30 



NATURE 



[May n, 1882 



Among these slightly protracted notes the ch, sch, i, and a 

 predominated. As to their possible meaning I am still in the 

 dark ; I was not even able to discern whether they were to 

 express a sensation of pleasure or comfort, pain, or passion. 

 The animals seemed to be in quite a normal condition. As I 

 shall relate further on, I overheard afterwards a common wall- 

 lizard of Capri, grown blind by conjunctivitis, in the act of 

 producing the same sounds. 



After it had been attempted to reject my statement-;, without 

 any reasoning, indeed by declaring the voice described by me to 

 have been the effect of a rheumatic affection of the mucous mem- 

 branes, which the Italian lizards had contracted in our cold 

 German climate, I happened to hear the same sounds from a 

 lizard under circumstances wholly excluding every supposition as 

 to its being an abnormal voice. I have shortly communicated 

 the fact in my paper " Untersuchungen iiber das Variiren 

 der Mauereidechse, ein Beitrag zur Theorie von der Entwicklung 

 aus constitutionellen Ursachen, sowie zum Darwinismus," in 

 Archiv fur Naturgachichte, xlvii. Jahrgang, 18S1, 

 and separately in Nicolai's Library, Berlin, 1881 (pp. 66-68), 

 I quote the following passage : — 



"In 1S77, having ordered a man to search the middle 

 Faraglione rock for lizards, I waited for his return in a little 

 boat at the foot of the rock. After a while, the man came down 

 with a number of captured lizards tied up in his pocket-handker- 

 chief. I was going to take a specimen of Lacerta muralis 

 carulta — Caruiescem miki— which he had just released, in my 

 own hand, when it uttered repeatedly, in swift succession, a 

 series of very sharp tones, sounding like 'bschi,' and reminding 

 me of the hoarse piping of a mouse or a young bird." 



Moreover, I mentioned that Duges already tells us of Lacerta 

 Edwardsii, a little lizard peculiar to the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean, that it is apt to utter a sound resembling the creaking of 

 a Cerambyx. And he further reports that Lacetta ocellata, a 

 large lizard of the south, when angry, will expel its breath so 

 vehemently that a sort of voice is produced. And M. II. 

 Laniois, of Minister, at my request, informed me last year that 

 Lacerta viridis was able to utter a distinctly hissing or blowing 

 sound. These reptiles on being approached on a hot summer 

 day, would rush furiously at their enemy, at the same time making 

 use of their voices, so that they were distinctly heard. 



Excepting the few instances above mentioned, in which the 

 existence of voices in lizards has been observed, I am not aware 

 of any corroborative evidence preceding that discovery, a circum- 

 stance which is easily explained by the general taciturnity of the 

 animal, which but rarely makes use of its voice. 



On the other hand, the Tapoya Douglasii, a kind of lizard 

 ir the Oregon Lake, when irritated, hisses very 

 audibly. In like manner are the Iguanas reported to hiss and 

 blow on being caught. Th. Ei.mek, 



Professor of Zoology in the University of Tubingen 



Sea-shore Alluvion — Langley Point 

 This spit of shingle, thrown up under the lee of Beachy 

 Head and to the eastward of Eastbourne, is formed, like Dunge- 

 ness, to windward of what was anciently a large tidal estuary 

 forming Pemsey or revensey Haven. At the Roman period the 

 mound on which stand the ruins of the castle, was washed by 

 the sea. The windward supply of shingle forming this ness 

 came from the beach at Brighthelmstone, a fortified town below 

 the cliff, in Elizabeth's reign, on the site of the chain pier, gra- 

 dually undermined by the sea, and Dot wholly destroyed until 

 the end of the last and commencement of the present century, 

 and the growing out of Langley Point is coincident in time with 

 the destruction of the Brighton beach as its subsequent retreat 

 and decline are coeval with the rapid increase of Dungeness to 

 the leeward. In effect, Langley Point in 1736 projected three- 

 quarter, of a mile further into the sea than at present, and it is 

 a curious fac'. that the breakwater proposed by the Harbour of 

 Refuge Commission of 1840, parallel to, and one mile from the 

 shore 111 Eastbourne Bay, opposite the " Wish Tower" site and 

 the Grand Redoubt touched at the north-east, end of its eastern 

 fan! the low-water line of 1736, a, shown by the surveys of 

 Desmaretz, the well-known ordnance surveyor of that period 

 but situate in three to four fathoms of water in 1840. This is 

 a striking illustration of the amount of speculation respecting 

 any increased area of anchorage to be obt lined and maintained 

 by artificial works in the viciml .,,,, rfc moles or in- 



closing recessions therein. I,,! time the bays west 



and east of this formation, viz. Eastbourne and Pevensey bays, 

 like those now at Dungeness, must have afforded considerable 

 shelter with three fathoms of water, now, however, reduced to 

 one, and the area of shelter correspondingly curtailed. 



