380 



NA TURE 



\August 25, 1 88 1 



Durham ; but by the energetic labours of Messrs. Clarke 

 and Roebuck this reproach no longer exists, and this very 

 useful handbook to the vertebrate fauna of the shire will, 

 let us hope, be soon followed by a second volume, dealing 

 with the larger and perhaps more difficult portion of its, 

 to use a handy term, invertebrate animals. The number 

 of British vertebrata not occurring in Yorkshire being 

 comparatively small, it seemed desirable to the compilers 

 to make this work not only a county handbook, but a com- 

 plete nominal catalogue of the British species. In this 

 we think they have done well, for such a catalogue un- 

 doubtedly furnishes a ready means of comparison with 

 the faunas of other districts. The classification and 

 nomenclature has in all cases been based upon the most 

 recent or the most relialsle authorities as to the extinct 

 British mammalia. It having been considered advisable 

 to include notices of these, or at least of such of these as 

 had ceased to exist in Yorkshire within historical times, 

 the species are inserted in their correct zoological 

 sequence, but their names are printed in Old EngUsh 

 characters, and they are left un-numbered, as not being 

 now entitled to rank as true members of the fauna. The 

 same has been done in the case of the Great Auk among 

 the birds. To the catalogue is prefixed an interesting 

 chapter on the physical aspect of Yorkshire, the largest 

 county of the British Islands, containing an area of 

 3,936,242 statute acres — one which, while most compact in 

 form, is perhaps the most varied in geological structure, soil, 

 climate, and physical aspect. The introductory remarks 

 also on the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and 

 fishes are well worth perusal. From the general summary, 

 the richness of the Yorkshire fauna can be at once seen, 

 it including 513 out of the 717 known British vertebrates. 

 We gladly recommend this volume to our readers, as in 

 every way an excellent and scientific handbook to the 

 vertebrate fauna of Yorkshire. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his eorrespondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible othenaise to ensure the appearance even 

 of communications containing interesting and ncvel facts.'[ 



Schaeberle's Comet 



Tins comet, C iSSi, was well seen here on the night of 

 Sunday lat, the 21st instant. At 9.30, the night being clear, it 

 was at once detected with the naked eye at a point in the north- 

 west, where lines drawn downward through a and /3 of Ursa 

 Major (the pointers) and 7 and S of the fame constellation would 

 intersect, and just above i|/ of Ursa Major, a star of the 3rd mag- 

 nitude. Owing to the comet's close proximity to the horizon I 

 could not use the 6" equatorial, but the position must have been 

 very close upon R.A. iih. and D.N. 47°. The general appear- 

 : nee to the eye was that of a comet with two nuclei, the one in 

 advance of the other. With a 2^-inch binocular the comet was 

 lieautifuUy sharp and well defined, more so, I thought, than the 

 gre.'it southern one when in the same position. The nucleus and 

 .star appeared of about the same intensity, but the yellow lint of 

 the latter was strongly contrasted with the almost inten e gas 

 blue tint of the former. The tail was well defined, only slightly 

 •spreading, and nearly straight, stretching in a line a little to the 

 left of fi of Ursa Major, nearly as far as a small triangular group of 

 Jtars just under S, marked in Maltby's atlas as 44'37 and 2467. 

 This would give a length of from seven to eight degrees. The 

 tail did not, with the small instrumental power I was using, 

 appear to have any central deficiency of light. The sharpness 

 and brightness of the comet's appearance, as contrasted with the 

 more dilTused aspect of the one which has just disappeared, has 

 been remarl<ed upon by several observers. 



Guildown, August 22 J. Rand Capron 



The Descent of Birds 



There is one passage in the report of Prof. Mivart's lecture 

 on chamoeleons (Nature, vol. xxiv. p. 338) that I cannot allow 

 to pass without demurring to, and that is the suggested proba- 

 bility of a "double origin " for the cla';s Aves. I do not wish at 

 present to raise the issue as to how far the division of all living 

 birds into two groups — "Ratite" and "Carinate" — is, or is 

 not, a natural one ; for at present we have not, I think, sufficient 

 information or evidence on the subject to allow of any very 

 definite reply. But any one who is acquainted with the structure 

 of a Tinamu will, I think, be unable to conceive of the many 

 resemblances that group of birds presents to some of the 

 " Ratita' " as having been developed independently of any 

 genetic connection between the two — and that is what Prof. 

