_ SEPTEMBER 28, 1916] 
the other hand, the lack of imagination is in some 
degree made up by the great technical skill shown: in’ 
the treatment of the griffins, the colour being obtained 
by the use of cubes of opaque glass applied to the 
wings and tongues of the beasts. 
Tue deficiencies of modern India in the matters of 
house building and sanitation are a cause almost of 
despair to the authorities. No problem is so difficult 
as that of sanitation, because the official runs the 
constant risk of offending some religious or social 
prejudice. But it is not because their own writers 
have neglected the subject that the present condition 
of things has arisen. In the June issue of the Journal 
of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society Dr. Maha- 
mahopadhyaya Ganga Nath Jha has collected the 
ancient Sanskrit laws on the subject. They deal with 
the sanitation of houses, and provide minute direc- 
tions on the right uses of food and drink. Much of 
this is, no doubt, academic, and the rules on these 
subjects are the speculations of philosophers which 
in many cases could not have been brought into actual 
practice. But many of them are judicious, and may 
help the officer of health in preaching the value of 
Sanitation. The pandit ends by saying :—'' From the 
above it will be seen that the old people of this 
country knew and practised many laws of health and 
sanitation which have been forgotten, with results 
that all deplore.” 
Tue Indian Journal of Medical Research for July 
(vol, iv., No. 1) contains several important papers. 
Dr. Soparkar describes a method for cultivating the 
tubercle bacillus from sputum after destruction of 
adventitious micro-organisms by treatment with 
caustic soda. Dr. Agnes Scott writes on 
osteomalachia, and Major McCarrison, I.M.S., de- 
scribes the successful experimental production of 
congenital goitre in goats by feeding them with 
cultures of micro-organisms grown from the feces of 
goitrous individuals (goats). He concludes, therefore, 
that congenital goitre is due to the action on the feetal 
thyroid of toxic substances derived from the maternal 
intestine. — 
On July 29, 1915, the Government passed the Milk 
and Dairies (Consolidation) Act, 1915, which consoli- 
dated in one Act the 1914 Bill and previous Acts of 
Parliament. The Act, however, does not come into 
force until such date as the Local Government Board 
may by Order appoint. As the Bill was passed by 
mutual consent of all sections of both Houses, it cannot 
be expected to include far-reaching improvements in 
the milk supply. It does, however, provide that the 
Local Government Board may issue ‘‘ Orders,’’ upon 
which the success of the Act-will almost entirely de- 
pend. With the view of defining what may be 
considered the requirements necessary to improve the 
milk supply, representatives of the National Clean 
Milk Society, the Society of Medical Officers ot 
Health, and the Sanitary Inspectors’ Association have 
formulated a series of recommendations which have 
been forwarded to the President of the Local Govern- 
ment Board, and a copy of which we have received. 
These recommendations have been conceived in a 
moderate spirit, and their adoption would do much 
to improve the general milk supply. They do not, 
however, include a clause prohibiting the addition of 
skimmed milk to milk, a matter of some importance. 
Berore the war the United States imported 
annually from Germany as much as 300,000 tons of 
potash. The failure of this source of supply has in- 
duced the Department of Agriculture to make the 
experiment of. extracting potash from kelp. It is 
believed that the vast beds of this weed off the coast 
NO. 2448, VoL. 98] 
inspection of 
NATURE 75 
of California will suffice to furnish all the future 
needs of the country, and large quantities are already 
being placed’ on the market from this source. But, 
according to California Fish and Game for July, 
fears have been expressed that the cutting of the 
kelp will have an injurious effect upon the fisheries 
of the State, and this because of. the protection 
afforded by the weed to the beaches, and the danger 
of exterminating the clams and. spiny lobsters which 
live more or less within the protection of the kelp. 
They also fear that the young fish, especially bar- 
racuda, which are in the habit of seeking refuge here, 
will be driven away, and further that such fish as 
spawn here will similarly be destroyed. These 
several objections have now, however, been carefully 
examined, and it is pointed out that the kelp-cutters, 
or reapers, do not cut below 6 ft., thus leaving 
ample shelter. It may be, indeed, that the cutting 
will prove actually. beneficial, since it will. be less 
easily torn up by storms. The species of kelp which 
is thus being harvested is Macrocystis pyrifera, a 
plant which ranges in length from roo to 300 ft. 
In the Journ. Agric. Research (vi., No. 14) Mr. V. L. 
Wildermuth describes the life-history of a lacewing 
fly (Chrysopa californica). The larve of Chrysopa are 
well known as beneficial insects on account of their 
habit of feeding on. ‘“‘greenfly’’ (aphids). CC. cali- 
fornica lives as a larva for about sixteen days, during’ 
which it undergoes two moults, and eats from 74 to 160 
full-grown aphids, besides a still larger number of 
young ones, 
An excellent twenty-page pamphlet by the Rev. Jas. 
Waterston on ‘‘ Fleas as a Menace to Man and Domes- 
tic Animals "’ forms No. 3: of the British Museum's 
Economic Series. The: structure and life-history of 
the insects are described in sufficient detail, and 
readers are warned of the great danger to be feared 
from those species which act as carriers of the plague- 
bacillus between rats and human beings. There are 
many instructive and illuminating statements, such 
as an observation quoted from Prof. Osborn, who once 
collected a teaspoonful of fleas’ eggs from the dress 
of a lady who had been fondling a kitten! 
In the Entomologists’ Monthly Magazine for August 
Mr, E. Meyrick publishes a ‘‘Note on Some Fossil 
Insects,"’ dealing particularly with a hindwing, of 
Upper Triassic age, from Queensland, which has been 
named Dunstania pulchra and referred to the Lepi- 
doptera by Mr. R. J. Tillyard. Mr. Meyrick points 
out that the nervuration of this hindwing would indi- 
cate a highly specialised Lepidopteran type, if the in- 
sect to which it belongs were really a moth. As the 
wing further possesses a corneous margin “ altogether 
abnormal, no other Lepidoptera showing a trace of it,” 
he is inclined, though with some hesitation, to sug- 
gest that it must be referred to a Homopterous insect. 
Incidentally he supports the Lepidopteran nature of 
Butler’s Palaeontina oolitica, emphasising its affinity 
to the family of the ‘‘ swift-moths” (Hepialidz), 
THE annual report of the Dove Marine Laboratory 
for 1916 contains an important paper by Prof. A, Meek 
on the method of estimating the age of fishes by 
the annual growth-rings on_ the 
scales. This method was extended by Lea, Dahl, 
and Hjort some years ago in this way: Assum- 
ing that the growth-rates of the scale and body of the 
fish (the herring) are strictly proportional, it ought to 
be possible to determine the age of the same individual 
in successive years by measuring the distances between 
the focal point of the scale and the margins of each of 
the rings. But application of this method led to some 
apparently anomalous results, and Lea’s conclusions 
