July 28, 1904] 



NA TURE 



o'-^o 



be on a scale of i : 40,000,000, and this will be supplemented 

 by others on a scale of i : 2,000,000. On the proposed maps 

 all the areas the surface of which is formed of eruptive rocks 

 will be shown, and the location of the various forms of 

 volcanic phenomena will be marked. Volcanoes that are 

 believed to have been extinct since the historic period, those 

 thai have been active since the beginning of human history, 

 and those which have more recently been centres of eruption 

 will all have their distinctive signs. 



Ix the opinion of the town sanitary committee of St. 

 Petersburg the town medical officers should be sent abroad 

 periodically in order to become acquainted with the progress 

 of the sanitary and medical departments of the large towns 

 of western Europe, and so be able properly to organise 

 medical and sanitary supervision. 



Dr. R. Fl'LTOX, writing to us from Uunedin, New- 

 Zealand, suggests that polyandry among birds is connected 

 with the parasitic habit of depositing the eggs in the nests 

 of other species, .^fter referring to the well known fact 

 that the common cuckoo is very markedly polyandrous. Dr. 

 Fulton proceeds to point out that the same feature exists, 

 or is in course of being developed, among many other 

 wholly or partially parasitic species, such as the American 

 cow-birds and cuckoos, parasitism gradually creeping in 

 pari passu with the development of parasitism. If our 

 correspondent's theory is well founded, it would certainly 

 seem worth the attention of ornithologists. The writer 

 further states that, contrary to the usual opinion, there are 

 numbers of instances known where cuckoos (species not 

 stated) have supervised the forced adoption of their off- 

 spring by other species, have assisted in their feeding, and 

 have finally reclaimed and taken them away from their 

 foster-parents. In support of this statement he cites 

 Campbell's ".Australian Birds." 



We have been favoured with a copy of a circular letter 

 from Hofrath Dr. Franz Steindachner, director of the Royal 

 Museum of Natural History, Vienna, in which attention 

 is directed, in the first place, to the importance of Pari, at 

 the mouth of the .\mazons, as a zoological station, and, 

 secondly, to the great value of the biological work which 

 has been carried on there during the last few years by Dr. 

 Emil Goeldi and his able staff of assistants at the " Museum 

 Goeldi." Dr. Goeldi's "Album de Aves .Amazonicas, " 

 which has been specially noticed in our columns, and Dr. 

 Ruber's " .Arboretum " are, in Dr. Steindachner's opinion, 

 works of the highest scientific value. 



In the Quarterly Review for July, Prof. Ray Lankester 

 in an article on sleeping sickness reviews our knowledge of 

 the trypanosomata. He directs attention to the recent re- 

 searches of Schnudinn, which seem to prove that two blood- 

 parasites, the first a malaria-like one, the Halteridium of 

 birds, the other a spirillum-like form or Spirochaste, are 

 simply phases of trypanosomes. -Similarly the parasitic 

 bodies known as the Leishmann-Donovan bodies (Nature, 

 vol. Ixix. p. 495), are stated by Rogers to give rise to 

 trvpanosome forms. Incidentally Prof. Lankester takes the 

 opportunity to indict the British Government for its supine- 

 ness with regard to scientific research. 



Parts i. and ii. of vol. Ix.xvii. of the Zcitschrift fiir 

 U'isscnschaftliche Zoologie contain two long papers devoted 

 to annelid morphology, the one, by Mr. .A. Luther, on the 

 " Eumesostomine " rhabdocoelous turbellarians, and the 

 other, by Mr. E. Matliesen, on the embryology of the fresh- 

 water planarian, or dendrocoelous, turbellarians. Both are 

 of far too technical a nature for detailed notice in our 



NO. 18 I 3, VOL. 70] 



columns, but it may be pointed out that, according to 

 modern principles of nomenclature, the title " Eume- 

 stominEe " for the subfamily typified by the genus 

 Mesostoma is a misnomer, the proper term being " Meso- 

 stomincE." 



The Entomologist for July opens with a coloured elate 

 illustrative of three new species of butterflies described m 

 the first article by Mr. W. Dannatt. Various writers record 

 the capture during the present season in different par;s of 

 the country of no less than eight examples of the rare 

 striped hawk-moth {Deilephila livornica). 



The July number of Nature Notes contains an account 

 of the annual meeting and conversazione of the Selborne 

 Society held in May last in Burlington Gardens, when a 

 large number of prizes were awarded for work connected 

 with field natural history. The society continues to display 

 its wonted activity in endeavouring to protect such natural 

 and artificial features of the country as appear in danger. 



No. 12 of the Publications de Circonstance of the Inter- 

 national Council for the Exploration of the Sea contains a 

 useful catalogue of the fishes of northern Europe with their 

 names in the different languages of this region. In 

 part xiiia. of the same is commenced a detailed account of 

 the present condition of the Swedish and Danish sea- 

 fisheries, illustrated with maps and diagrams. 



The Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy for .April 

 contain three papers dealing with descriptive zoology, 

 namely, one by Mr. A. Gulick on the fossil land-shells of 

 Bermuda, a second by Mr. J. A. G. Rehn on the bats cf 

 the genus Macrotus, and a third by Mr. H. C. Oberholser 

 on the birds of the genus Dendrocincla. More general 

 interest attaches to a communication by Mr. .A. E. Brown 

 on post-Glacial Nearctic centres of dispersal for reptiles, c.l 

 which only the first page is included in the section 

 before us. 



The third part of Mr. G. M. .Allen's list of the fauna of 

 New England (in course of publication by the Boston 

 Natural History Society) is devoted to the Mammalia, of 

 whicR eighty-eight species and subspecies are recognised. 

 Old-fashioned naturalists will be somewhat surprised to see 

 well known species figuring under such unfamiliar titles as 

 Parahes americanus and Odocoileus virginiamis borcalis. 



The Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of Edin- 

 burgh for June contain an abstract of the address of the 

 retiring president. Prof. J. C. Ewart, which was devoted to 

 the " making of the elephant," based on recent discoveries 

 in Egypt. In addition to Mr. W. E. Clarke's account of 

 the Fseroe mouse, already noticed in our columns, the 

 contents of this number include a paper by Drs. Hepburn 

 and Waterston on the anatomy of the porpoise, and one 

 on colour variation in the viper by Dr. G. Leighton. 



In Science (July i) Prof. Long, in an interesting paper, 

 gives an able summary of the relation of modern chemistry 

 to modern medicine. He deals briefly with the action of 

 enzymes, with oxidation in the tissues, with toxins and 

 Ehr'lich's side-chain theory, and with the application of 

 physical and mathematical chemistry in the exact study of 

 problems which at one time were assumed to be essentially 

 biological. He finally discusses what should be the proper 

 cours^ of chemistry for the medical student, and concludes 

 that the young man commencing the study of medicine must 

 bring with him a knowledge both of inorganic and organic 

 chemistry sufficiently broad to enable him to grasp the new 

 problems which medicine now presents. 



