JUNE 22, 1899] 
NATURE 
185 
any other animal, has hitherto been very generally considered 
as an unpaired organ. Recent investigations, especially those 
of the author, point, however, to the conclusion that it was 
originally dual, like the other sense-organs; and that the 
parietal eyes were once serially homologous with the functional 
pair now possessed by vertebrates. In the Tuatera, it is be- 
lieved that the single parietal eye now developed belongs to the 
left side, its fellow being represented by an organ of essentially 
similar structure known as the parietal stalk. 
In the June number of Mature Notes, Mr. R. Morley calls 
attention to the great destruction of mcnkeys on the Gold Coast 
for the sake of their skins. It is stated that in the five years 
preceding 1892 the average annual export of their skins reached 
175,000, with a value of 30,000/. As skins in prime condition 
are alone purchased, this may be taken to represent a yearly 
slaughter of 200,000 monkeys, mostly belonging to a species of 
Guereza (Colobus vellerosus). In 1894 the number of skins 
was 168,405, valued at 41,oo1/. ; but in 1896 the number fell 
to 67,600, with a value of 8,662/. This shrinkage tells its own 
tale; and if effectual steps are not forthwith taken to stop the 
slaughter, it may be considered as certain that in a few years 
this very beautiful species will be practically exterminated. 
IN one respect at least it appears that the Madras University 
is in advance of kindred institutions at home, as students of 
history are required to possess some knowledge of ethnology 
and comparative philology. Surely it is time that the 
anthropological basis of history and sociology was fully recog- 
nised in British universities and colleges. Even the enlightened 
Madras University has to confess that there are no facilities 
for practical instruction at the colleges. Fully realising that 
information merely derived from books or lectures is in- 
sufficient for education, Mr. Edgar Thurston, the superin- 
tendent of the Madras Government Museum, has, with 
characteristic energy and enthusiasm, supplied the deficiency 
so far as he is able, and last year gave a course of demon- 
strations on practical anthropology at the museum. Mr. 
Thurston not only instructed the students in the technical 
methods employed, but demonstrated the forms of skulls and 
external characteristics of the living, and showed how the 
statistics so obtained elucidated the problems of the migrations 
of peoples. The collections of prehistoric archeology in the 
museum afforded proof of the antiquity of man, and the 
ethnographical collections illustrated the present condition of 
various tribes, 
THE ‘‘ Struggle between Peoples” is the title of a short paper 
in the Bulletins de la Soc. a’ Anthropologie, viii. p. 604, by Félix 
Regnault, in which he opposes the ordinary view that con- 
quered peoples take refuge in the mountains. It is true the 
last resistance to invaders is made in the mountains, but that 
is by the mountaineers, and not by the inhabitants of the 
plains who have been driven into the mountains. M. Reg- 
nault also discusses the effect of a nomad people coming into 
contact with agriculturists: in some instances, the agricul- 
turists win, and the conquered occupy the less fertile or arid 
lands; in other cases, the pastoral people conquer the tillers 
of the soil, but though they temporarily overwhelm them, 
the latter persist and emerge, and the pastors eventually 
maintain themselves only in those lands which are favourable 
to keeping flocks, 
A HIGHLY interesting and important contribution to the 
study of immunity is to be found in a paper by Rudolf 
Emmerich and Oscar Low, published in a recent number of the 
Zeitschrift fiir Hygiene. The authors have obtained from 
cultures of the &. pyocyaneus an enzyme which, when inoculated 
into animals infected with virulent anthrax bacilli, is able to 
NO. 1547, VOL. 60] 
entirely negative the action of the latter. Success has also 
attended their efforts to immunise animals against anthrax infec- 
tion. The method of preparing the substance, which they call 
“* pyocyanase-immun-proteidin,” is not yet perfect, and the 
details are promised in a later communication. This enzyme is 
also able to act deleteriously upon typhoid, diphtheria, and plague 
bacilli 27 vztrvo, and, curiously, is much more pronounced in its 
action under anaérobic conditions. It possesses a remarkable 
power of retaining its bactericidal properties under exposure to 
high temperatures. Thus 14 hours of a temperature of from 
85 to 90° C., and exposure for 14 hours to a temperature of 98°'5, 
and being steamed for an hour at 98°°5 C., all fail to remove its 
beneficial characteristics. A prospect is now held out by these 
investigations of obtaining antitoxic substances in a far less 
costly and cumbrous manner than is involved in procuring 
curative serums through the medium of living animals ; and 
perhaps the hope of the authors is not unjustified that, ‘* by 
means of further improvements in immunising methods, the 
human and animal organisms may be ultimately protected from 
every conceivable kind of natural infection . it only 
depends upon obtaining the enzyme of certain pathogenic bac- 
teria in the purest possible condition, and their harmless intro- 
duction into the body.” 
A cuRIOUS instance of a polymorphous bacterium has been 
recently given by S. Hashimoto, of Sapporo (Japan), who, 
working in the Halle Hygienic Institute, has found a microbe 
which assumes at one time the appearance of small motile rods, 
at another that of thick, plump cocci hanging together in 
chains of from ten to twenty individuals, whilst yet more 
interesting is its assumption of the sarcina form, grouped 
together in packets consisting of from eight to sixteen individual 
cells. Every precaution was taken to meet the not unwarranted 
suspicion that these various appearances were simply due to 
working with an impure cultivation, but even such a master in 
technique as Prof. Fraenkl could discern no flaw in the manipu- 
lations, and moreover was able to confirm in every particular 
the interesting discovery of his pupil. The microbe in question 
was originally obtained from an agar-plate which had been 
mixed with imperfectly sterilised milk, previously kept for some 
days in an incubator. 
In the June number of the American Journal of Sctence 
appears a full and detailed memoir of the life and works of the 
late Prof. O. C. Marsh, with a portrait. Especial interest 
attaches to the account of his early journeys into Indian terri- 
tory ; and the exposure of the nefarious treatment of the Indians 
themselves, which he was so largely instrumental in bringing 
about. The paper concludes with a complete list of Marsh’s 
publications. The writer agrees with the opinion already ex- 
pressed in this journal, that the time is not yet ripe for forming 
an adequate estimation of the late Professor’s labours. 
Bulletin No, 61 of the Massachusetts Agricultural College 
(Hatch Experiment Station) is devoted to an account of the 
life-history of the asparagus-rust, Pzccénta asparag?, and of 
the best modes of treatment of plants infested with it. 
IN a recent number of Bonnier’s Revie générale de botanique, 
M. Guignard records some remarkable observations on the 
mode of impregnation in Livia martagon. He claims for 
the two generative nuclei of the pollen-tube the term “‘ anther- 
ozoids,” to indicate their homology with the corresponding 
bodies in Gymnosperms and in the higher Cryptogams. Al- 
though not provided with cilia, they both elongate and assume 
a vermiform appearance before entering the embryo-sac, the 
indications of a spiral form being still evident. The two 
“‘antherozoids”’ both take part in the process of impregnation, 
the one fusing with the ovum-cell or oosphere, the other with the 
