Gr ! 
May 26, 1923] 
NATURE 
719 

and so the manner of its inheritance oscillates irregu- 
larly between ordinary sex-linked and exclusively 
male-to-male transmission. This furnishes further 
evidence of the presence of active factors in the 
Y-chromosome of fishes. Some of the other evidence 
indicates that a localised sex factor is concerned in 
sex determination. 
PrecuLtiar PoLtisH WHEAT CrOoss.—In 
between Polish and Kubanka wheat, Mr. 
crosses 
Piola 
_ Engledow (Journ. Genetics, vol. 13, No. 1) has studied 
the inheritance of length of glume, the respective 
aoe lengths being about 12 mm. and 31 mm. 
e F, generation was intermediate, while in F, the 
three types could be classified by eye and approxi- 
_ mated in numbers to the 1: 2:1 ratio expected for 
a monohybrid difference. The segregated types bred 
true in later generations, while the intermediate type 
continued to split. The peculiarity was observed, 
_ however, that the Polish type segregated in F, had a 
mean glume length which had shifted from 31 to 
24°6 mm., and this shift was maintained in later 
generations. The nature of this permanent modifica- 
tion in a character through crossing is discussed, and 
it is pointed out that a multiple factor hypothesis of 
size inheritance is insufficient to account for the 
results. The same phenomenon has been observed 
in other wheat crosses, but a complete explanation is 
not at hand. Perhaps the measurement of all 
glume lengths on each individual might aid in the 
analysis. 
“Bic Bup” oF Brack CurRANT.—This disease, 
caused by the currant gall mite, is widespread through- 
out Great Britain, and attacks and destroys black 
currant bushes. Hitherto no remedy has been dis- 
covered. In the orchard of the Crichton Royal Institu- 
tion, Dumfries (a mental hospital), with 427 bushes, 
the following treatment (eighty-third annual report for 
the year 1922, Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries) 
has been tried: The ground round the bushes was com- 
pletely covered with straw and dead branches, which 
were then ignited (March 28, 1922). The scorched 
branches of the bushes were then cut off to. within six 
inches of the ground, fresh straw was put on, and the 
whole again burnt. So far the treatment has been a 
success, for (1) less than ro per cent. of the bushes have 
been lost, and (2) fully 90 per cent. have made a good 
tecovery, showing 2-3 feet growth of healthy wood, 
with flower buds, giving promise of a half-crop the 
following (this) year, and with no indication of the 
mite at the end of 1922. 
Date Pacms or Irag.—The Agricultural Director- 
ate, Ministry of Interior, Iraq, has issued the third 
memoir of a series upon dates and date cultivation of 
the Iraq. In the memoir, V. H. W. Dowson briefly 
describes some of the better known varieties of the 
female palms of the Iraq and the dates they produce ; 
the earlier memoirs have dealt with the habit, 
cultivation, and yield of the palms. Some of these 
varieties differ markedly in habit of growth and in 
average yield of produce, and the dates are by no 
means all the same, differing probably as much to 
the expert observer as do the different apples displayed 
in the shop window to the average English buyer, to 
whom all dates are very much alike. It is interesting, 
for example, to learn that the Ista-amran palm, 
forming some 45 ey cent. of the palm population of 
the Shatt Al’ Arab, produces a date which the Arab 
would class among the “ hot,” i.e. relatively in- 
digestible dates. This palm gives relatively low 
yields, and yet probably one-third of the dates 
exported from Basrah are of this variety! Obviously, 
NO. 2795, VOL. 111] 
human beings. 
with attention turned to varieties, their quality and 
yield, there are great possibilities before the date 
industry, Iraq containing, it is estimated, some 
thirty million date palms; at present, the author 
reports, the demand for Iraq dates is only increasing 
in the United States. Prepared originally for the 
purposes of the Revenue Department of the Iraq, 
this memoir is a tribute to the industry of a recently 
constituted Administration and to its author, who 
confesses that its preparation has been rather a 
recreation than a labour, ‘‘ because the date palm is 
so interwoven into the history, literature, and life of 
the Arab race.”’ 
A CAUSAL ORGANISM OF NasAL Potypus.—lIn his 
memoir on Rhinosporidium Seeberi (Trans. Royal 
Soc., Edinburgh, vol. liii. part ii, No. 16), Prof. 
J. H. Ashworth has accomplished a notable piece 
of work, and one which forms a valuable contri- 
‘bution to medical biology. This remarkable organism, 
hitherto placed among the Sporozoa but regarded 
by Prof. Ashworth as a unicellular fungus, prob- 
ably belonging to the Chytridinez, is responsible for 
the development of a form of nasal polypus in 
Fortunately, it appears to be rare, 
at any rate among Europeans, and its geographical 
distribution is peculiar, including India, Ceylon, 
Argentina, and Tennessee, U.S.A. (one case). Prof. 
Ashworth was able to study the organism in the case 
of an Indian medical student at Edinburgh, and gives 
a detailed and beautifully illustrated account of the 
life-history. Attempts to cultivate the parasite in 
other animals or in vitro have been unsuccessful, and 
the method of infection is unknown. 
THE DrEvoNIAN FORMATION IN AUSTRALIA.—Dr. 
W. N. Benson’s “‘ Materials for the study of the 
Devonian Paleontology of Australia ’’ (Rec. Geol. 
Surv. New S. Wales, vol. x. pt. 2) is a memoir that 
will be much appreciated by geological students. It 
begins with an historical introduction in which the 
author sketches the progress in discovery of the 
Devonian rocks of Australia and their separation 
from the Silurian with which they had been formerly 
associated. The rocks and their contents of the 
several faunal provinces are next described as well 
as the distribution of the Australian Devonian fauna. 
There is also a chapter on Middle Devonian vulcan- 
icity. An excellent bibliography and a useful register 
of the fossil localities follow, but what will prove of 
most use to the general student is the very full census 
and index of both fauna and flora, which forms half 
of the memoir and includes references to close on two 
hundred genera. 
UppER CRETACEOUS DINOSAURIA FROM ALBERTA.— 
From among a collection of fossil vertebrates in the 
University of Alberta, obtained from Upper Cretaceous 
beds (Belly River formation) of the Red Deer River, 
C. W. Gilmore has singled out and describes, with 
excellent figures, some exceedingly interesting Dino- 
saurs (Canadian Field Naturalist, vol. xxxvii., No. 3). 
Corythosaurus excavatus, n.sp., is the second species 
of a genus the skull of which in its general outline 
recalls that of a bird rather than a reptile. In the 
case of this Dinosaur, however, the beak portion of 
the skull is formed by the premaxillaries, the entire 
upper and posterior portion of the crest being occupied 
by the nasal bones. Quite other in aspect is the skull 
of all the Upper Cretaceous armoured Dinosaurs : in 
them it is greatly depressed and has a broadly rounded 
muzzle. A well-preserved skull and right ramus, 
which the author tentatively refers to Europlocephalus 
tutus, Lambe, has afforded him the opportunity of 
