640 
world, will lend its unanimous support to the Hob- 
house Bill, now before Parliament, which is designed 
to reinforce the protective measures passed by Con- 
gress. The effect of the American Bill has been in- 
stantaneous and widespread, and is now receiving 
unanimous support all over the United States. The 
very passage and enforcement of the Bill has created . 
a sentiment for wild-life protection in many quarters 
where it did not exist before. The millinery trade 
has adapted itself to the new conditions, and the law 
is acknowledged to be most beneficial in its results.” 
WritInG on December 13, Prof. Ignazio Galli 
describes a series of sunset-glows which recall those 
of 1883-84. They were first observed in Rome on 
July 13, and continued without intermission, though 
with frequent variations in brightness, until the middle 
of December. Prof. Gaili notices that on June 17, 
or about a month before their first appearance, there 
was a very violent explosion of the Asama-yama in 
central Japan, followed by others on June 20 and 26. 
Mr. E. O. Winstept ‘has done a piece of useful 
work: by collecting in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore 
Society, new series, vol. vii., part i., all the references 
to gypsies in Tudor times recorded in the State Papers. 
They give, as he remarks, a picture of gypsy life 
when they travelled far and wide in large bands, some 
of the leaders of which bore names still well known. 
A band of 140 persons is recorded in Staffordshire in 
1539; eighty in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Bucking- 
hamshire in 1576, with a passport forged by a Cheshire 
schoolmaster. Active measures of repression were put 
in force by the authorities, an order of the Privy 
Council in 1542-3 directing certain persons ‘‘ to avoyde 
the countrey off a certayne nombre off vagabondes 
going upp and downe in the name of Egiptians.” 
Tue report of the bacteriologist, Prof. Ward Gilt- 
ner, of the Michigan State Board of Agriculture for 
the year July 1, 1912-July 1, 1913, has been received. 
Soil problems bulk large in the record, and an exten- 
sive trial of a serum for hog-cholera is being made, 
more than 500,000 c.c. of the serum having been 
issued. 
AmonG a collection of Antarctic seals and birds 
from South Georgia presented to the Scottish Zoo- 
logical Park by Messrs. Salvesen and Co., Leith, the 
most interesting specimens are a couple of young 
elephant-seals, about 6 ft. in length, and a Weddell’s 
seal. The latter is believed to be the first living 
example of its kind hitherto brought to Europe. 
Wir# reference to a paragraph in Nature of Decem- 
ber 16, 1913 (p. 457), Dr. W. D. Matthew writes to 
say that the so-called lions of the Rancho-la-Brea 
asphalt deposit are the extinct Felis atrox bebbi, and 
not pumas. The use of the term “lion” in this sense 
is to be deprecated, as it is commonly applied in 
America to the puma, while F. atrox appears to be 
as nearly related to the tiger as to the lion. 
In vol. xxxv (p. 252) of Notes from the Leyden 
Museum, Dr. J. H. Vernhout states that specimens of 
NATURE 
[FEBRUARY 5, I9I4 
taken on the coast of Ceram attached to rocks of 
mica-schist by the apices of their shells, so as to re- 
semble small cups. Such a mode of attachment, so 
far as the author could ascertain, appears to be 
unique in the case of limpet-like shells. 
Tue extinct mammal-like reptiles of South Africa 
and their relatives in other parts of the world, together 
with the strata in which their remains are embedded, 
form the subject of a well-illustrated article by Dr. R. 
Broom in The American Museum Journal for Decem- 
ber, 1913. A feature on which the author lays special 
stress is the powerful development of the limbs in 
nearly all the members of the group. “How these 
have been evolved is a matter of doubt, but there can 
be little question that it was this strengthening and 
lengthening of the limbs that started the evolution 
which ultimately resulted in the formation of the 
warm-blooded mammals.” 
To the first part of the ‘‘Bergens Museums Aaar- 
bok” for 1913 Mr. J. A. Grieg contributes an exhaustive 
article of 147 pages, illustrated with two plates, on 
the aquatic fauna of the Hardangerfjord, including 
both vertebrates and invertebrates. The second of the 
two plates is devoted to a life-size figure of the shell 
of a very large and much elongated form of the whelk 
(Buccinum undatum): In the second part is a 
systematic catalogue, by Mr. H. T. L. Schaanning, 
of the birds of Norway, with references to literature 
ranging from the year 1599 to 1912. The number of 
species recognised, inclusive of the great auk, is 
three hundred. 
In 1906 the late Dr. F. Ameghino described certain 
sharks’ teeth from the Tertiaries of Patagonia as the — 
representatives of a new generic type, Carcharoides, 
the name being given in allusion to the fact that these 
teeth have the sharply acuminate crowns character- — 
istic of Lamna, associated with the serrated margins 
of those of Carcharodon. Teeth of a precisely similar 
nature from the Tertiaries of Victoria are described 
in The Victorian Naturalist for December, 1913 
(vol. xxx., pp 142-3), by Mr. F. Chapman. The dis- 
covery is of interest as affording additional evidence 
of the close: affinity between the Tertiary littoral 
faunas of Patagonia, New Zealand, and Australia, 
and thus lending support to the view that they in- 
habited different portions of a single sea-bed. 
Dr. Asajiro Oxa, in the Journal of the College of 
Science, Tokyo (vol. xxxii.), describes a remarkable 
new Japanese compound Ascidian, to which he gives 
the name, Cyathocormus mirabilis. The form in ques- 
tion appears to be closely related to Colella, consisting 
of a ‘‘head” attached by a short stall, but the head is 
hollow, with a wide terminal opening, so that the 
entire colony has the form of a goblet, in the wall 
of which a single layer of zooids are arranged in 
double longitudinal rows. The author proposes for 
the reception of his genus a new family, Cyatho- 
cormidze, which he suggests may form a connecting 
link between the more ordinary Ascidiacee and the 
aberrant, free-swimming Pyrosoma. He therefore con- 
siders it doubtful whether we are justified in separat- 
the limpet-like mollusc, Siphonaria sipho, have been J ing Pyrosoma from other compound Ascidians, and 
NO. 2310, VOL. 92] 
