July 4, 1901] 



NA TURE 



239 



adjoining counties, which contribute towards the expenses of 

 the Agricultural Department at the University. The volvme 

 issued is really a bundle of reports written by different persons, 

 and no attempt is made to describe the work as a whole. 

 Most of the experiments are of considerable interest, and will be 

 of practical value in their respective localities. More exact 

 descriptions of the conditions of each experiment are, however, 

 required if any real addition to our knowledge is intended. 

 An analysis of a soil conveys no certain information unless we 

 know the depth which the sample represents. We cannot 

 interpret the variable action of manures unless we know the 

 rainfall during the seasons in question. 



In part iv. of vol. xxii. of the Notes from the Leyden Museum, 

 Dr. O. Finsch catalogues the birds of the " South-west Islands," 

 with three coloured plates of some of the less known species. 

 The small islands in question form a chain stretching from the 

 northern extremity of Timor in an easterly direction to Timor- 

 laut. Although the birds from some of these islets have been 

 described by the officials of the Tring Museum, of others the 

 bird-fauna is practically unknown. Dr. Finsch records a total 

 of 123 species. One of the most striking and beautiful of these 

 is the great red-brown fruit-pigeon named by Schlegel in honour 

 of Dr. Hoedt, a former worker on the avifauna of these islands. 

 For the future, the author suggests that this bird should repre- 

 sent a genus by itself, and be known as Alopecaentis hoedti. 



The number of new generic, specific and subspecific names 

 that have been proposed for North American mammals during 

 the last twenty years is so enormous that it was a matter of the 

 greatest difficulty for a student to be certain that he had exhausted 

 the list in any particular group upon which he might be en- 

 gaged. This difficulty has been removed by the appearance of 

 a " Synopsis of the Mammals of North America and the Adjacent 

 Seas," by Dr. D. G. Elliot, which forms vol. ii, of the 

 zoological series of publications of the Field Columbian Museum. 

 The synopsis is well illustrated by reproductions from photo- 

 graphs of skulls. Although the author states that many of the 

 species and subspecies recorded are probably nominal, the task 

 of abolishing such superfluous names is left to his successors. In 

 the main the work appears to be very accurate, but we notice 

 a few omissions, and when describing the wood-bison the author 

 states that it is a larger animal than its cousin of the plains, 

 although the measurements given of the two forms indicate just 

 the contrary. 



In the issue of Die Umschau of June 15, Prof. W. Amalitzky 

 announces the discovery of gigantic anomodont and other 

 reptiles in a Permian deposit at Sokolki, on the Dwina, Russia. 

 The bones occur in an old river channel cut in Lower Permian 

 beds and subsequently filled up with sandstone. Regular ex- 

 cavations have been undertaken, with the result that a very 

 large number of skeletons and separate bones have been disin- 

 terred. Most of these are embedded in hard nodules, and a con- 

 siderable sum of money is required for their proper development. 

 Most noticeable is the discovery of no less than from fifteen to 

 twenty skeletons of the huge anomodont Pariasaurus, hitherto 

 known only from South Africa. One of these has been de- 

 veloped, and measures 1 1 feet in length. Remains of Dicynodon 

 and other anomodonts, as well as dinosaurs and a labyrintho- 

 dont, are likewise recorded. According to Prof. Amalitzky, the 

 reptilian remains are associated with ferns belonging to the well- 

 known " Glossopteris flora'' ; and it would accordingly appear 

 that this peculiar southern fauna and flora, which formed a 

 belt round the globe in low latitudes during early Mesozoic 

 times, had a northern extension into eastern Europe. 



The American Museum Journal for April and May contains 

 a figure of one of five specimens of the Greenland musk-ox 

 which have recently been mounted for exhibition. This form 

 NO. 1653, VOL. 64] 



of musk-ox, it will be remembered, was described not long ago 

 in N.ATURE as Ovibos moschalus tvardi ; and the American 

 Museum has now acquired a fine series of specimens, which 

 have enabled Dr. J. A. Allen to point out characters regarded 

 as sufficient to justify the assignation of specific rank to this 

 animal. On a later page of the same journal, stress is laid on 

 the importance of exhibiting in museums groups of mounted 

 mammals and birds amid their natural surroundings, as it is by 

 this means alone that their full educational value can be ob- 

 tained from the specimens. By the aid of liberal donations 

 from private sources, much has already been done in this way 

 in the American Museum, and it is confidently hoped that still 

 more will be accomplished in the near future. It is a matter 

 for regret that, so far as the larger mammals are concerned, 

 little or nothing of this sort has hitherto been attempted in our 

 own national collection. But millionaires in this country do 

 not seem inclined to devote some of their spare thousands to 

 such objects. 



An address on the historical development and the problems of 

 anthropology, delivered by Dr. B. Hagen at the anniversary 

 gathering of the Senckenberg Society of Natural Science, Frank- 

 fort on the Main, last year, has been translated by Mt. W- L. H. 

 Duckworth and published by the Anthropological Laboratory, 

 Cambridge. According to the translation, which alone has 

 reached us, Dr. Hagen adopts a common but somewhat arbitrary 

 division of the science of man into "anthropology," which 

 deals with the physical structure of m^ and "the mode of life," 

 and into " ethnology," or psychical aspect, comprising folk-lore, 

 comparative psychology, sociology and psycho-physics. It is 

 not clear what "the mode of life" means or why that is re- 

 garded as physical and the investigation of the senses and 

 sense organ entirely relegated to " ethnology." Speaking of 

 craniology. Dr. Hagen states that "we are not at the present 

 day in a position to determine with certainty the racial identity 

 of a given skull, with the exception, perhaps, of hyper-typical 

 examples of Australians or Negroes." He believes there is but 

 a single cranial type, the mesocephalic, of whose varieties the 

 dolichocephals and brachycephals are the opposite extremes. 

 " Stature is also a dangerous pitfall for metrical anthropology in 

 general." Evidently the " anthropologists" of this classification 

 cannot reduce the facts of the study of man into order without 

 the help of the " ethnologists ; " but we are warned that "the 

 linguist must not regard the ethnologist, nor he in turn the 

 anthropologist, with disdain." 



C.ATAL.^SE is the name given to a new enzyme of general 

 occurrence described by Dr. Oscar Loew in Report (No. 68) of the 

 U.S. Department of Agriculture (Division of Vegetable Physio- 

 logy and Pathology) with special reference to the tobacco plant. 

 This enzyme possesses the power of producing catalytic decom- 

 position of hydrogen peroxide, a decomposition which, according 

 to the author's experiments, is probably not produced by any 

 other known enzyme. The enzyme appears to exist in an in- 

 soluble and in a soluble form, which are designated o- and S- 

 catalase respectively. The former is probably a compound of 

 the soluble catalase with a nucleo-proteid, while the 5- form is 

 an albuminose and can be liberated by the action of very dilute 

 alkaline media upon the insoluble catalase. The behaviour of 

 the enzyme towards various salts, acids, bases and other reagents 

 has been carefully investigated. Experiments on the nature of 

 catalase indicate that it is an oxidising enzyme, the most charac- 

 teristic reaction studied in this direction being its rapid oxidation 

 of hydroquinone to quinone. Numerous tests have established 

 the general occurrence of catalase in the vegetable kingdon. No 

 living plant or vegetable organ tested was found free from it, 

 some plants containing more of the soluble, others more of the 

 insoluble, form. In the animal kingdom it also appears to be 



