OcroBER 23, 1913] 
NATURE 
235 
Narrative of travel, but this is very well 
told, and many experiences which are likely 
to be of value to other wanderers in the some- 
what intricate paths of the Nearer East are 
given prominence. Mr. Lukach has already 
written on Cyprus, and perhaps his chapter on 
that island in the present volume may be indicated 
as of special value, including as it does a_ brief 
historical review, but throughout the book, a 
medley as it must necessarily be, there is found 
a laudable tendency to avoid assuming for the 
reader a foreknowledge of the complex lines of 
Levantine history. For example, the note and 
“genealogical” table of the Eastern Churches on 
pp- 113, 114, will be welcome to those who have 
striven to comprehend the religious divisions of 
Fic, 2.—Scene, Trobriand Islands. 
Eastern Christendom. The book is illustrated 
with many good photographs, mostly the author’s 
own, and there is a small route-map. 
(3) Mr. A. S. Meek has made extensive 
zoological collections for the Tring Museum, and 
in the present volume he narrates his adventures 
while doing so, and also, at the outset, gives some 
account of his preparation for a collector’s career. 
We follow him, in his narrative, to New Guinea 
and to various island-groups in the region of that 
great island—the Trobriands, the Louisiades, the 
Solomons, &c. In New Guinea itself he has 
travelled widely, and not in British territory only ; 
his two last chapters deal with expeditions into 
the heart of the Dutch area. Mr. Meek asserts 
that he can claim to be neither a man of science nor 
NO. 2295, VOL. 92] 
} 
a descriptive writer ; his colleagues at the museum, 
on the one hand, and his readers, on the other, 
| may be willing to find undue modesty in the state- 
ment. Certainly he has provided the museum 
with much new material; an introduction to his 
book by the Hon. Walter Rothschild makes that 
clear, while so far as the literary claims of the 
work are concerned, the book has had the benefit 
| of editorship at the hands of Mr. Frank Fox, who 
| is well qualified for the task by his authoritative 
knowledge of Australasia. Mr. Meek’s text 
unquestionably increases in interest as it pro- 
gresses, and in addition to his personal adventures 
(from which, quietly narrated as they are, his 
own spirit of intrepidity emerges clearly enough) 
and his successes as a collector, a tribute is cer- 
From ‘‘ A Naturalist in Cannibal Land.” 
| tainly due to his ability in dealing with the natives, 
on whose friendly aid—of the winning of which 
there is but one method and that the right one— 
he has often needed, and been able, to rely. 
NOTES. 
Tue council of the Royal Meteorological Society has 
awarded the Symons gold medal to Mr. W. H. Dines, 
F.R.S., in recognition of the valuable work which he 
has done in connection with meteorological science. 
The medal will be presented at the annual meeting 
of the society on January 21, 1914. 
Tue annual Huxley 
the Royal Anthropological 
of 
de- 
Lecture 
will be 
Memorial 
Institute 
