Feb. 19, 1885] 



NA TURE 



S79 



structure quite similar to the pro 1 ,, iscis of an elephant. The 



I, but the pituitary hole is present. | 

 I li.m come to a type for which no place can be found in our | 

 system- of zoology, but for which the late Prof. Peters, in 

 despair, lodged with the Insectivora; I refer to the flying cat 

 This genus forms a family by itself, and yet 

 has only two species ; it should form an order, as the Hyrax 

 does. 



lies of flying mammals are full of remnants 



1 . Hments of the new. I put them between 



tpials) and some of the most curiously 



modified Eutheria, the frugivorous bats, and survey them from 



widely separate standpoints; but they possess that 



which neither phalanger nor bat will account for or explain. 



With a Bat, outspread, foliaceous skull, as completely anky- 

 loses! as that of any bird, and as thoroughly pneumatic in its 

 post-orbital region, we have one of the largest and most perfect 

 hard palates ; with the upper incisors partly suppressed, the 

 lower incisors well developed and utterly unique, and the pre- 

 molar- and molars strong for grinding. The cheek-bones and 

 the squamosals are large and thoroughly marsupial, so are the 

 small external pterygoid processes and internal pterygoid bones, 

 and the very large mesopterygoids. I find no antero-lateral 

 it Jacobson's organs and their protecting cartilages 

 are twice as long as in any types yet examined, and the postero- 

 mers are almost as well developed as in marsupials, 

 whilst the main vomer is very large. The sphenoid bones are 

 typically Eutherian, but the basisphenoid has beneath it, as in 

 lizards, a small " parasphenoid " ; this I find only in G. phillip- 

 pensis, and as yet in no other mammal. As in the marsupials, 

 the jugal or malar helps to form the glenoid cavity, and the 

 squamosal is as large as in discus, the lowest of the Eastern 

 lis. The single flat tympanic bone, with its ossified 

 and compressed meatus, is very remarkable ; but this part of the 

 skull corresponds neither with the marsupials nor the insecti- 

 vores, and this is true also of several other of its characters. 

 M things in which it agrees with the marsupials are not 

 as in the hedgehog; it differs from both insectivores 

 ■ ipials in its own peculiar way, and in some things is 

 more archaic than either. This type appears to me to be a waif 

 from a large group of forms that were beginning to be trans- 

 formed out of the metatheria into the flying eutheria (Chiro- 

 ptera), certain of which, this living type among the rest, being 

 arrested at the general level (or platform) of the Insectivora ; 

 they are equal to, rather than members of, the order Insect- 

 ivora. The last type to be mentioned is the Tupaia, an Eastern 

 form, rather high in position, yet combining characters for the 

 firsl time seen in the Mammalia, namely, a perfect orbital ring, 

 with old metatherian structures, such as the large os-bullae, the 

 small external and internal pterygoids, and a somewhat absorbed 

 date. The last three kinds, Rhynchocyon, Galeopithecus, 

 upaia, all show a curious mixture of that which looks 

 upwards to the highest types, and of that which has been re- 

 tained from the lower, and more archaic forms of the mammalian 

 clas^. 



Anthropological Institute, February 10, — Francis Galton, 

 1". U.S., President, in the chair. — The election of Douglas W. 

 Freshfield, Lieut. -Col. J. Augustus Grant, C.B., F.R.S., and 

 Cuthbert Edward Peek, M.A., was announced. — Mr. II. II. 

 Johnston read a paper on the people of Eastern Equatorial 

 The races treated of extend over a region of Eastern 

 Africa lying between the 1st degree north of the equator and 5° 

 to the south, and bounded on the west by the 34th degree of 

 east longitude, and on the east by the Indian Ocean. The 

 fore-t country on the hills or along the rivers is occupied by 

 n Ht agriculturists almost exclusively belonging to the Bantu 

 family, ethnologically and linguistically, and the forbidding 

 wilderness in the plains is ranged over by tribes of either Galla 

 ai origin, both of which may be roughly classed with the 

 I iopic or Ilamitic groups. The Wa-taita are of medium 

 height, and have fairly good figures, but the men are somewhat 

 effeminate and slight-looking. In facial aspect there is much 

 variation : the teeth are filed and sharp-pointed, and the ears are 

 so misshapen by prevailing fashion that it is hard to guess at 

 their original shape. The body is disposed to be hairy, but is 

 carefully depilated all over, even to the plucking out of eye- 

 brow . eyelashes, beard and moustache. The hair is allowed to 

 grow only on the occiput, and here it is much cultivated, and 

 palled out into long strings, which are stiffened with grease and 

 threaded well with beads. There are but slight traces of religion 



among the Wa-taita. They are afraid of spirits who are sup- 

 posed to dwell in large forest trees, and perhaps for the reason 

 that their dead are always buried in the forest: Their marriages 

 are arranged first by purchase, but after the preliminaries have 

 been settled, the girl runs away and affects to hide. She is 

 sought out by the bridegroom and three or four of his friends, 

 and when found is seized and carried off to the hut of her future 

 husband. The Akamba, who live to the north of Taita, are a 

 very roving, colonising people, and great hunters. One of the 

 most interesting tribes are the Wa-tarata, who exhibit marked 

 peculiarities in their language and ideas. They are of fair 

 height, some of the men attaining to six feet. They frequently 

 let the beard and moustache grow, and usually abstain from 

 plucking out eyelashes and eyebrows. Circumcision is general. 

