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SEPTEMBER I1, 1913]| 
NATURE 
51 
beetle hastily swallows as much as she can of the 
fungus. 
In a paper on the psychology of insects, read before 
the General Malarial Committee at Madras in Novem- 
ber, 1912, Prof. Howlett, after giving an account of 
experiments carried out by him on the response of 
insects to stimuli, comes to the conclusion that insects 
are to be regarded “not as intelligent beings con- 
sciously shaping a path through life, but as being in 
a sort of active hypnotic trance.” It is claimed that 
this view of insect-psychology opens up great possi- 
bilities in the study of insect carriers of disease, since 
“it is no intelligent foe we have to fight, but a mere 
battalion of somnambulists.” If we discover the 
stimuli or particular conditions which determine the 
actions of an insect, we can apply them to its undoing. 
It was found, for example, that the females of the 
fruit-fly, a serious pest in some parts of India, 
emitted an odour resembling ordinary citronella, and 
that the males could be caught in very large numbers 
by baiting traps with citronella, since they came to 
the traps and remained there apparently under a blind 
impulse to follow the scent of the female. In this way 
they had succeeded in checking largely the incidence 
of the fruit-fly pest. 
In reference to a recent paragraph in our notes 
columns on a large dinosaurian limb-bone from 
Bushman’s River, S. Africa, we have received a letter 
from Dr. R. Broom pointing out that Owen was 
incorrect in stating that Anthodon came from that 
locality, and that (as mentioned in Brit. Mus. Cat. 
Foss. Reptilia) its real place of origin was Stylkrantz. 
It is added that Anthodon is not a dinosaur, but a 
pariasaurian, and is thus rightly classified in the 
work just quoted. Dr. Broom appears to forget that 
in 1895 (Rec. Albany Mus., vol. i., p. 277) he himself 
stated in reference to Anthodon that there ‘‘seems a 
strong probability that the three original specimens 
were got by Bain at Bushman’s River.” Later on he 
observed that ‘‘by Owen Anthodon was believed to be 
a dinosaur; by Lydekker and others it has been be- 
lieved to be allied to Pareiasaurus. . . . The teeth are 
unlike those of Pareiasaurus, and strikingly like 
those of dinosaurs, and it seems possible that Owen 
may ultimately prove to be right.” Basing our re- 
marks on these statements, our one error was the 
assertion that Anthodon is known to be a dinosaur. 
As the Stylkrantz beds are Permian, and those of 
Bushman’s River Cretaceous, there can, of course, be 
no community between their faunas. 
Tue September number of The Selborne Magazine 
contains a list of lectures delivered before the Selborne 
Society during the past few years, and the names of 
the lecturers. Any of these discourses, which cover 
a great range of subjects, and are profusely illustrated 
with lantern-slides, the respective lecturers are pre- 
pared to repeat, either singly or in series, to local 
natural history societies or schools in return for their 
expenses, or moderate fees. 
To the August number of The Irish Naturalist Dr. 
R. F. Scharff contributes a note on the Belmullet 
whaling station, based on a paper by Mr, Burfield in 
NO. 2289, VOL. 92] 
the British Association report for 1912. The number 
of whales taken by the Blacksod Whaling Company 
in 1g11 was sixty-three, against fifty-five the previous 
year. The catch of the other company is not given. 
An interesting article by Mr. C. H. Eshleman on 
the ‘‘Climatic Effect of the Great Lakes as Typified 
at Grand Haven, Mich.,” on the east of the lake, is 
published in the meteorological chart for September 
issued by the U.S. Weather Bureau. Few stations 
are more favourably placed for this purpose; it has 
a broad expanse of eighty-five miles of water to the 
westward, and the shore is comparatively regular and 
almost straight to the north and south. Its tempera- 
ture is compared with that of Milwaukee on the west 
shore, and with several inland stations lying to the 
westward in the same latitude. The tables show, 
inter alia, that the annual means are practically the 
same; the monthly maxima along the lake are 
strikingly modified in spring and summer, but only 
slightly in the other seasons; the minima are greatly 
modified in autumn and winter. The lake acts as a 
barrier against the extreme cold from the far north- 
west; the temperature at Grand Haven is often 20° 
higher than at Milwaukee, but with easterly winds it 
is almost as cold at Grand Haven as away from the 
lake. AIl the other climatic features are modified, 
but the effect on yearly or monthly precipitation is not 
striking. We notice with regret that the publication 
of these valuable meteorological charts, including 
those of the great oceans, has now ceased. 
Tue after-shocks of the Messina earthquake of 
December 28, 1908, have been referred to in several 
of our Notes. On the last occasion (vol. xci., p. 93) 
a summary was given of observations made at Mes- 
sina during the year, 1909. From these it appeared 
that the distribution in time of the after-shocks did not 
follow Omori’s law, y=h/(k+x), where h and k are 
constants and y the number of after-shocks during a 
given interval at time x from the earthquake. These 
observations, however, referred to all the shocks felt 
at Messina, and not only to the true after-shocks of the 
great earthquake. The latter are distinguished in 
the valuable notices of earthquakes observed in Italy 
during 1909, of which we have received the last three 
numbers for the year. From these it is seen that the 
decline in frequency of the true after-shocks, though 
exhibiting the usual fluctuations, does not depart 
widely from Omori’s well-known law. 
Part 14 of the Verhandlungen of the German 
Physical Society contains further details of the method 
used and the results obtained by Drs. A. Eucken and 
F. Schwers, of the University of Berlin, in their 
measurements of specific heats of substances at very 
low temperatures. A cylindrical block of the material 
to be investigated had a constantan heating wire of 
2 mm. diameter and 200 ohms resistance wound round 
it, electrical insulation and adequate thermal contact 
being secured by varnish. The temperature attained 
was determined from the resistance of a lead wire 
wound round the cylinder in the same way. The elec- 
trical heating was carried out in a vacuum vessel at 
temperatures between 16° and 92° on the absolute 
