158 



NA TURE 



[December 14, 1905 



Pycnogonida, or sea-spiders, of the Irish seas, naming 

 two new representatives of the group, each of which is 

 figured. 



" Volition in Micro-organisms " is the translation of 

 the title of a paper by Mr. R. B. Mes<5n, published at 

 San Jos6, Costa Rica, apparently as the first part of a 

 serial entitled Publicaciones Nuevas por Contribution de 

 Amigos. While admitting that the activity of such 

 organisms is automatic, and due in the first instance to 

 external stimulants, the author considers that such " auto- 

 matomism " constitutes the basis of the human will, and 

 that there is a complete gradation from the former to the 

 very highest developments of the latter. 



Perhaps the most generally interesting article in the 

 November number of the American Naturalist is one in 

 which Mr. F. B. Loomis attributes the phenomenon in 

 animals commonly known as " over specialisation " to 

 " momentum." As examples of structures coming under 

 the designation of over specialisation, the author cites the 

 tusks of the sabre-toothed tigers, the radiolarian shell, the 

 sutures of ammonites, sponge-spicules, and the horns of 

 wild sheep, wapiti, and elk. A variation started in one 

 particular line tends, in the author's opinion, to develop 

 in that one direction ; if the feature be harmful the de- 

 velopment dies, otherwise it may continue ad infinitum. 

 This theory of momentum, it is added, has not been 

 credited with the importance to which it is entitled. 

 Whether we are very much more forward for this sup- 

 posed explanation of a very obvious feature in development 

 may perhaps be open to doubt. 



From the entomological division of the U.S. Department 

 of Agriculture we have received a copy of a catalogue of 

 exhibits of economic entomology at the recent St. Louis 

 Exhibition, forming Bulletin No. 47. The whole exhibit 

 was intended to bring into prominence the general scope 

 of the work of the entomological division. Intimately con- 

 nected with this is a memoir on the Mexican cotton-boll 

 weevil, by Messrs. Hunter and Hinds, forming Bulletin 

 No. 45 of the entomological division of the U.S. Agri- 

 cultural Department. This weevil (Anthonomus grandis) 

 has the evil distinction of having developed during the last 

 twenty years from an insignificant into a notorious insect. 

 In 1885 it was ascertained for the first time that this weevil 

 attacked cotton in Mexico, and between that date and 

 1902 it crossed the Rio Grande into Texas, where it has 

 since spread with extraordinary rapidity, and inflicted 

 enormous losses on cotton-growers. After spreading for the 

 first few years very quickly, it was checked for a time 

 by unfavourable seasons, but meeting with suitable con- 

 ditions in 1898 it soon colonised the greater part of the 

 State. It was hoped that in ten years' time Texas would 

 double its output of more than ten million bales of cotton, 

 but this is now regarded as impossible. 



In the course of an article on western explorations for 

 fossil vertebrates, published in the October number of the 

 Popular Science Monthly, Prof. H. F. Osborn states that 

 " it is an extremely slow and difficult matter to prepare a 

 fossil, however carefully collected, for exhibition. It takes 

 two years or more to work out the collections of a single 

 season ; the result is that most of our museums are collect- 

 ing materials more rapidly than they can be worked. . . . 

 With larger endowments or with special gifts these 

 treasures could be more rapidly brought to light." It will 

 not fail to be noticed that public exhibition of these 

 wondrous fossils, when properly mounted, is regarded by 

 American museum officials as a matter of prime import- 

 NO. 1885, VOL. J 3) 



ance. Those who pay for these institutions do not like 

 the treasures hidden away for the sole benefit of the 

 student. 



A characteristic of modern American museums is 

 formed by the restored models of extinct animals, of which 

 there are scarcely any in the corresponding institutions of 

 this country. A considerable number of such models were 

 used by Prof. Osborn to illustrate his discourse on progress 

 in mammalian palaeontology during the last decade in 

 America, delivered before the International Zoological Con- 

 gress at Berne last year. The report of this lecture, published 

 in the Comptes rendus of the congress, contains photo- 

 graphs of these models, one of the most spirited of which 

 is herewith reproduced. In this instance, the restoration 

 has been a comparatively easy task, as the animal belongs 

 to an existing genus, but the workers under the author's 

 direction have not hesitated to attempt to reproduce the 

 external form of the Tertiary titanotheres and uintatheres, 

 and even of the giant reptiles of the Jurassic and Cre- 

 taceous. It may be hoped that we shall ere long see some 

 of these excellent restorations in our own museums. The 

 author points out that there are three fossil elephants in 

 America, viz. the mammoth [Elephas primigenius) in the 

 far north, E. columbi (akin to E. antiquus) chiefly in the 



Elephant (Elcplia 



iterator). 



central States, and E. imperator (allied to E. meridionalis) 

 in the south. Taken as a whole, Prof. Osborn 's record of 

 progress is little short of marvellous, and ought to make 

 European palaeontologists jealous, if jealousy could be 

 supposed to exist in matters scientific. 



The report by Dr. Ashburton Thompson on the fourth 

 outbreak of plague at Sydney in 1904 adduces further 

 evidence on the part played by rats in the communication 

 of plague to man. During the three last plague epidemics 

 in this city, an epizootic among the rats was always found 

 to precede the epidemic in man. 



The Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital for 

 November (xvi., No. 176) contains the first of the Herter 

 lectures on the contributions of pharmacology to physi- 

 ology by Prof. Hans Meyer, the second part of the paper 

 by Mr. Martin on the cause of the heart beat, and articles 

 of considerable anatomical and medical interest. 



The October number of Naturen, published at the 

 Museum, Bergen, contains an article by Prof. L. Kny on 

 the sensitivity of plants, and a historical summary of the 

 researches on the nature of alcoholic fermentation written 

 by Mr. P. R. Sollied. 



