432 NATURE 
ning. Childless women pray to Shongo for offspring, 
and when a son is born he is dedicated to the god. 
He is taken to the shrine, a ram is sacrificed, and the 
boy is given a staff, with directions to keep silent for 
a period which may extend to three months. Adults 
also carry these staves, and make a vow of silence 
for recovery of health. In the course of this rite, the 
patient pours the blood of a sacrificed ram on some 
stone celts, believed to be thunderbolts sent by Shongo. 
A smaller variety of staff is kept in houses to repre- 
sent Shongo. Sacrifices are made before them, and 
thus they are regarded as Ju-ju, or sacred, and the 
owners are very unwilling to part with them. 
PaLzOLiTHic natural history forms the title of an 
interesting article by Mr. R. I. Pocock in The Field 
of November 29. It is illustrated by reproductions of 
prehistoric sketches of various animals, together with 
photographs of their nearest existing representatives. 
To Mr. A. E. Cameron, the author, we are indebted 
for a copy of a paper, published in the September 
issue of the Transactions of the Entomological 
Society, on the life-history of Lonchoea chorea, a fly 
which, in the larval stage, does a certain amount of 
damage to diseased beet crops. 
Mr. W. Junk, the well-known Berlin publisher, 
announces the issue of a reprint of H. Loew’s ‘ Die 
Europaeischen Bohr-Fliegen (Trypetida),” at a sub- 
scription price of 61., to be raised after publication to 
7l. 10s. Although this fine folio was originally pub- 
lished so long ago as 1862, it is still the basis of our 
knowledge of this family of Diptera. The reproduc- 
tion of the photographs will, it is stated, be superior 
to that in the original edition, in which the prints have 
become faded and stained. In another circular the 
same firm directs attention to the ‘‘ Coleopterorum 
Catalogues,” of which fifty-five parts have been 
already, issued. 
Tue very remarkable vertebrate fauna of the Permo- 
Carboniferous beds of north-central New Mexico forms 
the subject of a fully illustrated memoir by Messrs. 
Case, Williston, and Mehl, issued, as Publication 
No. 181, by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 
The species from this horizon at present identified 
include a shark akin to Pleuracanthus, five amphi- 
bians, and ten reptiles of a low, although in some 
cases specialised, type. The most remarkable of the 
amphibian remains is a skull described as a new 
genus and species under the name of Chenoprosopus 
milleri, the generic designation referring to the curious 
superficial resemblance of the specimen to the skull 
of ‘a goose. The genus is believed to belong to the 
temnospondylous amphibians, in spite of certain indi- 
cations of affinity with reptiles. Among undoubted 
reptiles special interest attaches to the restoration of 
the skeleton of the pelycosaurian described by O. C. 
Marsh as Ophiacodon mirus, on account of the enor- 
mous size of the skull as compared with that of the 
trunk. According to the figures, the shoulder and 
pectoral girdles of this and certain allied forms present 
a striking- resemblance to the corresponding elements 
of African anomodonts. 
In the course of a lecture on zoological gardens 
delivered before the Royal Society of Arts on Novem- 
NO. 2302, VOL. 92| 
[DECEMBER II, 1913 
ber 27, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, secretary of the Zoo- 
logical Society directed attention to the tastes 
of the general public in regard to  establish- 
ments of this nature, pointing out that much greater 
interest is taken in watching the gambols and other 
habits of well-known animals than in observing rare 
species, or in contrasting one species with another. 
This, of course, is only natural, and as the members” 
of the public supply the greater part of the funds by | 
which menageries are maintained, it is only right and 
proper that their tastes should be consulted andi 
catered for. Not that the lecturer was by any means 
unmindful of the scientific value of menageries. On 
the contrary, he pointed out that such establishments 
afford practically the only means of obtaining a know- 
ledge of the comparative psychology of animals—a 
subject of which we are still profoundly ignorant. “T 
have no doubt,” he observed, ‘‘if we made use of the 
opportunities that menageries can afford, that we 
should find groups differing in structure equally 
different in natural disposition, in mental and 
emotional quality, in the power of forming new habits, 
in the quality of their intelligence.’’ Attention was 
also directed to the improvement in the condition of 
menagerie animals, and their increased longevity, as 
the result of the open-air treatment, as contrasted with 
the old ‘‘cossetting’’ system; while a considerable — 
portion of the discourse was devoted to a description 
of the new ‘‘ Mappin Terraces,” and the ‘‘Caird Insect 
House,”’ and the advantages which will accrue to 
the menagerie as a popular resort when the former 
are in full working order. 3 a 
Tue first number of The Indian Journal of Medical am 
Research, published in July of this year, consists of 
more than 200 pages, with fourteen plates, and con- 
tains a number of important contributions. First in 
order is a memoir by Capt. W. S. Patton and Capt. — 
F. W. Craig on certain hamatophagous flies of the 
genus Musca. These are congeners of our common 
English house-fly, and, like it, have the proboscis soft 
and not adapted for piercing. Being unable, there- — 
fore, to puncture the skin of man or animals, they 
obtain the food they require, namely blood, by asso- 
ciating themselves with common biting flies, such as 
Stomoxys, Tabanidz, &c. When one of these biting 
flies has put its proboscis through the skin the Musca 
approaches it, and will endeavour to thrusf its pro- — 
boscis into the wound, and to oust the first ‘eae s 
Sometimes several crowd round the same o and — 
when they have succeeded in dislodging it, or when — 
it has completed its meal, they suck up the blood — 
from the wound. It is possible that these flies may — 
play a réle, hitherto overlooked, in the transmission — ee. 
of disease. Four species, two of them new, are de-— 
scribed in detail with the help of excellent figures — “~ 
drawn by Mrs. Patton. 
Major H. G. J. pE Lorsinitre has contributed to 
The Quarterly Review for October (No. 437) a con- 
cise and valuable paper on the principal forest re-— 
sources of the world and the steps which have been 
taken in Britain and elsewhere to provide for the 
future. He points out that before many years the 
timber cut in Russia—our main source of supply, and 
the only important reserve left to draw upon—will 
