258 
NATURE 
[Jury 13, 1899 
of general interest have been acquired from foreign countries. 
Dr. S. Schonland, director of the museum, reports that the 
kitchen-middens near Port Alfred have again yielded a number 
of interesting specimens. Amongst them were portions of skulls 
of some human beings (which still await a careful examination) 
and a number of animal bones, amongst which was the lower 
jaw.of the Vlakke Vark (Phacochaerus aethtopicus). This animal 
is quite extinct in Cape Colony now, and it was not previously 
known that it had occurred at all in that neighbourhood, Dr. 
Schonland has been able to get some light thrown on a ques- 
tion concerning the pottery found in these middens, which has 
hitherto puzzled many ethnologists. More or less large pieces 
of pottery, with holes neatly drilled through them, have fre- 
quently been found ; and the meaning of these holes has hitherto 
been unexplained. It now appears that these pots with holes 
were used as miniature kilns, technically known as “‘ saggers” 
(in which smaller pots were burned), and the need of holes 
through them becomes obvious when the use of these pots is 
known. 
IN his introductory lecture, Prof. J. A. Thomson, the newly- 
appointed Regius Professor of Natural History in the University 
of Aberdeen, gives utterance to a note of warning as to the direc- 
.tion in which our biological studies are tending. ‘‘ Amid the 
-undoubted and surely legitimate fascinations of dissection and 
osteology, of section-cutting and histology, of physiological 
chemistry and physiological physics, of embryology and fossil- 
hunting, and the like, do we not need to be reminded some- 
‘times that the chief end of our study is a better understanding of 
living creatures in their natural surroundings?” He even goes 
so far as to say that it is difficult to see any reason for adding 
aimlessly to the already overwhelming mass of morphological 
and systematic detail. And that what we should rather aim at 
-is the understanding of the chief laws of organic architecture, of 
the certainties and possibilities of blood-relationship among 
diving creatures, and a true conception of what is meant by the 
term organisation. As has been pointed out elsewhere by Prof, 
Alfred Newton, such a warning is undoubtedly needed at the 
present day, when there is far too great a tendency to regard 
the description of mere structure as the ultimate end of 
biological research. It is as if some person to whom modern 
telegraphy were unknown were to describe in great detail the 
mechanics of the various instruments employed therein without 
the vaguest conception of their practical use. 
THE inexplicable habit of snails occasionally abandoning their 
‘shells is again alluded to in the July number of the Journal of 
‘Conchology. A former instance. recorded was that of pond- 
snails (Zzmnea), but this time it is land-snails (He/zx) captured 
at Venice. Here is a case in point illustrative of what is said 
above—the fact is all very well in its way, but is of no real 
interest unless we know the reason for such a strange perversity 
of habit. 
THE most generally interesting article in the June number of 
the American Naturalist is one by Prof. Sylvester Judd on 
the efficiency of some of the protective adaptations of insects in 
securing their safety from foes. As the conclusions are chiefly 
based upon the undigested contents of the stomachs of a very 
large number of birds, it will be obvious that the author has a 
definite set of facts with which to test the validity of theories— 
and the facts are by no means always in accord with the theories. 
‘Especially is this the case with insects presenting a presumed 
protective resemblance with the object or ground on which they 
rest. Grasshoppers, for instance, even when lying still and then 
most like their surroundings, are snapped up by numbers of 
birds ; as are also the larvee of ‘‘ looper” moths which resemble 
twigs, and likewise weevils. On the other hand, hairs, like 
those of many caterpillars, and, toa minor extent, the stings of 
NO. 1550, VOL. 60] 
bees and wasps, appear to be much more efficacious for protec- 
tion. The brilliant colours of lady-birds seem likewise highly 
protective. ‘* Warning colours” are, however, by no means 
always effective inthis respect ; and pungent odours and acid 
juices (which may be more suited to avian than to human 
palates) often also fail to save the insects in which they occur. | 
Tue detailed studies that are now being made of the religious 
ceremonies of various native tribes of North America by trained 
American anthropologists are worthy of special study by all 
students of Comparative Religion, It is now possible, as Dr. 
J. Walter Fewkes points out in his account of ‘‘ The winter 
solstice altars at Hano Pueblo” (American Anthropologtst, n.s., 
i. p. 251), to trace the effect of one cult upon another in mixed 
populations. Walpi, for example, commenced as a settlement 
of Snake clans which had united first with the Bear phratry 
and subsequently with other phratries of lesser importance. 
The purport of the winter solstice (Zttaz) rites at Hano is to 
draw back the sun in its southern declination and to fertilise the 
corn and other seeds, and to increase all worldly possessions. As 
at Walpi, strings with attached feathers are made and given to 
men and women with wishes that the gods may bring them 
blessings. These strings are also attached to beams of houses, 
placed in springs of water, tied to tails of horses, burros, sheep, 
dogs, chickens, and indeed every possession which the Indian has 
and wishes to increase. 
THE experimental psychologists have passed from testing 
senses to experimenting on sensations, and ‘‘ The Emotion of 
Joy” forms the subject of a monograph, by Dr. G. Van Ness 
Dearborn, in Zhe Psychological Review, vol. ii., 1899. The 
first series of experiments consisted in recording what the sub- 
ject said he felt like doing, or would probably do under the ac- 
cession of hypothetical gifts of ten, one hundred, one thousand, 
ten thousand and one hundred thousand dollars respectively. 
The more practical experiments consisted in noting unconscious 
muscular movements during pleasant or unpleasant conditions of 
sound, light, smell, &c. It was found that somewhat in pro- 
portion to its proper pleasantness, an emotional ektramotion 
consists in expansiveness and outwardly in contraction of ex- 
tensor muscles; this is true of the smile and laugh of joy. 
Contraction of the extensor muscles is more pleasant in itself 
than contraction flexors ; there is a general tendency to flexion 
under a (naturally unpleasant) sudden shock. 
IN recent years several authors have published expositions of 
the methods originated by Hansen in dynamical astronomy ; 
the text-books on lunar theory chiefly used in this country— 
Brown’s  ‘‘Lunar Theory,” and the third volume of 
Tisserand’s ‘‘ Mécanique Céleste”—each devote a chapter to 
the subject. As the ephemerides of the moon given in 
the Mautical Almanac and the Connaissance des Temps 
are still calculated from MHansen’s tables, as corrected by 
Newcomb, the theory cannot be neglected by astronomers ; 
though in the hopes of mathematicians it has been some- 
what displaced by the more fascinating work of living 
writers. In a memoir (Ueber die Differentialgleichungen der 
Mondbewegung), reprinted from the TZvansactéons of the 
Leipzig Academy, Dr. Scheibner (who we believe is a 
former pupil of Hansen) develops systematically the numerous 
and complicated equations which form the basis of Hansen’s 
theory of the moon’s motion. The memoir will doubtless be 
welcome to those German students who have felt the need of 
something in their own language intermediate in character 
between the brief account given in Herz’s article in the 
“*Handworterbuch der Astronomie,’” and Hansen’s own ex- 
position in the Darlegung. 
‘¢SoME Glacial Wash-plains of Southern New England ” is the 
title ofan essay by Mr. J. B. Woodworth (Bulletin of the 