Dummer's plan of 1698 shows that then the haven was open 

 up to the castle, with the site of an old outfall about one mile 

 west of the then entrance, which had been deflected eastward by 

 the travelling shingle, and about this period, from its becoming 

 constantly blocked up, the landowners appear to have taken 

 steps to render the drainage permanent by placing a sluice and 

 trunk at the entrance, so that the haven has lapsed into a marsh 

 sewer or drain. 



A reference to well-known maps shows that this Ness must 

 have advanced seaward up to a certain period, at the rate of ten 

 yards per annum, when, however, the western supply became 

 greatly diminished by the old Brighton beach being gradually used 

 up, the subsequent diminution and retreat of this pjint afforded 

 material for the continued increase of Dungeness to the leeward 

 of it. 



From 1724, downwards, the recession of the point has averaged 

 over certain terms a rate of from seven to ten yards per annum, 

 entailing the abandonment of several of the Martello Towers 

 which fringe this portion of the coa-t, as well as the west fort at 

 the Point, dismantled forty years back, aRo constant expenditure 

 in heavier and deeper retaining walls in front of the fosse of the 

 circular redoubt, at its western extremity, to check the repeated 

 local encroachment of the sea. 



It results from this continued recession of the shore that the 

 works at the circular redoubt form an advanced point. In the 

 early part of this century the shore in front of this work was 

 much more seaward, and in front of particular Martello Towers 

 in Eastbourne Bay it has retreated over certain terms of years at 

 the rate of one yard per annum. This is shown by the known 

 distance from the towers to high-water mark at the time of their 

 construction. The waste since the erection of these towers has 

 been mainly westward in Eastbourne Bay, accompanied by a 

 certain Leal increase for a short distance to the eastward of the 

 Point in Pevensey Bay, a similar result to that experienced at 

 Dungeness. 



From Dungeness to Langley Point, a stretch of thirty miles, 

 except where intersected by harbour mouths, there is an un- 

 interrupted belt of shingle. Over the last century an elongation 

 of the east point (Dungeness) appears to have consumed the 

 western surplus supply, as shown by the corresponding retreat of 

 the western (Langlev) point. The intermediate belt has with 

 less fluctuation been driven more landward, showing that a 

 littoral wasting away from wave action at o:ie point is balanced 

 by a corresponding increase at another. 



The plan by Grenville Collins, 1693, shows Pemsey Haven 

 clearly defined with two arms or branches, and a considerable 

 entrance, but contains no notice of such a projection as Langley 

 Point. The topographical survey by Yeakel and Gardner, 1778, 

 a well-executed map to a scale of two inches to the mile, shows 

 it stretching one and a quarter mile into the sea in a south- 

 easterly direction. Of course the accuracy of the rates of 

 progression and retrocession given above are based on a com- 

 parison of Desmaretz's surveys with those of recent date, and 

 depend on the character of the former. The remarkable chinges 

 in the coast-line along Eastbourne Bay, its small depth, the little 

 protection afforded by Beachy Head, and the eastward move- 

 ment of Langley Point, are, as in the Dungeness case, argu- 

 ment-, against artificial works in either of these bays. 



J. B. Redman 



6, Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, S.W., April 29 



Colour Perception 



Mr. Hannay's explanation of the colours observed in his 

 dark rooms, seems quite in accordance with orthodox science. 

 It is not the explanation I should myself offer, but as that would 

 occupy too much space, and as I am conscious I should not carry 

 the public with me, I refrain from entering on it. 



What I do object to is the notion apparently entertained by 

 Mr. llannay, that his attempted explanation of this single phe- 

 nomenon, explains also the experiments in the formation of 

 colour I showed him. How can this explain the fact that I can 

 show in the space of a few inches, from mixture of black and 

 white alom, a dozen different colours side by side, mostly as 

 cleir and bright as if painted? And how does it 'explain the 

 fact, that using the exact same proportion of black and white, 



