158 
NATURE 
[JuNE 15, 1899 
the writers are capable of transmitting this disease. Experiments 
bearing on the hereditary transmission of the disease among 
the mosquitos themselves have hitherto led to negative results. 
Specimens of Azopheles claviger have been bred from parents 
taken in malarial houses, but no sporozooids have been observed 
in their salivary glands. Moreover, several observers have 
allowed themselves to be freely bitten by newly-bred mosquitos 
taken from malarial districts, but in no case have any ill effects 
been experienced. The present evidence tends to show that 
those 4nopheles which have not bitten malarial patients are not 
infected, and are incapable of inoculating the disease ; a single 
positive result would, however, disprove this conclusion. 
Mk. STEWART CULIN still continues his interesting com- 
parative studies of games ; and in the Bzd/etin No. 3 of the 
Free Museum. of Science and Art, Philadelphia, 1898, he dis- 
cusses the ‘‘platter” or dice of the American Indians, and 
finds that they originated from arrows and a throwing-stick 
used for divinatory purposes. He is of opinion that all the 
various forms of the game are not only derived, one from 
another, but that its place of origin may be definitely fixed in 
the country of the reed arrow and the a¢/ad/, or throwing-stick ; 
that is, in the arid region of the South-Western United States 
and Northern or Central Mexico. 
Various items of Indian folk-lore will be found in the 
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. \xvii. Carat 
Candra Mitra writes on Bengali and Behari bird folk-lore and 
omen birds. The same author has a paper on coincidences be- 
tween some Bengali nursery stories and South Indian folk-tales, 
in which he discusses the migration of folk-tales, and concludes 
as follows: ‘‘ The similarity between the Bengali and South 
Indian versions of these tales can be accounted for only on the 
supposition that the aboriginal Bengali and Dravidian races 
assimilated the tales from Aryan settlers, the slight variations 
between the said two versions being due to the difference be- 
tween the two borrowing races as regards manners, customs and 
language.” Astronomical folk-lore is narrated by Ramgharib 
Chaube. 
THE fourteenth fasciculus of the ‘‘ North American Fauna,” 
under the editorship of Dr. Merriam, is devoted to the 
biology of the Tres Marias Islands, the larger portion of the 
text being by Mr. E. W. Nelson. These islands, which lie off 
the west coast of Mexico, about sixty-five miles from the port of 
San Blas, have only recently been systematically explored by 
collectors. As might have been expected, this exploration 
clearly demonstrates their continental origin, their situation 
showing that at one period after their separation they formed a 
single larger island. The birds and mammals seem to have been 
more susceptible to modifying influences than has been the case 
With other groups, seven out of ten representatives of the 
Tatter, and twelve out of thirty-six of the former, being regarded 
as entitled to specific or sub-specific distinction. 
Mr. NELSON has likewise been devoting attention to the 
squirrels of the mainland of Mexico and Central America, the 
results of his investigations appearing in the May issue of the 
Proc. Washington Academy. It is concluded that the arboreal 
squirrels of North America should be divided, from the char- 
acters of the skull, aided sometimes by external peculiarities, into 
ten distinct sub-generic groups, four of which receive new names, 
The sub-genera are stated to occupy clearly defined geographical 
areas—a fact which speaks clearly as to their intrinsic import- 
ance ; and it is further noticeable that the ranges of the most 
closely allied groups are invariably separated from one another 
by distinct gaps. Considerable importance as a group-character 
is attached to the presence or absence of the anterior upper pre- 
molar, and its relative size when developed. 
NO. 1546, VOL. 60] 
IN his paper on ‘‘ Mid-winter Surface and Deep Tow-nettings 
in the Irish Sea,” recently published in the Zvans. Liverpool 
Biol. Soc., Mr. I. C. Thompson urges the importance of 
correlating the gatherings taken from upper and lower strata 
at the same time, much remaining to be learnt as to the 
effects of temperature and other influences upon the minute 
forms of marine life. 
In the Bol. Mus. Paraense for December last, the energetic 
director of the museum, Dr. E. Goeldi; laments the un- 
satisfactory state of our knowledge of the Brazilian fish- 
fauna, mentioning at the same time that although it is a 
subject to which his attention has long been directed, means 
and opportunity have been lacking. A commencement is, 
however, now made in the present synopsis of the fishes of 
Amazonia and the Guianas, which includes nearly forty pages 
of text, and a double coloured plate. The excellent execution of 
two of the figures in the latter, representing species recently 
described by Mr. Boulenger, is a very satisfactory feature. 
THE April number of the Agricultural Gazette of New South 
Wales contains an illustrated account of a small ostrich-farm at 
South Head, where nine birds are kept. The methods of 
plucking and making-up the feathers are described and photo- 
graphed. The annual product of each bird is werth from 10/7. 
to 152. ; and the owner is of opinion that the industry is likely 
to prove a thriving one in the Colony. He considers that the 
birds, instead of being allowed to roam over large areas, as at 
the Cape, should be kept in small paddocks, and shifted from 
one to another of these at short intervals. 
A PAPER by Mr. F. A. Lucas on the fossil bison of North 
America, published in the Proc. U.S. M/us., vol. xxi., pp- 
755-777, is specially noticeable for its wealth of illustration, 
having over twenty plates, The author, in opposition to some 
previous writers, is of opinion that all the bison skulls hitherto 
found in America are specifically distinct from the os 
priscus of Europe. No less than six extinct species are 
recognised ; and while one of these is certainly a very distinct 
form, yet if all the others are valid species, it may be taken 
as certain that the fossil bison skulls of Europe would also 
permit of considerable specific division. One of the most 
important items in the paper is the determination that the 
so-called Bos scaphoceras of Cope, from Nicaragua, is not a 
bison at all, but a sheep. It seemed very strange that a 
representative of the former animals should have wandered 
so .ar south during the Pleistocene. 
PERHAPS the most generally interesting article in the May 
number of the American Naturalist is one by Mr. Herrick, 
describing a case of the occurrence of a small hen’s egg within 
one of ordinary size. Not that such abnormalities are uncommon 
—far from it. But the interest of the present case lies in the fact 
that the enclosed egg was situated in the yolk, instead of in the 
albumen of the larger specimen. In this respect it appears to 
be unigue. The different types of such abnormalities are con- 
sidered in detail. In ordinary cases, it seems that the small 
included egg represents a fragment of a normal ovum which has 
been ruptured, and has thus parted with some of its substance 
after leaving the ovary. Usually this fragment is treated in the 
oviduct like a full-sized egg and duly laid ; but it may rarely be 
driven by antiperistaltic action up the tube so as to collide with 
the mother-egg, with which it fuses. From the general absence 
of yolks in such included small eggs, the ruptures that take 
place in the upper part of the oviduct must, as a rule, be con- 
fined to the albumen. Other explanations are given to account 
for double- or treble-yolked eggs. 
Ir is curious to note how the natural history of the fast- 
waning group of giant land tortoises is being gradually pieced 
