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NA TURE 



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paper, already noticed in Nature, on the Indians of 

 i he Upper Amazon regions. Much original and curious 

 information is supplied regarding the Caribos, Shipivos, 

 Amahuacs, Campas, Shetevos, and many other Christian and 

 Pagan tribes, especially of the Ucayali and Huallaga basins. 

 Thus we are told that most of the Christian women in the Uca- 

 yali villages don a European smock to attend mass, but after the 

 service lay it aside for the native pampanilla, a scanty garment, 

 white at first, but afterwards dyed blue or red with geometrical 

 designs to save the trouble of washing it<» Here also the men 

 carefully pluck out the beard with pincers made of two shells, 

 because the women consider this appendage as a sign of old age. 

 Hence bearded youths are regarded as superannuated, while 

 clean-faced old men are still eligible in the matrimonial market. 

 The South American Indians are usually described as altogether 

 beardless, an inference due probably to this custom, which 

 appears to be very general. 



The principal articles in the current number of Pelermann's 

 Mitiheilungen are on Arctic subjects. Prof. Mohn of the Nor- 

 wegian Meteorological Institute writes on the hydrography of 

 the Siberian Arctic from the observations of the Vega, while 

 Lieut. Hovgaard, a member of the expedition, contributes a 

 paper on the ice in the Kara Sea, and M. Lauriasen of Copen- 

 hagen on the point reached by Behring in his first expedition. 

 In addition to these we have papers on the names of places in 

 the Niger region, on the new map of Germany prepared by the 

 general staff, and the usual notes. 



The plague of rabbits in our Australasian colonies is one of 

 which much has been heard, and it appears that another Euro- 

 pean animal, the dog, is about to follow the example of the 

 rabbit, and make himself a pest in place of a pet. It appears 

 that the number of wild or semi-wild dogs has recently increased 

 largely in Victoria and New South Wales, and the consequence 

 is a great slaughter of sheep by these nomads. The Govern- 

 ment has already offered rewards for their destruction. In New 

 Zealand some enterprising people have hit on the idea of im- 

 porting weasels and stoats from England to keep down the 

 rabbits ; but if the former increase in their new habitat as rapidly 

 as the latter have done, the last state of New Zealand will be 

 worse than the first, for a plague of rabbits must be as nothing 

 compared to a plague of weasels, and a great increase of the 

 latter, from their predatory and destructive habits, must be fol- 

 lowed by a considerable alteration in the distribution of the 

 fauna of New Zealand. In Jamaica, according to the last report 

 of the Director of Public Gardens in that colony, the planters 

 suffered greatly from the depredations of rats among the sugar- 

 canes. The rat-eaten canes were good for nothing except rum, 

 and accordingly large sums were spent in poison and dogs to 

 keep down the rats, but apparently without much success. At 

 last an enterprising planter determined to import the mongoose 

 from India to destroy the rats on his sugar estate. The sugar- 

 pbinters, Mr. Morris says, have unquestionably benefited greatly 

 by its introduction, and rat-eaten canes are now hardly known 

 where formerly they were found in large quantities. But the 

 new importation continues to multiply and spread, not only on 

 sugar estates, but on the highest mountains, as well as along 

 shore, even amidst swamps and lagoons ; and when the sugar- 

 cane rat is wholly exterminated, the mongoose will still go on 

 increasing, and what then ? Must the colonists find something 

 else to exterminate the mongoose, and save their poultry, and so 

 on ad infinitum ? As it is, negro settlers and persons not con- 

 nected with sugar estates complain of its ravages amongst their 

 poultry and even accuse it of destroying fruit and vegetables ; 

 and, although Mr. Morris doubts whether these complaints are 

 all well founded, he acknowledges that the mongoose is the 

 cause of great disturbance in the animal life of Jamaica. Harm- 



less yellow and other snakes, lizards, ground-hatching birds, 

 rabbits, and many members of the indigenous fauna of the island 

 are likely to become extinct at no distant date. It will be inte- 

 resting to watch the effect of the introduction of the mongoose, 

 and we hope Mr. Morris will enlighten us from year to year on 

 the subject. 



At the last meeting of the Asiatic Society of Japan (as 

 reported in the Japan Weekly Mail) a paper was read by Dr. 

 Whitney on "Medical Progress in Japan." The first era in 

 Japanese medicine was the mythological age, when the treat- 

 ment of disease appears to have consisted in the use of charms 

 and the employment of the simplest remedies originated by the 

 " Great-name-possessing Deity " ; the next period covers nearly 

 goo years from the middle of the second century B.C., during 

 which Corean and Chinese medicine was introduced, as well as 

 Buddhism and the useful arts. At the close of the eighth century 

 the University and a medical school were established, and here 

 commences the third period in the history of Japanese medical 

 progress, which lasts down to the middle of the sixteenth century. 

 In the medical college of those days the students pursued a 

 seven years' course, and appear to have received a thorough and 

 systematic training in Chinese medicine, which, as then taught, 

 was embodied in works consisting chiefly in numerous disserta- 

 tions and philosophical deductions based upon incorrect notions 

 as to the anatomy of the human frame and the relation of its 

 vari >us viscera with one another and with the different pheno- 

 mena of nature. In the fourth period, from the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, when the Portuguese first appeared in Japan, 

 down to the restoration of 1867, occurred the revival of both the 

 Tapanese and Chinese schools, and the introduction of Western 

 medicine, which appears to have played no unimportant part in the 

 temporary success of the missionaries. They received at one time 

 a grant of 7500 aces of public lands for the purpose of cultivating 

 medicinal plants. In 1775 was published the translation into 

 Japanese of a Dutch work on anatomy, which was the first of 

 its kind published in Japanese. Vaccination was introduced in 

 1S24 from Russia by some Japanese fishermen, and in 1858 a 

 medical school was founded in Nayaski, in which Western 

 medicine only was taught. With the effects of the revolution of 

 1S68 on medicine, as on most other things in Japan, most peoole 

 are familiar. The physicians and surgeons of new Japan are 

 required to go through a three years' course of study, and to 

 pass examinations in the manner familiar in Europe. Apothe- 

 caries, dentists, and midwives must similarly be provided with 

 diplomas, which can only be obtained after satisfactory exami- 

 nation. Contagious diseases acts, the examination of drugs, a 

 strict control of the sale of opium for medicinal purposes, and 

 the numerous other measures by which governments seek to 

 protect the public health, are now found in full working order 

 in Japan. 



Dr. R. Lenz describes, in the last Bulletin of the St. Peters- 

 burg Academy of Sciences, a new application of the telephone 

 to the measurement of temperatures at a distance. Let us ima- 

 gine two stations, A and B, connected together by an iron and 

 an argentan wire, which are looped together at both stations. 

 If the looping at A has a different temperature to that of B, a 

 thermal current will circulate through the wires ; and if a silent 

 interrupter and a telephone be introduced into the system, the 

 telephone will emit a sound, which will cease immediately the 

 observer at B has raised or lowered the temperature of his loop- 

 ing place, so a-, to render it equal to that of A, and to destroy 

 thus the thermal current. The exactness of this method depends 

 on the exactness of determination of the moment when the lull 

 ceases in the telephone, which moment is influenced by a rem- 

 nant of lull in the instrument after the equalisation of temper- 

 ature at both ends of the apparatus. In a series of experiments 

 where the points A and B were one metre distant, Dr. Lenz 



