DEcEMBER 6, 1905 | 
NATURE 135 
tissue is effected by the silver image of the print. It is 
only necessary to soak the hardened bromide print in 
water and the prepared carbon tissue or “‘ plaster’’ in a 
solution that contains a bichromate, a ferricyanide, and a 
bromide, to squeegee the two together, and leave them for 
a short time under slight pressure. The pigment plaster is 
then separated and treated exactly as if it had been exposed 
to light under a negative. The silver of the bromide print 
has been converted by the process into a salt, but by treat- 
ing it with a developing solution it is reduced to the metal 
again, and by this round of operations it will furnish 
“‘ozobrome ’’ prints until it becomes destroyed by the 
handling. Mr. Manly indicated a collateral advantage of 
the method in that it is independent of the colour of the 
pigment in the “‘ plaster,’’ while by the usual method of 
exposure to light the effect of the exposure penetrates more 
deeply in the presence of a blue than of a red or brown 
pigment. 
By the death of Emil Schmidt in his seventieth year a 
typical German anthropologist passes away. Like many of 
his fellows he studied medicine, and was actually in prac- 
tice for some twenty years. He first directed his attention 
to American archzology, and dealt in particular with the 
Copper age. His anatomical knowledge led him to take 
up physical anthropology, and he possessed a considerable 
collection of skulls, now in the Anatomical Institute at 
Leipzig, where he was for a time a recognised lecturer, and 
later extraordinary professor. He was among the first to 
study the human remains at Pompeii, and a stay in Egypt 
enabled him to make a further study of early historic 
material. Some years later he visited India and Ceylon; 
the whole of the material which he then collected was 
not published, but his ‘‘ Reise in Sued-Indien’’ and 
“Ceylon ’’ contain much valuable information. In the 
much discussed problem of the Neanderthal skull he 
accepted, in opposition to Virchow, the view that it is 
really that of a lower human species or genus; in the 
question of prehistoric pigmy races, on the other hand, 
he held that more evidence was needed as a basis for 
Kollmann’s speculations. In consequence of failing health 
he resigned his professorship in 1900, and occasional con- 
tributions from his pen appeared in Globus and other 
papers, but he knew that his life’s work was done, and 
was seldom seen in scientific circles. 
WE have received from the author, Mr. J. A. Kershaw, 
of the Melbourne Museum, a copy of a paper on additions 
to the fish-fauna of Victoria, published in the Victorian 
Naturalist for October. Not any of the species are new. 
Tuer record of fourteen years’ continuous breeding of the 
marsh-warbler in an Oxfordshire parish forms the opening 
article of the November Zoologist, the present year being 
the first since 1892 in which Mr. W. W. Fowler has been 
unable to discover a nest of the species. Ornithological 
notes made in Oxfordshire in 1904 form the subject of 
an article by Mr. O. V. Aplin, while Mr. E. Selous dis- 
courses on sexual selection in the ruff. 
Tue slow-lorisis (Nycticebus) of the Indo-Malay coun- 
tries, all of which have hitherto been generally regarded 
as members of a single variable species, are divisible, 
according to Mr. M. W. Lyon (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., 
No. 1494), into two distinct groups, in one of which a 
distinct sagittal crest is developed on the skull of the 
adult, while in the other no such ridge occurs. The 
second group occurs only in Borneo and Banka, and 
NO. 1936, VOL. 75] 
appears to be further characterised by having only one 
(in place of two) pair of upper incisor teeth. 
Copies are to hand of the second part for 1905, and of 
the first part for 1906, of the Verhandlungen des natur- 
historischen Vereins of Prussian Rhineland, Westphalia, 
&c., published at Bonn. The contents of the former in- 
clude articles on a peculiar rock, essexit (heptorite), from 
Siebengebirge, on a portion of the Mayence Tertiary basin, 
on the ostracods of the Brunswick district, on the extinc- 
tion of Planaria alpina in certain districts, and on some 
rare or exterminated plants of Rhineland. The issue for 
1906 is occupied by the first portion of a synopsis of the 
birds of the Rhine Province, by Dr. Otto le Roi, of 
Bonn. 
WE have received Heft ii. and iii. of the ‘“* Meeresfauna 
von Bergen,’’ edited by Dr. A. Appellof (Bergens Museum, 
1906, pp. 75-233, four plates, and three maps). In the 
first memoir Mr. O. Nordgaard reports on the Bryo#ba 
of the west coast of Norway; in the second memoir Dr. 
Appellof discusses the decapod crustaceans of the same 
region, with particular reference to their vertical and 
horizontal distribution. It is shown that conditions of 
temperature and salinity are of fundamental importance in 
determining the distribution, though other factors, such 
as pressure, nature of the bottom, illumination, and 
chemical composition of the water are also operative. 
THE origin of species, more especially in connection 
with variation and Mendelism, forms the leading feature 
of the issue of Verhandlungen der Schweiz. Naturfor. 
Gesellschaft for the present year. The articles on this 
subject relate to the evolution of species generally, 
Mendelism as exemplified by hybridising garden and other 
snails, variation in butterflies, mutation in the harts- 
tongue fern, and species-formation among bacteria and 
parasitic funguses. In the case of the garden snail (Helix 
hortensis) Dr. Arnold Lang shows that by crossing members 
of uniformly yellow-shelled colonies with the fully-banded 
strain it will be found that the progeny follows to a great 
extent the Mendelian law in regard to the numerical pro- 
portions of the various colour-phases. The issue concludes 
with a number of biographies of scientific men, accom- 
panied by portraits. 
Tue most generally interesting article in the October 
number of the Emu is one by C. L. Barrett, of Mel- 
bourne, on the origin of parasitic habits in cuckoos. It 
is stated that one American species (Coccyzus americanus), 
which is generally in the habit of building a nest and 
hatching its own eggs, occasionally lays in the nests of 
other birds. Another instance of the commencement of the 
parasitic habit is afforded by the Indian hawk-cuckoos of 
the genus Hierococcyx, five species of which lay in the 
nests of babbling thrushes, while the sixth is reported to 
make a nest of its own. In reference to the frequent 
resemblance between the eggs of cuckoos and those of the 
birds on which they are parasitic, the author cites a 
theory that the food of nestlings has much to do with 
determining the colour of the eggs which they may sub- 
sequently lay. ‘‘ If such be the case,’’ he observes, “‘ it 
goes far to explain the similarity between the eggs of many 
species of cuckoos and those of their foster-parents.’’ The 
argument is, however, scarcely carried far enough, for it 
is obvious that, if true, the explanation will likewise apply 
to ‘“‘ hedgesparrow-cuckoos”’? and ‘‘ wagtail-cuckoos ’’ in 
the case of the European species. 
