566 
NATURE 
[Aprit II, 1907 
Bohemia and Styria, by invitation of the Prague Iron 
Industry Company and the Austrian Alpine Mining Com- 
pany respectively. An invitation has also been received 
from the Witkowitz Mining and Ironworks Company to 
visit their works. 
In an elegant little pamphlet entitled the ‘‘ Birdland 
Booklet,’’ Messrs. Sanders and Crowhurst direct the atten- 
tion of amateur photographers to the advantages of their 
reflex birdland camera. 
Most of the articles in Nos. 5 and 6 of the Bulletin 
International de V’Académie des Sciences de Cracovie for 
1g06 relate to physiological and chemical subjects, but 
Mr. VI. Kulczynski contributes a continuation of an 
account of certain arachnid groups, dealing in this instance 
with the European representatives of the genus Amaur- 
obius. The article, which is in Latin, is illustrated with 
two plates, and contains descriptions of twenty species, one 
of these being new. 
A SPECIMEN of the so-called ‘‘ sea-mignonette ’’ (Primnoa 
veseda), dredged in the Fxrée Channel, has enabled Prof. 
J. A. Thomson, in the Proceedings of the Royal Physical 
Society of Edinburgh, vol. xvii., No. 2, to state that this 
gorgonian is one of the most gorgeously coloured members 
of the British fauna, being naturally a brilliant salmon- 
pink, although the tints rapidly fade after exposure to 
light. Prof. Thomson has also discovered that this species, 
the only member of its genus, is viviparous. 
THE appearance of the first part of a work entitled 
“The Book of the Open Air,” edited by Mr. Edward 
Thomas and published by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, 
may apparently be taken as an indication of an increasing 
appetite on- the part of a considerable section of the 
public for anything connected with country life ‘and 
popular natural history. The illustrations, of which fifty 
are promised, are all to be coloured, and the work is to 
be completed in a dozen shilling parts. The illustrations 
of scenery in this part are simply exquisite, and, even 
though the naturalist may consider those of animals a 
little too ‘ artistic’ in colouring, if the present standard 
is maintained the volume will be a marvel of cheapness. 
The names of Messrs. W. H. Hudson and i; (Ge 
Tregarthen are alone sufficient to indicate that the letter- 
press will not be deficient in interest. 
Tue list of New Guinea mammals published by Dr. 
F. A. Jentink in vol. xxviii. (pp. 161 et seq.) of Notes 
from the Leyden Museum presents a remarkable contrast 
in point of extent to those in most text-books, comprising 
no less than 127 species and subspecies. The number 
recognised by Dr. Wallace in his ‘ Malay Archipelago ”’ 
(1869) is, for instance, only seventeen, while even so late 
as 1897 Dr. K. M. Heller could enumerate not more than 
seventy species from the whole of the Papuan Islands. 
Probably a few of the forms entered in Dr. Jentink’s list 
are not entitled even to subspecific rank, but, discounting 
this, the length of the list is sufficient to refute the old 
idea that New Guinea is very poor in mammals. As to 
the future, the author is of opinion that exploration of 
the practically unknown mountain interior of New Guinea 
—a country larger than Borneo, and double the size of 
Great Britain—will probably yield a number of new 
forms. 
Tue latest issue (vol. iv., parts xiv. and xy., published 
together) of Spolia Zeylanica contains an illustrated account 
by Dr. Giinther Enderlein of a large number of new 
minute insects belonging to the same group of Neuroptera 
NO. 1954, VOL. 75 | 
as the European book-lice and death-watches. The few 
Ceylonese forms previously known were chiefly those de- 
scribed by Hagen in the years 1858 and 1859, but Dr. 
Enderlein has been enabled to reveal the existence of 
quite a host of these tiny insects, referable to a number 
of mew generic types. In place of. grouping all these 
““sealy-winged Copeognatha’’ in the single family 
Psocidze, as is done by Dr. David Sharp, the author 
refers them to three distinct families, confined almost 
exclusively to the tropics, the only exceptions being one 
species from Japan and two from North America. Of the 
nineteen recognised genera, fourteen are named by Dr. 
Enderlein. In general appearance and the beauty of the 
pattern and colouring of their scale-clad wings (exquisitely 
shown in the coloured plates illustrating the memoir), these 
insects recall the Microlepidoptera. The use of the term 
woodlice ’’ as their popular designation is, as the editor 
of Spolia Zeylanica points out, barred by the employment 
of that name in another sense. 
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A VERY important paper, by Profs. J. T. Wilson and 
J. P. Hill, on the feetal dentition of the oustralian duck- 
bill, or platypus (Ornithorhynchus), is published in the 
February issue, vol. li., part i., of the Quarterly Journal 
of Microscopical Science. The authors announce the dis- 
covery of tooth-germs belonging to at least two distinct 
dentitions. What may be called the second dentitions 
seems to comprise five pairs of teeth in each jaw. Of 
these, the last three clearly have deciduous predecessors, 
and they may therefore be regarded as molars, while if 
such predecessors are absent in the two anterior teeth (a 
point not yet definitely ascertained), these will be pre- 
molars. It is noteworthy that of the three functional 
teeth in the upper jaw, the first, and smallest, pair belongs 
to this presumed premolar series, which is unrepresented 
in the functional lower teeth. Very noteworthy is the dis- 
covery that the vestigial precursors of the large functional 
molars take the form of a much more numerous series of 
dental rudiments, each corresponding approximately with 
one of the cusps of their complex successors. ‘“‘ The mode 
of development of the successional molars . . . is decisive 
against the occurrence of any fusion-process; but the re- 
lation of the two series in the molar region cannot but 
be regarded as suggestive of some sort of phylogenetic 
substitution of a small number of compound teeth for a 
large number of simple teeth—a process which must 
be reckoned as covering the fundamental idea of con- 
crescence.”’ 
Tue Board of Agriculture and Fisheries has published 
a new edition of the leaflet on the black currant mite, in 
which information on the treatment of this pest with 
lime and sulphur has been incorporated. Fruit growers 
whose bushes have been attacked with the mite are 
advised to experiment with this process. Copies of the 
leaflet may be obtained gratis and post free on application 
to the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, 
4 Whitehall Place, London, S.W. Letters so addressed 
need not be stamped. 
Tue general conclusions derived from former attempts 
to grow the opium poppy with a view to the production 
of allkaloids have been adverse to the profitable cultivation 
of the plant in Europe. A recent experiment made by Dr. 
H. Thoms at Dahlem, near Berlin, of which an account 
is published in Berichte der deutschen pharmazeutischen 
Gesellschaft, vol. xvii., promises no better. The fruits of 
German varieties gave considerably higher yields than the 
