July 12, 1883] 



NATURE 



2 45 





Sand 



Not having had the pleasure of perusing Mr. Waller's paper on 

 sand, I gather from Mr. Gardner's notice of it that it is an 

 attempt to distinguish by the aid of the microscope whether sand 

 has been formed by the action of wind or of surf. Having a 

 number of years ago become possessed with the idea that the 

 form of the materials which make up the soils and subsoils 

 found in any country might lead to a knowledge of the sources 

 from which they had been derived, I had many soils and subsoils 

 from Europe and Australasia looked at, but without being able 

 to detect sufficient difference of shape or form as to lead to any 

 definite result. Having been long familiar with the soils formed 

 out of the boulder clay and drift of the south-east of Scotland, I 

 had hoped to have seen a very marked difference in the form of 

 the particles of sand existing in them from those of the interior 

 of Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, large portions 

 of the surface coverings of which countries are believed to have 

 been deposited when covered with the sea. This difference exists 

 certainly — that the soils of the boulder clays and drifts contain a 

 far greater portion of fine and rough gravel, and rounder in 

 shape than do those from Australia. Vet, so far as I could 

 observe, the form of the sand «as similar. It seems to me that 

 both Messrs. Waller and Gardner are on the wrong track when 

 searching solely for the typical forms of sand in the seashore or 

 from torrents. The amount of sand found on the seashores of 

 the world is large, no doubt, so is that from the rivers. What is 

 that to the quantities contained in the surface coverings of the 

 land ? It is from this source the rivers obtain the supply they 

 carry to sea or the shores, and make up the waste by friction. 

 It has long seemed to me probable the sands, fine gravels, and 

 silt formed by the passing of ice over the surface of the rocks 

 would have a distinct form from the surface covering produced 

 by other forces. The gravel or shingle of the rivers has a flatter 

 shape than that of the seabeach when derived from the same 

 rock. If such difference can be discovered in the silts, sands, 

 and gravels derived from glacial action, it may be possible to 

 assign limits to the extent to u hich ice has effected the present 

 covering of the surface from the broken up strata over which it 

 has passed. Silt, sand, and shingle must all, however, be taken 

 into account, and that from the deposits themselves, not from 

 what has bee 1 subjected to littoral, fluviatile, or wind action. 



Bonnington James Melvin 



Garfish— Wild Fowl 



With reference to Mr. Archer's note in Nature last week 

 (p. 226), may I remark that the beak of thegar fish of southern waters 

 (Hemiramphus, A.) is of rather too fragile a nature tobecipalile 

 of making a slit of four inches in length in a hard felt hat ? 

 May not the fish in question have been more likely a young and 

 small Xiphias — or, as is equally probable, a juvenile Pristis or 

 sawfish — emulating with the thoughtless exuberance of youth 

 the habits of Exocttus ? 



Any Austraban can confirm the correctness of Dr. Rae's ob- 

 servations in the smie pa^e of Nature re wild ducks and 

 railways. Looking down upon the reedy waterh.des on the south 

 bank of the Yarra, from Princes Bridge in Melbourne, abundance 

 of native waterfowl can any day be seen swimming about in con- 

 scious security and much less on the alert than they are in any 

 swamp in the loneliest part of the bush. The constant roar of 

 a great passing traffic, as well as the unceasing turmoil and un- 

 earthly noises of a large railway station within stone's throw 

 of their haunts, is now quite unnoticed by these usually most 

 watchful and wary of all birds. 



