i65 



NA TURE 



[Dec. 25, 1884 



described, it must suffice to mention that elaborate illus- 

 trations are to be found of all the new ones, while Plate 

 XVI. is altogether devoted to the illustrations of Stele- 

 chopus hyocrini. The body in this new type has a general 

 similarity to a Tardigrade. Unfortunately the few specimens 

 found being mounted in Canada balsam were somewhat 

 altered in contour, but enough remained to surely indicate 

 that the lateral margins of the body are nearly parallel 

 in the middle, and become somewhat narrowed at either 

 end. There is a conical caudal appendage. The largest 

 specimen measured 35 mm. long, with a greatest dia- 

 meter of g mm. ; the cuticle waschitinous ; the parapodia, 

 five on each side, were independent in action one of the 

 other. The specimens were taken from species of Hyo- 

 crinus and Bathycrinus, off the Crozets, at depths of 

 1600 and 1375 fathoms. All the beautiful plates (sixteen 

 in number) are from drawings by the author. 



Dr. P. P. C. Hoek concludes his Report on the Cirri- 

 pedia by the present series of chapters on the anatomy 

 of the group. Unfortunately, the new forms of the deep- 

 sea material being often represented by single specimens, 

 it was impossible to work out theii anatomy in any 

 detail ; but some excellent work has been done on forms 

 formerly known. Thus the subject of the "comple- 

 mental " males of Scalpellum is treated of, and every 

 justice is done to the investigations of Darwin, who in 

 1 85 1 first called attention to the strange phenomenon. 

 " When we consider how much the methods of micro- 

 scopical research have been improved in the thirty years 

 which have elapsed, and that the male of Scalpellum 

 vulgare which Darwin investigated is only 07 mm. in 

 size, we can only wonder at the thoroughness of the infor- 

 mation which he has given, and at the soundness of the 

 conclusions at which he arrived." Dr. Hoek observed 

 the complemental male in nineteen out of the forty-one new 

 species described in the first part of the Report, but the 

 unique specimens were not, and could not without spoiling 

 them, be thoroughly examined. The structure of these 

 males varies : some do not show a division of the body 

 into a capitulum and a peduncle ; a second group, while 

 not showing either, are furnished with rudimentary 

 valves ; and a third not only have these latter but also 

 show a distinct capitulum and peduncle. Another chapter 

 treats of the anatomy of the complemental male in Scal- 

 pellum ornatum, one of the largest known. The subject 

 of the Cypris-larva;, of the segmental organs in the Cirri- 

 pedia, of the cement apparatus, of Darwin's "true ovaria" 

 (believed to be a pancreatic gland), the eye in Lepas, and 

 the gyncecial organs, are also treated of and illustrated 

 in six very beautifully executed plates from drawings by 

 the author. 



During the Challenger voyage human crania and 

 skeletons were collected at several of the ports at which 

 the ship called. These were intrusted to Prof. W. Turner 

 for examination, and his first Report on the Human Crania 

 forms part of the present volume. The crania were from 

 the Admiralty Islands, the Sandwich Islands, the Chatham 

 Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Terra del Fuego, Pata- 

 gonia, and the Bush Race from South Africa. In another 

 Report the other bones brought to England will be de- 

 scribed. In the present Report, Prof. Turner has not 

 restricted himself to the examination and mensuration of 

 the skulls collected during the Challenger's voyage, but has, 

 whenever possible, studied along with them skulls from 



the same localities, so that his Report may be looked on 

 as an essay on the craniology of certain races of man. 

 In all, there are described and tabulated one hundred and 

 forty-three crania from aboriginal people who had lived 

 in a state of uncivilisation. Not one of the skulls 

 examined was metopic, though in a young male Aus- 

 tralian, a Loyalty Islander, and in two New Guinea 

 skulls traces of the frontal suture were seen in the glabella. 

 In no skull was the malar bone either wholly or partially 

 divided into two by a suture. In the skull of one Chatham 

 Islander a wormian bone attained the magnitude of an 

 intraparietal bone In a good many of the crania epipteric 

 bones were found in the pterion on one or both sides, but 

 Prof. Turner points out that the squamoso-front d articu- 

 lation in the region of the pterion is to be regarded as an 

 individual peculiarity, and is not a racial character. In 

 each group of skulls, except the Fuegian, specimens with 

 an infra-orbital suture were met with, a suture which, 

 though of by no means rare occurrence in the human 

 skull, has had very little attention paid to it by anatomists. 

 A mesial third occipital condyle was present in an 

 Admiralty, a Sandwich, a Chatham Islander, and in a 

 New Zealander. As several of the peculiarities noted are 

 normal conditions in other mammals, they must be re- 

 garded when occurring in man as reversions to a lower 

 type. It becomes of interest, therefore, to inquire if such 

 reversions occur more frequently in savage than in 

 civilised races. To such an inquiry Prof. Turner answers, 

 that, while the number of skulls he reports on is certainly 

 too limited to base any broad generalisations on as to the 

 relative frequency of occurrence of particular variations 

 in the different races, yet there is obviously a larger pro- 

 portion of important variations to be met with among 

 them than would occur in a corresponding number of 

 skulls of the white race. As results of the study of the 

 races of men described in this Report, Prof. Turner points 

 out that in South Africa, in the southern part of South 

 America, and in Australia, races of men exist distinguished 

 by the small capacity of their crania, by their low intel- 

 lectual development, and in the case of the Bushmen and 

 Fuegians, by their small stature and generally feeble 

 physical configuration. The Australians and the now 

 extinct Tasmanians were under the average size of 

 Europeans. In the islands to the south and east of the 

 great Asiatic continent, the Andamanese and other 

 Negrito tribes are distinguished by their small stature, 

 microcephalic crania, and low state of intelligence. " It 

 is not unlikely that these people may in the early un- 

 written periods of human history have had in their 

 respective continents a much wider range of distribution 

 than at present, and have been gradually pushed south- 

 wards into their present restricted areas by the advance 

 of the races, more powerful in both intellectual and 

 physical development, which we see around them. If on 

 their displacement they failed to mix with their invaders, 

 their physical characters would remain pure. For isola- 

 tion and interbreeding carried on through many centuries 

 would necessarily preserve and even intensify the charac- 

 teristic peculiarities of each race." This Report is accom- 

 panied by an atlas of seven plates. 



The concluding Report in this volume is on the Cheilo- 

 stomatous Polyzoa, by George Busk, F.R.S., with thirty- 

 six plates, of which a detailed notice, by Dr. George J. 

 Allman, appeared in our last week's number. 



