; 
} 
JANUARY 15, 1914] 
NATURE 
563 
presidential address of Sir Clements Markham and the 
papers read in the various sections are given in full, 
and many of the latter are handsomely and profusely 
illustrated. The success of the congress must be very 
gratifying to Sir Clements Markham, Dr. A. C. 
Haddon, and Mr. A. P. Maudslay, to whom the 
organisation and arrangements were entrusted. 
In the number of Biometrika issued in October, 
1913, Dr. H. S. Stannus describes cases of albinism 
or deficiency of pigment in natives of Nyasaland. He 
classifies them into several groups, ranging from com- 
plete albinism to a condition in which the skin is 
light brown, the hair yellow, and the irides hazel, 
and also separates off three distinct groups of pie- 
balds and “spotlings.’”’ He also describes cases of 
pathological leucoderma, and discusses its relation 
with albinism. The descriptions indicate that there 
is considerable grading between the different classes ; 
the examples classed as complete albinos have some 
pigment in the fundus and iris, and there seems to 
be no sharp line of distinction between these and cases 
with pigment in the skin. The more extreme cases 
are often associated with bad .teeth. The short pedi- 
grees given show no instance of direct transmission 
from parent to child, but several of more than one 
case in a family. 
In The Field of December 13, 1913, Mr. Lydekker 
adduces evidence to show that the Circassian goat 
may be a domesticated derivative from the markhor 
(Capra falconeri), which it resembles in the direction 
of its horn-spirals, and thereby differs from other 
domesticated goats—the offspring of the wild C. hircus 
aegagrus. 
In the Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum, 
vol. xlv., pp. 651-57, Dr. F. W. True describes a new 
species of beaked whale from the Californian coast, 
under the name of Mesoplodon mirum, a preliminary 
diagnosis having been given in an earlier note. ‘The 
species is related to Sowerby’s beaked whale (M. 
bidens), and also to M. europaeus, from the latter 
of which it differed by the form of the beak and of 
certain other elements of the skull. 
THE new generic and specific name, Leurospondylus 
~ ullimus is proposed by Mr. Barnum Brown (Bull. 
Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xxxii., pp. 605-15) for a 
plesiosaurian from the Upper Cretaceous Edmonton 
beds of Alberta, Canada, which is of special interest 
on account of being the latest member of its order at 
present known. It was a relatively small species, the 
vertebral column measuring about 7 ft., and related 
to Elasmosaurus, among its distinctive features being 
the medium length of the neck, the shortness and 
width of the centre of the vertebra, and the single- 
headed ribs. 
In an article on the inheritance of left-handedness 
in the American Naturalist for December, 1913, Prof. 
F. Ramaley points out that the peculiarity, in its true 
form (i.e. when not acquired), seems to be connected 
with an unusually high development of the right 
cerebral hemisphere. As the result of the record of 
1740 cases, of which 610 were parents, it is concluded 
that as regards inheritance, left-handedness is a 
NO. 2307, VOL. 92] 
Mendelian recessive. Out of 305 families there were 
only two in which both parents were left-handed, and 
in one of these one of the three children was right- 
handed, whereas if the inheritance were recessive all 
should have been left-handed. A possible explanation 
of the anomaly is that one of the parents was naturally 
cight-handed. 
To the large number of extinct bisons from the 
superficial formations of North America already de- 
scribed as distinct species, Dr. O. P. Hay, in a paper 
published in the Proceedings of the U.S. National 
Museum, vol. xlvi, pp. 161-200, adds a new one, 
under the name of Bison regius. It is typified by a 
skull discovered in 1902 near Hoxie, Sheridan County, 
Kansas, and appears to be nearly related to B. lati- 
frons, of Ohio, from which it differs by the greater 
lengths slenderness, and curvature of the horns, and 
also by the folding of the enamel of the central pits 
in the crowns of the upper molars. The latter feature 
is the one on which the author chiefly relies in dis- 
tinguishing the new species from B. latifrons, as the 
difference in the horn-cores might be merely sexual. The 
paper, which is illustrated by eleven plates, also contains 
a synopsis of all the other species, with a “key” to 
their distinctive features. In a second paper the same 
author (op. cit., pp. 267-77) recognises seven species 
of the North American Pleistocene genus Camelops, 
and at the same time discusses the characters distin- 
guishing this genus from the existing Lama 
(Auchenia), with which it has been regarded by some 
writers as identical Among the more important 
differences are the absence of a vertical ridge at the 
antero-external angles of the last two lower molars 
of Camelops, the longer and narrower skull, the more 
elongated grinding surfaces of the upper molars, the 
more procumbent lower incisors, and the narrower 
upper portion of the nasal bones of the skull. 
WE have received a reprint of a paper from The 
Salmon and Trout Magazine, July, 1913, by Mr. J. 
Arthur Hutton, on Wye salmon (results of scale read- 
ing, 1908 to 1912), in which the author gives numerous 
statistics of the length, girth, weight, &c., of a con- 
siderable number of salmon caught each year, together 
with some information as to age and spawning, as 
shown by examination of the scales of the fish. Work 
of this character is most valuable from the point of 
view of the study of the life-history of the fish, and 
it would lead to a considerable increase of our scien- 
tific knowledge of the salmon if fishermen would 
make similar observations on the fish of other British 
rivers. One of the most interesting results brought out 
by Mr. Hutton’s figures is that the proportion of 
girth to length of Wye salmon, which may be re- 
garded as a measure of the condition of the fish, is 
highest (0-523) in fish netted at the mouth of the river, 
whilst it gradually decreases in fish taken in the 
higher waters, until it sinks to 0-497 in those salmon 
caught above Builth, which is 115 miles from the 
sea. 
Miss Doris Mackinnon contributes to the Quarterly 
Journal of Microscopical Science (vol. lix., part 3) some 
interesting notes on certain flagellate Protozoa found 
