54 
NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER 21, 1916 
many of the kitchen middens along the coast are be- 
coming eroded, the author suggests that a photo- 
graphic record of them should be prepared before it 
is too late. 
In the Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts 
and Sciences (vol. v., 1916, pp. 1-96, plates i—xxxix.) 
Dr. G. F. Eaton publishes an exhaustive report on the 
human skeletons from Indian graves at Machu Picchu, 
Peru, obtained by the Yale University Expedition of 
1912. Most of the burials were in caves, and the 
mummies seem to have been placed sitting in the 
contracted position. A large proportion of the skele- 
tons were imperfect, and Dr, Eaton suggests that 
many deficiencies were caused by accident when the 
mummies were temporarily removed from their burial 
places during festivals, in accordance with a_well- 
known custom under the rule of the Incas. Of 164 
skeletons collected, no fewer than 109 were certainly 
of females, while most of the male skeletons repre- 
sented individuals of inferior physical development. 
Bronze and bone implements, objects of green chloritic 
schist, earthenware spindle-whors, and fabrics both 
of Ilama’s wool and of vegetable fibre, besides a large 
collection of well-preserved pottery, are also described 
and figured. The rare articles of post-Columbian or 
European origin are to be regarded as having been 
introduced after the original burials. 
Since the classic work of Gaudry on the late Mio- 
cene or early Pliocene mammals occurring in bone- 
beds at Pikermi, near Athens, discoveries of deposits 
containing similar mammalian remains have multi- 
plied in eastern Europe. During recent years many 
have been made, especially in southern Russia, and 
various preliminary notices of them have appeared. 
Madame Marie Pavlow has now thoroughly investi- 
gated these discoveries, and published the results in a 
handsome memoir which forms the third and fourth 
livraisons of vol. xvii. of the Nouveaux Mémoires of 
the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow. A 
description of the geological formations whence the 
fossils were obtained is appended by Prof. Alexis P. 
Pavlow. So far as known, the Russian fauna, with 
the usual preponderance of Hipparion, is remarkably 
like that of Pikermi, the only striking difference being 
the absence of the true Rhinoceros. After describing 
remains of giraffes, Madame Pavlow discusses a well- 
preserved skull of Palzotragus, which she maintains 
is an antelope, not a giraffe, as supposed by Forsyth 
Major. There are also remains of other well-known 
antelopes and gazelles, a few fragments of deer, and 
a fine skull of the large pig, Sus erymanthius. Several 
skulls of a hornless rhinoceros, Aceratherium, closely 
related to a species found at Maragha, in Persia, are 
important as making known several growth-stages. 
The numerous skulls and jaws of Hipparion gracile 
are also valuable for the same reason. Teeth of Mas- 
todon, Dinotherium, and Orycteropus occur, and there 
are some fragments of Carnivora, including the skull 
of a large cat related to the American Miocene Pogo- 
nodon. Madame Pavlow has already made many wel- 
come contributions to our knowledge of the newer 
Tertiary mammals of Russia, and she is to be con- 
gratulated on the manner in which she has presented 
the latest results of her researches. 
Brrore the war Russian men of science, and espe- 
cially biologists, had to send a very considerable. pro- 
portion of their writings abroad for publication, and 
the German journals thus became the common medium 
for much of the best Russian work. Soon after the 
outbreak of war efforts were made to remedy this 
state of affairs; of the new journals, Profs. Skimke- 
NO. 2447, VOL. 98] 
witch and Dogiel are editing the Russian Journal of 
Zoology, Profs. Sewertzoff and Elpatiewsky the Revue 
Zoologique Russe, and Prof. Dogiel. the Archives 
Russes d’Anatomie, d’Histologie et d’Embryologie. 
The first number of the latter has just appeared; it 
contains an article in English by A. Mamimoy on ‘‘ The 
Cultivation of Connective Tissue*of Adult Mammals in 
vitro,’ and two memoirs in French, one by the editor 
on the structure of sensory nerve-endings in the beak 
and tongue of birds, and another by A. N. Sewertzoff 
on the morphology of the skull and head muscles of 
Cyclostomes. The excellence of these researches, no 
less than of the typography and illustrations, is a 
happy augury of the success of this new journal, on 
which Prof. Dogiel of Petrograd is to be heartily con- 
gratulated. It is of particular interest to note that, 
in spite of the enormous drain on the Imperial finances, 
the Minister of Public Instruction, Count Ignatiev, 
made the publication of this journal possible by a 
Government subsidy. 
In the Nouveaux Mémoires de la Société Im- 
périale des Naturalistes de Moscou, M. G. A, Belo- 
golovy records some very remarkable experiments on 
the development of the frog Pelobates, The experi- 
ments were undertaken with the view of throwing 
some light upon the factors that are concerned in bring- 
ing about the phenomena of recapitulation in ontogeny. — 
Their significance from this point of view may be re- 
garded as somewhat obscure, but at any rate they 
have yielded some very curious results, and perhaps it 
is not too much to say that they have opened up a new 
field in the domain of experimental embry- 
ology and pathology. The author’s intention 
was to rear the embryos as parasites upon 
adults of the same species, instead of as free- 
living individuals in their normal aquatic environment. 
He introduced the eggs into the body-cavity of the 
adult through an incision in the body-wall, and found 
that they attached themselves to the surface of the 
various viscera, etc., and in the course of a few weeks 
developed into highly abnormal structures, sometimes 
permeated by blood capillaries apparently derived from 
the tissues of the adult, through which they derived their 
nutriment. These results will probably. be of interest 
to pathologists rather than to embryologists, especially 
from the point of view of those engaged in cancer 
research. The necessary operation appears to be a 
very simple one, but the animals treated as hosts to 
the parasitic embryos remained alive but for a few 
months, and then only when kept in water. The 
memoir is well illustrated, the histological features of 
the parasites being represented in two very beautiful 
and elaborate coloured plates. 
Tue Bull. Imp. Acad, Sci. (Petrograd, May, 1916) 
contains the description of a new species, differing in 
many essentials from other species, of Helicoprion, 
Helicoprion clerci, so named in honour of Onisime 
Jegorovié Klerk (O. Clerc), president of the Ural. 
Naturalists’ Society. Accompanying the description 
are drawings in natural size of the five fragments 
found at Krasnoufimsk. So far only two species have 
been discovered in Russia—Helicoprion bezsonovi and 
another, hitherto undescribed, found by A. P. Ivanov 
in the Government of Moscow. The well-known 
American naturalist, C. R. Eastman, directed atten- 
tion in 1905 to the instructiveness and unexpeetedness 
of certain paleontological discoveries of recent years, 
pointing out specially Pareiasaurus among the Rep- 
tilia, Helicoprion among the Pisces, and Dazmonohelix 
among the problematical forms. The nature of this 
last fossil has now been finally settled. Eastman, 
