April 16, 1885] 



NATURE 



56; 



Pryer thinks that the patches of brown-red on the nests may be 

 due to blood from the hands of the gatherers, or to the betel- 

 juice which they constantly expectorate, but not to the bird's 

 blood. (3) The birds do not eat alga; ; they are purely insectivor- 

 ous. (4) Mr. Green says (Nature, December n) that a chemi- 

 cal and microscopical examination of the nests suggests that they 

 are made from the saliva of the bird. This Mr. Pryer regards 

 as a physical impossibility, for the bird could not secrete in a 

 few days a mass of saliva more than equal, when dried, to the 

 entire bulk of its own body, and then do this nine consecutive 

 times a year. He thinks that, undoubtedly, some saliva is used 

 by the birds, the algse (which Mr. Pryer incorrectly called 

 " fungoid growth " in his first account) being used in 

 the same way as a Japanese swallow (Ceeropis japonica) uses 

 mud. This bird gathers pellets of mud and works them up 

 in its mouth, forming a strong cement, constructing a large 

 bottle-shaped nest, sometimes nearly two feet long ; and exactly 

 as the Ceeropis japonica uses mud, so the Bornean Collocalia 

 fuciphaga uses alga;, producing thereby the delicate structure 

 known as edible bird's nest. Besides, Mr. Pryer states that 

 the nest examined by Mr. Green was . probably not genuine, as 

 the substance is very easily imitated, and the high price would 

 stimulate adulteration. (5) His previous theory that the dis- 

 tinction between white and black nests is due to the brown 

 outside of the alga; being used for the latter, he now renounces. 

 The birds can only use the inside, and black nests are simply 

 white nests grown old and repaired frequently. The difference 

 is not due to any difference in the site or in the kind of bird. 

 This is the writer's present theory. Owing to some accident (a 

 native printer's mishap possibly), portions of Mr. Pryer's paper 

 are not quite coherent and connected, and some of the words 

 and phrases are misplaced with that ingenious absurdity so 

 characteristic of printers' blunders ; but we believe we have 

 given the substance of the communication here. 



The sixteenth annual report of the American Museum of 

 Natural History lias ju^t been published. Besides various addi- 

 tions to the collections during the year — the principal being 44 

 specimens of North American birds, 29 specimens of North 

 American mammals, and 20 monkeys — the trustees report a step 

 of great importance taken in creating a section in the museum 

 called "The Department of Public Instruction." The Legis- 

 lature of the State of New York having appropriated a sum to 

 enable the curators of the museum to give free lectures, illustrated 

 by its collections, to the teachers of common and normal schools 

 throughout the State, the trustees have accepted the duty, and 

 have arranged for a series of lectures extending over four years, 

 twenty in each year, all to be richly illustrated with original 

 views and drawings specially prepared for the course. The 

 curriculum for the first course 1884-85 includes human anatomy 

 and physiology, forestry, building and ornamental stones, and 

 the animal kingdom. 



Mr. J. A. Allen, who for many years has had charge of 

 mammals and birds at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 Cambridge, has, Science states, accepted the curatorship of 

 mammalogy and ornithology in the American Museum of Natural 

 History in New Vork, where he will enter upon his new duties 

 about May 1. 



The American Government have sent 30,000 land-locked 

 salmon to the National Fish Culture Association, which arrived 

 on Saturday in excellent condition. In this country the hybrid- 

 isation of the various species of Salmonidae is extensively prose- 

 cuted ; and it is proposed to try the experiment of cross-breeding 

 the land-locked salmon with the brook trout or char, thus pro- 

 moting the culture of a better class of fish than the trout which 

 now abound in our rivers. 



Dr. II. J. Johnston-Layis, of Naples, announces the ap- 

 proaching publication of a "Monograph of the Earthquakes of 



Ischia," a memoir dealing with the seismic disturbances in that 

 island from remotest to recent times, with special observations 

 on those of 18S1 and 1883, by himself, with some calculations 

 by Rev. Prof. Samuel Haughton, M.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. 

 The work will be published by subscription, and intending sub- 

 scribers should communicate with the author, 7, Chiatamone, 

 Naples. 



A sharp shock of earthquake was felt in Rome on the night 

 of the 9th inst. Bells w-ere set ringing, and many persons were 

 momentarily alarmed by the movement, but that was the extent 

 of its effect. Prof. Stefano Michele de Rossi has communicated 

 the following report to the Press: — "At 2.44 a.m. a distinct 

 shock of earthquake aroused a great part of the population of 

 Rome. From the observations obtained it belonged to the sixth 

 degree of the conventional scale of 10 degrees for intensity. It 

 undulated from south-west to north-east, and then from north- 

 west to south-east. The full duration was about 10 seconds, of 

 which four were occupied by the second pha-e of the pheno- 

 menon. A telegram from Avezzano states that the shock was 

 very strong there in the direction of north to south. No damage 

 done." Telegrams received later from Frosinone report that a 

 shock was felt there at the same time with sufficient force to 

 create general alarm among the population. 



There has been a renewal of earthquake shocks in the pro- 

 vinces of Granada and Malaga. F.arly on the morning of the 

 nth oscillations of more or less violence are reported from Velez 

 Malaga, Antequera, Motril, and the city of Granada itself and 

 some surrounding villages. So far as is known there has been 

 no loss of life or serious damage, but the panic at some places is 

 described as intense, and the inhabitants, refusing to return to 

 their houses, remain in the open country. 



Several shocks of earthquake were felt at Geneva on the 

 13th. 



The most recent contribution to the much-discussed question 

 of the origin of the mound-builders of the United States is a 

 pamphlet by Mr. C. E. Putnam, issued by the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Davenport, Iowa. The Bureau of Ethnology 

 connected with the Smithsonian Institute champions the theory 

 that the race which constructed these mounds may be traced to 

 the ancestors of the present American Indians, while another 

 school of archaeologists holds that the mound-builders were more 

 advanced in civilisation than the American Indians, and have 

 endeavoured to -trace them to a Mexican origin, or to some 

 common ancestry. This being the broad question at issue, the 

 Davenport Academy, which appears to have adopted no theory 

 on the subject, became possessors by donation of three inscribed 

 tablets and two elephant pipes, i.e. pipes with the figure of an 

 elephant carved on them, which are stated to have been found 

 in Iowa. In the words of Mr. Putnam, "if their authenticity 

 is established, then archaeologists will find in them strong corro- 

 borative evidence that man and the mastodon were contemporary 

 on the American continent, and the mound-builders were a race 

 anterior to the ancestors of the present American Indians, and 

 of higher type and more advanced civilisation." But doubts 

 have been cast on the authenticity of these curious relics by the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, and the Davenport Academy has taken 

 the matter up with some warmth. Mr. Putnam's pamphlet is the 

 Academy's reply, and is a vigorous defence of the genuineness of 

 the elephant pipes and inscribed tablets. It describes in detail the 

 circumstances under which they were discovered, the witnesses 

 present, &c., and lays especial stress on the fact that the two 

 pipes were dug up at different times and places, by independent 

 persons, one, at least, of whom had no notion of the value of the 

 object. The whole subject is one of extraordinary interest, and 

 Mr. Putnam's statement, vouched as it is by a formal resolution 

 of the Davenport Academy, must play an important part in any 