But for the fear of trespassing on your space, I could give 

 many more illustrations of the truth of Dr. Rae's remarks and of 

 the quick and unerring instinct which so soon teaches both 

 furred and feathered animals to dread less the roaring and 

 shrieking ogre that is so swiftly tearing his way into their mo t 

 secluded haunts in the uttermost parts of the earth than the 

 silent, solitary biped who with gun in hand creeps stealthily 

 upon them. Robert S. Goodsir 



Edinburgh, July 9 



ing, he made several sharp zigzag flights, drawing nearer the 

 light of the glowworm, and th«n, making a dash like that of a 

 hawk at an object it has been watching, pitched directly on the 

 glowworm, covering it in the fraction of a second. I had been 

 noting the curious habit of this, which thus appeared to be the 

 female insect, of standing with its abdomen erected in the air 

 and quite motionless, except for a sort of -pulsation, but on the 

 contact of the male, the b >dy fell to a normal position, and it 

 was evident that coitus was taking place. I watched them ten 

 minutes until I was completely satisfied that this was the ca e, 

 when I swept them both into a card box which I send with this 

 for examination by a competent entomologist of the insects, 

 which have not the slightest likeness to each other, the female 

 resembling in general form the glowworm of England, but 

 having an intenser light, and the light-emitting organs, beside 

 the abdominal, which is the most luminous as well as the largest, 

 being two glands (apparently) situated where the joints of wings 

 might be expected if the insect were winged. The light is of 

 an exquisite green, and so brilliant as to pale little at the 

 proximity of a wax taper burning at six inches' distance. 



This morning, on opening the box, I found the female ap- 

 parently dead and collapsed ; but the male, on the light return- 

 ing to them, attempted to renew his embraces. 



I remember a discussion at Cambridge (U.S.A.) some years 

 ago, in which Agassiz conjectured that the lijjht of the glow- 

 worm served as an amorous guide, but I had only a few weeks 

 before noticed quite a different use for it. In one of the primi- 

 tive forests of New York State, where twilight is normal from 

 the density of the shade, I was attracted by the loud buzzing of 

 a fly under a recumbent tree trunk. On looking for the cau: e 

 of it I found a large, luminifercus insect resembling in general 

 construction the common glowworm, but with powerful man- 

 dibles, which had built itself a little pit resembling that of an 

 ant-lion, at the bottom of which it was lying, its light distinctly 

 visible. The fly was in the clutch of the mandibles, helples , 

 though as large as a bluebottle, nor could I easily extricate him. 

 There could be no more mistaking in his case that the light was a 

 decoy than in this of the Pistoiese insect being a sexual invitation. 



W. J. Stillman 



Cutigliano, Pistoiese Apennines, June 25 



[The name of the glowworm is Lamprorhiza splcndidula, a 

 common South European species. — Ed.] 



Glowworms 



While watching, last evening, some glowworms in a mossy 



stone wall, my attention was attracted to a firefly flying to and 



fro in the field beyond and approaching the wall where I stood. 



Arriving within two or three feet of the glowworm I was watch- 



Mimicry 



I HEARD what I fancy was rather a curious instance of 

 mimicry last Wednesday evening (June 28) about 10 o'clock. 1 

 was walking with a friend across a field adjoining a meadow, in 

 which was a landrail (A'alhts Crex) ; we both noticed that the 

 animal's cry, or crake as it is called here, was pitched in a higher 

 and somewhat softer key than is usually the case, and my friend 

 remarked that perhaps it was a young bird, but we were con- 

 siderably surprised to hear him imitate the cry of the lapwing 

 ( Tringa vaneilus). At first this cry was uttered only once 

 alternately with several crakes, but we listened for about ten 

 minutes, at which time, I suppose, he fancied that his note was 

 perfected (which, however, it was not, being much less sharp than 

 the pee-wit of the lapwing), and so he es-ayed it several times in 

 succession. But he ultimately relapsed into his craking again. 



Filston Hall, Shoreham, Kent, July 4 A. HALE 



Indian Numeration 



In your review (p. 195) of "Field and Garden Crops of the North- 

 western Provinces .ind Oudh " you speak of the peculiar system 

 of numeration u-ed by the author, as in the instance 6,79,06,496, 

 expressing sixty-seven millions, &c. Perhaps I may be allowed 

 to point out that this marking is quite in accordance with the 

 native Indian method of numeration, in which there is no word 

 equivalent to "million." In India the series runs thus : — Thou- 

 sands, tens of thousands, lakhs, tens of lakhs, krors (or crore-). 

 A lakh is a hundred thousand, a kror is ten millions. 



It may be doubted whether it is advisable to adopt this system 

 in an English book, for even native readers of it would easily 

 enough follow our own ; still it is not uncommon to see lakhs 

 and krors made use of in English official papers. 



Of three questions asked by the reviewer, the above remarks 

 give an answer to one ; as to the others I may say that a " i eer " 

 is two pounds avoirdupois, and a " maund " is forty seers. 



Eton College, July 4 Frederic Drew 



