APRIL 7, 1904] 
NATURE 
541 
question of the origin and structure of the epithelial lining 
of the alimentary tube in the Lepidoptera, and the other 
(which is to be continued), by Mr. E. Bresslau, on the 
developmental history of the turbellarian worms. 
It is satisfactory to learn from the scientific investijration 
report of the Northumberland Sea-Fisheries Committve for 
1903 that, in spite of some local diminution, the improve- 
ment in the results from trawling, to which attention had 
been previously directed, is maintained, if the results of the 
whole period are taken into consideration. It is added that 
while the season has not been so good for the salmon and 
herring fishing, ‘‘ white fish’? have yielded better than in 
the previous year. Small fish have been measured, marked 
and returned to the sea. A few of these have been re- 
captured near the same places, and one in another bay. 
Other experiments tend to show that the migration of crabs 
is not so simple as has been hitherto supposed. 
Tue Boletim of the Goeldi Museum at Para contains an 
annotated catalogue, by Messrs. Goeldi and Haymann, of 
the species of local mammals represented in the collection. 
It is somewhat remarkable to find among these a species of 
stoat (Mustela, or Putorius, pardensis), but there can be 
little doubt that this, although now domiciled in the country, 
was originally introduced by human agency. Two very 
spirited plates illustrate the paper, one showing the extra- 
ordinary width and straightness of the opening of the mouth 
in one of the howling-monkeys (quite unlike what we are 
accustomed to see in museum specimens in this country), 
and the other the head of one of the indigenous species of 
cat. Mr. O. Thomas contributes an appendix to the cata- 
logue, in which two subspecies are described as new. 
THREE out of the four articles in the current number of 
the Zoologist are devoted to bird subjects. In the fourth 
Mr. A. H. Cocks reverts to the subject of the gestation 
of the badger, and arrives at what he confesses to be the 
very remarkable conclusion ‘‘ that the pairing may take 
place at any time during a range of some ten months, and 
yet that the young are always born within a season limited 
to about six weeks. In other words, it appears that the 
gestation may amount to anything between under five and 
over fifteen months, and yet that the young are all born 
within some six weeks of each other; and, moreover, that 
the females which paired earliest by no means necessarily 
whelp earlier during the six weeks’ season than others 
which paired several months after them.”’ 
THE necessity of carefully studying the anatomy of the 
smaller mammals, instead of restricting our attention to 
the description of new subspecies founded mainly on colour, 
is exemplified by certain notes on the insectivorous genus 
Tupaia contributed by Dr. H. C. Chapman to the Proceed- 
ings of the Philadelphia Academy for March. These serve 
to show that the presence of a caecum is by no means, as 
has hitherto been supposed, a constant feature of that genus. 
The paper concludes with a discussion on the phylogeny of 
the Primates, in which a provisional table of descent is 
sketched. In view of the researches of other biologists it 
is somewhat remarkable to find Chiromys: figuring as the 
ancestor of the rodents, and Tarsius as the parent form 
of the insectivores, while it is scarcely less surprising to see 
American monkeys placed between the lorises and the 
monkeys of the Old World in a direct phylogenetic line. 
It is, however, only just to the author to mention that in 
the text he states that some of these suggested relationships 
may have to be reconsidered. 
THE report of the medical officer of health of the City of 
London for the four weeks ending March 12 details the 
NO. 1797, VOL. 69] 
inspection of kitchens of restaurants, &c., commenced early 
in the year 1902, and now just completed. There appear 
to be no less than gog kitchens in the district, employing 
9888 men and women. In the course of the inspection 1996 
various sanitary defects were found. It would appear that 
the Factory and Workshop Act 1901 is adequate to deal 
with this class of work-place. 
In the Empire Review for March Dr. Cooke Adams con- 
tributes an article on cancer research in Australia. His 
statistics show that the death rate from cancer in Australia 
among the British born is nearly double that among the 
Australian born portion of the population, being, for the 
age period of thirty-five years and upwards, 12-5 for the 
former and 69 for the latter per 100 deaths. Among the 
aborigines cancer appears to be practically unknown, 
although a large number live to the age period at which 
the disease chiefly manifests itself. 
““ Protozoa and Disease”’ is the title of an article in 
the Century Magazine by Dr. Gary Calkins. After some 
introductory remarks on the classes of protozoa and their 
life-history, the protozoan parasites causing certain diseases 
in the lower animals and in man are described, viz. diseases 
of the mole and of brook trout, malaria, scarlatina and 
small-pox. In scarlatina Dr. Mallory has met with struc- 
tures which he considers to be protozoan organisms, and in 
small-pox Dr. Councilman believes that a protozoon is .the 
cause, and that it attacks the nuclei of the cells of the skin. 
In vaccinia Dr. Councilman describes an organism similar 
to that of small-pox, but differing from the latter in that it 
attacks the cell bodies and not the nuclei. The article is 
illustrated with several excellent figures. 
Tue last number of the Izvestia of the Russian Geo- 
graphical Society (xxxix., 5) contairis the results of an in- 
quiry, by G. E. Grum Grzimailo, into the origin of the 
populations of eastern Tibet and the Kuku-nor region, the 
conclusion of the paper being that the presence of a white 
race element in the population of eastern Tibet is very 
probable. Another paper of scientific interest is the report 
by Captain Serghievsky on the pendulum observations made 
in Russia during the last five years. Relative determin- 
ations only, by means of the Sterneck apparatus, were 
carried on, those regions which offered interesting anomalies 
being made the subject of detailed studies, namely, the 
region of the well known pendulum anomaly in Kursk, the 
Caucasus, Turkestan (in order to ascertain the disturbing 
influence of the Pamir), the region covered by the geodetic 
triangulation for the measurement of an arc of the meridian 
in connection with the Spitsbergen measurements, and the 
stretch between Pulkova and Dorpat. 
In an essay entitled ‘‘ Prehistoric Pile-structures in Pits,”’ 
Mr. L. M. Mann records the results of excavations made at 
Stoneykirk, in Wigtownshire (Proc. Soc. Antiq., Scotland). 
The discovery of these early inhabited sites was due to Mr. 
A. Beckett, who directed attention to a row of depressions 
in the land, situated on the edge of a plateau. The de- 
pressions’ proved to be silted-up pits. In one of them, at a 
depth of.7 feet, there were found decayed “‘ logs of round 
timber more or less vertically placed.” In the silted 
material chips, cores, implements of flint and of other stones, 
as well as charcoal and fragments of pottery were found. 
Twigs and branches belonging to supposed wattle-work 
were likewise obtained. There was evidence which tended 
to show that the timber had been shaped by stone axes. 
It appears probable that the pits were used as shelters or 
sleeping places and workshops. The fact that the lowest 
stratum met with was a bluish clay suggests that a struc- 
