February 9, 1905J 



NA TURE 



351 



For practical purposes visits were paid to several cacao 

 and sugar estates. Owing to its more than usually repre- 

 sentative character the conference is declared to have been 

 the most successful of the series. 



The very high barometric readings over the British Isles 

 during the latter part of January last are noteworthy. The 

 weather report for the week ending January 28 issued by 

 ihe Meteorological Office stated that on Wednesday (25) 

 tlie eastern edge of an anticyclone had appeared over the 

 west of Ireland ; this system, moving slowly eastward, and 

 continually increasing in intensity, covered the whole king- 

 dom by Thursday, its maximum pressure being about 307 

 inches. It subsequently moved southward and south-west- 

 ward, and continued to increase in energy until Saturday 

 (28), when the barometer rose to 31 inches or more over the 

 south-western parts of the United Kingdom. The highest 

 reading was reported from Scilly, at 2h. p.m. on January 28, 

 3106 inches, and appears to have been the highest on 

 record for that part of the kingdom. Very high readings 

 also occurred over the eastern portion of the North Atlantic. 

 Recent cases of very high readings occurred in January, 

 1902, January, 1896, and January, 1882. The highest 

 reading on record in the British Isles is 31-11 inches at 

 Ochtertyne (Scotland), in January, i8g6, and the lowest 

 2733 inches at the same place, in January, 18S7. It will 

 be observed that all these extreme readings have occurred 

 in the month of January. 



We have to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of the 

 Transactions of the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' 

 Club for 1904 (vol. iii. part ii.). The most important item 

 in its contents is a list, with references, of the land and 

 freshwater molluscs of the East Riding, drawn up by 

 Mr. T. Fetch, occupying fifty-two pages. 



The salmon and trout of Japan form the subject of an 

 article by Mr. T. Kitahara in vol. v. part iii. of knno- 

 tationes Zoologicae Japonensis. In place of the nine 

 species of these fishes admitted by Messrs. Jordan and 

 Evermann, the author recognises only seven from Japanese 

 waters, of which the majority belong to Oncorhynchus. 



The contents of the Biologisches Centralblatt for 

 January 15 include an article on the structure of certain 

 ants' nests, by Mr. C. Ernst, and a criticism, by Dr. C. 

 Schroder, of Mr. C. Schaposchnikow's theory of the colour- 

 ing of the hind-wing of the butterflies of the genus Cato- 

 cala, to which allusion has been already made in our 

 columns. 



The Zoologist commences the year well with an excellent 

 article on budding in animals by Prof. Mcintosh, of St. 

 Andrews, in which the various forms of propagation by 

 gemmation are described in a clear and popular manner. 

 In the same issue appears Mr. Southwell's account of seal- 

 ing and whaling for 1904. Eleven right whales were cap- 

 tured during the season by British vessels and at British 

 stations ; but the Americans are reported to have taken 

 no less than forty-nine. The price demanded for sizable 

 whalebone is 2500Z. per ton. Fin-whale hunting is being 

 pursued with great energy, and as the demand for the 

 products of these whales is limited, the author suggests 

 that the market may be glutted. 



The Nature Study Review is the title of a journal pub- 

 lished in New York of which the first volume is before us. 

 " The aims and plans of the editorial committee," it is 

 stated in the introduction, " are based upon an interpreta- 

 tion of nature-study in its literal and widest sense as includ- 

 ing all phases, physical as well as biological, of studies of 

 NO. I 84 I, VOL. 71] 



natural objects and processes in elementary schools." 

 Several eminent writers have united to give their views as 

 to the scope and limitations of nature-study ; while others 

 have done their best to refute hostile criticism of the move- 

 ment. " Faddism," the bane of the movement, is strongly 

 deprecated. In wishing the new venture a successful 

 career, we may take the opportunity of recording our full 

 sympathy with the effort to make scholars actually 

 acquainted with natural objects, instead of attempting to 

 learn about them through books alone. But the interpre- 

 tation of the movement must be a liberal one, and it must 

 be realised that a visit to a museum is just as much 

 nature-study as is a saunter through a country lane. 



The double number of the American Naturalist for 

 November and December last contains a suggestive article 

 by Mr. W. D. Matthew on the arboreal ancestry of 

 mammals. Strong arguments have been brought forward 

 during the last few years by Mr. Dollo in Belgium and by 

 Mr. Bensley in America to show that the ancestors of 

 marsupials were probably arboreal ; and in the present 

 communication the author seeks to show that the same 

 holds good for mammals in general. It is urged that the 

 mammals of the Cretaceous were all of small size and 

 mostly of a primitive type from which both marsupials 

 and placentals might well have been derived. These early 

 mammals were probably arboreal ; and if so, the opposable 

 thumb and hallux of certain living types is an archaic and 

 not an acquired feature. Support to the view as to the 

 arboreal habits of the ancestral mammals is afforded by 

 the Upper Cretaceous upland flora, which first permitted 

 the existence of an extensive terrestrial land mammalian 

 fauna. If the theory be true, it entirely upsets the old idea 

 that arboreal mammals had taken to their distinctive mode 

 of life to escape persecution on the ground. 



We have received a copy of an important memoir by 

 Dr. O. Abel, published in the Abhandlungen of the Aus- 

 trian Geological Survey (vol. xi.x. part ii.), on the fossil 

 sirenians of the Mediterranean formation of Austria, into 

 the merits of which the limitations of space do not admit 

 of our entering so fully as we desire. The title of the 

 memoir scarcely does justice to its contents, for although 

 the prime object is the description of the species known as 

 Metaxytherium krahulctzi, the author also describes a 

 number of remains of the much more primitive genus 

 Eotherium, from the Eocene of the Mokattam Range, near 

 Cairo. The most important feature connected with the 

 latter (if the remains be rightly identified) is the discovery 

 that Eotherium possessed a complete pelvis, showing a 

 well-marked obturator foramen. In this respect the genus 

 differs from all other known members of the order, and 

 is thus brought into connection with less specialised mam- 

 mals. The three Egyptian Eocene genera Eotherium, 

 Eosiren, and Protosiren (new) are regarded as the earliest 

 known ancestors of the dugong group ; and to these suc- 

 ceed Halitherium in the Oligocene, Metaxytherium in the 

 Miocene, and Felsinotherium in the Pliocene. In seeking 

 to illustrate the origin of the downward flexure of the 

 muzzle of the dugong by a malformed horse skull, we think 

 the author has been ill-advised, as there is a much simpler 

 and more natural explanation of the feature. In connection 

 with the memoir by Dr. Abel, we may refer to a 

 paper on the pelvis of Steller's sea-cow (Rhytina stelleri) 

 by Dr. L. von Lorenz, published in part iii. of vol. xix. of 

 the Abhandlungen of the Vienna Geologisches Reichsan- 

 stalt. The description and figure of this rudimentary bone 

 supplement Dr. Abel's account of sirenian osteology in 

 general. 



