the coastal 
flora of the country had been well explored previously, 
the author has been able to add to the already known 
flora of Mount Kinabulu itself 129 new records; in all 
she collected about a thousand species, of which eighty- 
seven have proved new to science, including four new 
genera, while 337 species (comprising three new 
genera and thirty-eight new species) are referable to 
the mountain itself. The systematic account, which 
contains valuable notes on many of the species, is 
preceded by a detailed general description of the 
ecology and plant-geography of the area which the 
author has so strongly explored. 
It may : 
te ee ee 