 Marriage is a matter of purchase, but no sign of imitating cap- 

 ture seems to be practised here. They number about two 

 thousand, and bear an excellent reputation among the coast 

 traders for honesty and friendliness. Mr. Johnston described 

 some of the chief characteristics of several other tribes with 

 which he had come into contact during his visit to Kilimanjaro, 

 and referred particularly to the languages sp >ken by the various 

 peoples, one of the -most interesting of which is the Masai, 

 which has many characteristics not possessed by most of the 

 other African languages. 



Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, February 9. — M. Bouley, Presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — On a new disposition of the revolving 

 mirror for the measurement of the velocity of light, by M. C. 

 Wolf. — On the determination of the ohm by the amortisement 

 method, by M. Mascart. — On the velocity of the detonation in 

 solid and liquid explosive substances, by M. Berthelot. — On the 

 epipodium of some of the gasteropods, by M. H. de Lacaze- 

 Duthiers. — Note on the skeleton of an extinct hyaena {Hyu-ua 

 spelaa) discovered by M. Felix Regnault in the Gargas Cave, 

 near Montrejean, by M. A. Gaudry. This cave hyaena appears 

 to have been scarcely larger than the present spotted species, but 

 the bones were thicker, so that it appears to have been a heavier 

 animal. The author proposes to constitute it a distinct species, 

 as Hyccna crocuta. — Remarks on the new volume of the annual 

 series issued by the Observatory of Rio de Janeiro, and pre- 

 sented to the Academy in the name of the Emperor of Brazil, 

 by M. Faye. — On a new refrigerator prepared for the study of 

 physico-chemical phenomena, by M. R. Pictet. — On the treat- 

 ment of vines infested by phylloxera with the sulphuret of 

 carbon, by M. P. de Lafitte. — Observations on Enche's comet 

 made at the Paris Observatory (equatorial of the West Tower), 

 by M. G. Bigourdan. — On some remarkable anomalies recently 

 observed in the appearance of the planet Saturn, by Pere Lamey. 

 — Observations of the solar protuberances made at the Observa- 

 tory of the Collegio Romano during the year 18S4, by M. P. 

 Tacchini. — Note on the solar parallax deduced from the daguerro- 

 type plates taken by the French Commission for the Transit of 

 Venus in 1874. A new method of calculation, comprising 

 nearly all the observations recorded, by M. Obrecht. The 

 parallax of the sun as determined on these data is expressed by 

 the formula 



it — 8"'8 - C004 SZ, 

 where 8 L is the correction in seconds of the time for the longi- 

 tude adopted for the station of Pekin, L — 7h. 36m. 30s. — On 

 a theory of curves aud surfaces admitting univocal correspond- 

 ences, by M. S. Kantor. — On the equilibrium of a fluid mass to 

 which a movement of rotation has been communicated, by M. 

 H. Poincare. — On the variation in the electric resistance of bis- 

 muth placed in a magnetic field, by M. H«trion. — Temperature 

 of solidification for nitrogen and the protoxide of carbon : rela- 

 tion between the temperature and pressure of liquid oxygen, by 

 M. K. Olszewski. — On the solution of the carbonate of magnesia 

 by carbonic acid, by M. R. Engel. — On the action of sulphur 

 on red phosphorus, by M. F. Isambert. — On the crystals of 

 monazite occurring in the diamantiferous gravels at Caravalles, 

 Province of Bahia, Brazil, by M. H. Gorceix. — On the /3- 

 hexachloride of benzine, by M. J. Meunier. — On the sensi- 

 tiveness of the eye to different degrees of luminosity in 

 the ordinary light usually employed for reading, writing, 

 &c, by M. Aug. Charpentier. — On the modifications pro- 

 duced in the chemical composition of certain secretions under 

 the influence of Asiatic cholera, by M. A. Gabriel Pouchet. — On 

 the physiological action of cocoine, third note, by M. Grasset. — 

 On the physiological action of the sulphate of cinchonamine, by 

 MM. G. See and Rochefontaine. — On the optical inactivity of 



