April i 2, 1906] 



NA TURE 



567 



11 the death of Dr. S. P. Langley, secretary of the institu- 

 tion from 1887 to his death. The resolution includes the 

 i"l' ( wing appreciative record of Dr. Langley 's work: — " In 

 the death of Mr. Langley this institution has lost a dis- 

 tinguished, efficient, and faithful executive officer, under 

 whi se administration the international influence of the 

 parent institution has been greatly increased, and by whose 

 personal efforts two important branches of work have been 

 added to its care — the National Zoological Park and the 

 Astrophysical Observatory. The scientific world is in- 

 debted to Mr. Langley for the invention of important 

 apparatus and instruments of precision, for numerous 

 additions t,, knowledge, more especially for his epoch- 

 making investigations in solar physics, and for his efforts 

 in placing the important subject of aerial navigation upon 

 a scientific basis. All who sought the truth and cultivated 

 science, letters, and the fine arts, have lost through his 

 death a co-worker and a sympathiser." The executive 

 committee has been requested to arrange for a memorial 

 meeting to be held in Washington; and Dr. A. D. White 

 has been invited to prepare a suitable memorial which 

 shall form a part of the records of the Board of Regents 

 of the institution. 



The belemnites of the Speelon Clay form the subject of 

 a paper by Mr. T. Shepherd, issued as Xo. 20 of Hull 

 Museum Publications. 



We have received a copy of a fourth supplement to " A 

 Catalogue of the Books in the Library of the Indian 

 Museum," containing additions from the autumn of 1899 

 to that of 1903. 



In No. 1440 of the Proceedings of the U.S. National 

 Museum, Mr. Knud Andersen describes horseshoe-bats 

 collected in the islands of Nias and Engano, Malay Archi- 

 pelago. Xo. 1441 of the same serial is devoted to a re- 

 vision of American Palaeozoic insects, by Mr. Anton Hand- 

 lirsch, of the Imperial Natural History Museum at Vienna, 

 to whom the Transatlantic specimens have been sent. A 

 large part of the collection was obtained from the Upper 

 Carboniferous shales of Mazon Creek, in Illinois, where 

 the} are found imbedded in washed-out nodules. Since 

 only about one nodule in a thousand contains an insert's 

 wing, the search w'ould be impossible were it not for the 

 fact that other fossils are comparatively common. Owing 

 to ill-health, Prof. Scudder was unequal to the task of de- 

 scribing the collections, and it was for this reason that 

 they were handed over to the Austrian palaeontologist. 

 The systematic conclusions reached by Mr. llandlirsch 

 ■differ somewhat from those of Prof. Scudder, and render 

 insect phytogeny simpler. The order of Palaodictyoptera, 

 which is the oldest, is regarded as the ancestral stock from 

 which all other insects are descended. In Xo. 1439 of .he 

 same serial Mr. Handlirsch describes a new and interest- 

 ing type of cockroach from the Cretaceous beds of the 

 Judith River, Montana. 



I'm; is iv. and v. of vol. xvi. of the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Physi al Society of Edinburgh have been received. 

 The former is entirely devoted to a catalogue of the crus- 

 1 in ins of the Forth area, by Dr. T. Scott; while certain 

 rotifers from the same district form the subject of a paper 

 in No. 5, by Mr. J. Murray. The latter issue also con- 

 tains an important paper by Prof. J. G. Kerr on the 

 embryology of certain primitive fishes, more especialhj the 

 lung-fishes and fringe-finned ganoids. As the result of his 

 investigations, the author concludes that vertebrate limbs 

 are probably modified external gills, the theory that they 

 NO. I902, VOL. 73] 



are derivatives from a pair of lateral skin-folds being, in 

 his opinion, purely hypothetical, and not supported by 

 embryological evidence. According to Prof. Kerr's view, 

 two pairs of the primitive gills lost their respiratory func- 

 tion and assumed a motor one, developing at first into 

 " stvlopterygia," then into the " archipterygia " of Cera- 

 todus, and finally, but independently, into " chiropterygia." 

 This implies the theory that the archipterygium is really 

 the primitive type of fin, and also involves the acceptance 

 of Gegenbaur's idea that limb-girdles represent branchial 

 arches. The limbs of Lepidosiren and Protopterus are re- 

 garded as reversions to the stylopterygian type. Further, 

 the author asserts his belief in the intimate relationship 

 between lung-fishes and salamanders. Dollo's theory that 

 the diphycercal tail of modern lung-fishes is derived from 

 a heterocercal type is considered improbable. 



We have received copies of the Sitsungsberichte of the 

 Royal Bohemian Academy of Sciences for 1904 and 1905. 

 One of the most interesting articles in the former of these 

 is an account, by Dr. G. Eisen. of the now extinct Indians 

 of the Santa Barbara Islands, off the Californian coast. 

 Our knowledge of these Indians is derived from the accounts 

 of the early voyagers, from the missionaries who sub- 

 sequently settled on the islands, and from the remains in 

 their refuse-heaps and the skulls and skeletons which have 

 from time to time been collected. Some of the islands 

 probably at one time had a population approaching 1000 

 each, but in 1823 only about 900 were left on Santa 

 Barbara and the neighbouring islets ; and by 1875 all had 

 disappeared, the last survivor in San Nicolas having been 

 deported in 1853. Although they manufactured a certain 

 number of domestic utensils, these Santa Barbara Indians 

 are described by the missionaries as the most degraded of 

 all human beings, with' a morality lower than that of 

 animals. Insects, especially grasshoppers, formed a por- 

 tion of their food, and, like the natives of the adjacent 

 mainland, they probably fed to a great extent on the larger 

 kinds of earthworms. Possibly they belonged to the 

 Shoshonean stock of the mainland. Their extermination 

 is attributed to the changed conditions of existence im- 

 posed upon them by the missionaries. 



Is Science for March 9 and 16 several papers on yellow 

 fever, read before the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, are reported. Prof. Calkins discusses the 

 protozoan life-cycle, and concludes that the yellow-fever 

 microbe probably belongs to the spirochetes. Mr. J. H. 

 White summarises the practical results of discoveries on 

 yellow fever transmission, Mr. H. C. Weeks discusses the 

 practical side of mosquito extermination, and Dr. J. Carrol, 

 in a paper entitled " Without Mosquitoes there can be no 

 Yellow Fever," reviews the evidence, showing thai yellow 

 fever is conveyed solely by the mosquito Stegomyia 

 fasciata. 



In the first number of the Philippine Journal of Science, 

 issued in January, Mr. E. B. Copeland, discussing the 

 water relations of the coco-nut palm, attributes much 

 value to an open position where transpiration is consider- 

 able and the trees receive full illumination. These observ- 

 ations would help to explain the fact that coco-nut trees 

 growing near the sea shore produce more fruit than those 

 growing further inland, although analyses show very little 

 differences in the composition of the soils. 



The second number of the Philippine Journal of Science 

 (i.. Xo. 2) maintains the high standard of its predecessor. 

 Mr. H. S. Walker discusses the keeping qualities of coco- 