 Mivart's suggestion practically amounts to. That structures so 

 peculiar as feathers — which, as far as we know, are absolutely 

 confined to birds, though universal amongst them — shou'd have 

 been twice over developed, is to me in the highest degree im- 

 probable — as improbable, almost, as that the resemblances of the 

 Tunicatcs and Atnphioxus to the rest of the Chordata should also 

 be accidental. W. A. Forbes 



West Wickham, Kent 



Mr. Wallace and the Organs of Speech 



In his ardcle in Nature, vol. xxiv. p. 244, Mr. Alfred 

 Wallace has given one of the keys to the formation of speech- 

 language. He says, " When we name the mouth or lips we use 

 labials ; for tooth and tongue, dentals ; for the nose, and things 

 relating to it, nasal sounds ; and this peculiarity is remarkably 

 constant in most languages, civilised and savage." Of this he 

 gives examples from Australasia. 



Perhaps it may be said there is not much novelty in Mr. 

 Wallace's observations, as many of us have said the same. I 

 have gone over some of his ground in my small " Comparative 

 Philology" in 1852, but I did not hit the point. Indeed what 

 Mr. Wallace gives us is very little, but when it comes to be 

 applied it acquires the highest importance. We have all known 

 that nose is often a nasal, but Mr. Wallace distinctly puts it that 

 mouth is a labial, tooth a dental, and nose a nasal. This how- 

 ever gives us by these words and their connections, as stated by 

 Mr. Wallace, a very poor vocabulary, and leaves most of the 

 phenomena of speech-language unaccounted foi', and it gives no 

 explanation apparently of the derivation of speech-language 

 from sign- or gesture-language, and the connection of character 

 with both. 



Setting Mr. Wallace's illustrations aside — for though they are 

 true, and taken from his own domain, they are not the most apt 

 — we will search farther afield. Chinese will be convenient. 

 In Chinese, for a reason that need not be explained, mouth is 

 not now a labial, but in the series connected with it there are 

 many labials. The series is best illustrated by the characters. 

 The old characters are round ; the new characters, as in other 

 classes, are now square, conventionally representing the round. 

 Now mouth is a round or circle, O (or □). Ring is a round 

 or circle O (or □). The character for mouth is in fact a ring, 

 or round, or circle. On looking for other corresponding charac- 

 ters we have eye with O differentiated. Here we get a labial 

 mu. Face is another round character, and that is mien. Ear, 

 head, blood, pot [ming), sun, moon, woman, mother [mu], while (s. 

 labial), Tft'/i/ or garden, four ^rc all differentiated forms of each 

 other and of mouth, as we know they ought to be. In cunei- 

 form these characters are round, square, or triangular. 



Of many of these psychological relations of words a list or 

 dictionary will be found in the table of equivalents in my 

 " Prehistoric and Protohistoric Comparative Philology." I 

 observed and collected the facts, but did not know the full 

 meaning of them for a long period ; and in a paper as yet un- 

 published by the Biblical Archceological Society I carried the 

 subject still further, particularly as regards cuneiform and 

 Chinese. Indeed, when Mr. Wallace published his article, I had 

 the facts just cited ready for reference in my hand. The reason I 

 did not grasp the solution was this : I have known for years 

 that words forming what I now call ring characters were related 

 to eye, and that eye is almost a constant in these investigations, 

 equivalent to a molar in various departments of biological re- 

 search. Indeed it was by the use of eye as a constant that I 

 was able to make those numerous and rapid philological ana- 

 lyses which have excited so much distrust among those unac- 

 quainted with the process I used. 



