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NA TURE 



[March 12, 1908 



I 



attractive? literary form, ."iid from intimate, pcr:;onal 

 knowlMlg.-. These rondusions were repeated and extended 

 in his census report of 1881, which, in addition to admir- 

 able chapteis on peasant religion, contained a singularly 

 elaborate account of Hindu and Mussulman castes, tribes, 

 and sects. The weali point of the investigation was that 

 it was purely ethnographical, and ignored the physical 

 characteristics of the people, a subject of which the writer 

 possessed no knowledge. This report, of which the 

 chapters on religion and caste were reprinted in 18S3 under 

 the title of " Outlines of Paniab Ethnography," forms an 

 excellent manual of the subject, .\dditions to the in- 

 formation contained in it have, it is true, been made in 

 the later census reports of Messrs. E. D. Maclagan and 

 H. A. Rose, but the substantial accuracy of Ibbetson's 

 work remains unaffected. His reports suggested and in- 

 spired the investigations on similar lines conducted by 

 Sir H. Risley in Bengal, by Mr. W, Crooke in the United 

 Provinces of .Agra and Oudh, and by Mr. E. Thurston in 

 Madras. The Punjab Government would be well advised 

 to re-publish, as the best memorial of the late Lieutenant- 

 Governor, the reports on which his reputation as an 

 anthropologist will mainly depend. 



.A FURTHER contribution to the mass of literature relating 

 to the Mexican cotton-boll weevil is made in Bulletin 

 No. 73 of the Entomological Bureau of the U.S. Depart- 

 ment of .Agriculture, in which Mr. \V. D. Price discusses 

 the numerous parasites preying upon that beetle. 



We have received a copy of the forty-first report of the 

 Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology 

 at Harvard, in which special attention is directed to an 

 expedition recently sent to .South America to procure 

 collections. The expedition, which has been well received 

 by the officials of the various districts visited, has already 

 secured valuable specimens and data. 



In the eighth cjuarterh' report on the scientific work of 

 the Lancashire and Western Sea-Fisheries District, Prof. 

 Herdman announces that, owing to his absence on a visit 

 to the Ceylon pearl-oyster fisheries, the publication of the 

 annual sea-fishes laboratory report will be delayed for a 

 short period beyond the usual date. Plankton will form 

 a considerable item in that report ; while of more general 

 interest will be an account, by Mr. J. Pearson, of all that 

 can be ascertained with regard to the life-history and 

 economic value of the edible crab. 



Bulletin No. 50 of the Agricultural Experiment Station 

 at Storrs, Connecticut, is devoted to the rearing of young 

 pigeons — " squabs " as they are locally called — for the 

 market, ft is generally supposed that this industry is one 

 which can be profitably undertaken by any person with 

 no previous experience, but this the author — Mr. C. K. 

 Graham — shows to be an altogether mistaken idea. In a 

 properly managed establishment each pair of pigeons ought 

 to produce on an average five pairs of squabs annually ; 

 only a few produce more than seven pairs, and in one case 

 where eleven were brought forth none of these were 

 reared to maturity. 



TiiK February issue (vol. ii., No. 4) of the Joiinuil of 

 Economic Biology is devoted to the parasitic insects of 

 the Chermes and Coccus groups, Mr. E. R. Burdon dis- 

 cussing the European members of the former genus, while 

 Mr. R. Newstead describes three species belonging to the 

 same family as the latter found on cocoa, rubber, and 

 other plants in western Africa. In the case of Chermes, it 

 is stated that much investigation is still required with 

 NO. 2002, VOL. "J C\ 



regard to the life-history of the European species, some of 

 which present puzzling problems in connection with their 

 migrations and the "' intermediate hosts " they affect 

 during their developmental cycles. The second paper deals 

 mainly with slrurtural details. 



To the fiftieth volume, part iii., of the .Smithsonian 

 Miscellaneous Contributions, Mr. Bruno Mtjller contributes 

 a long and elaborate paper on the air-sacs of pigeons, 

 based on an investigation undertaken for the purpose of 

 finally setting at rest the disputed question as to the func- 

 tion of these structures in birds generally. The author 

 refuses to accept any one of the theories hitherto proposed, 

 and comes to the conclusion that the air-sacs, together with 

 the air-cavities in bones, are not to be regarded as organs 

 with any special function, but rather as a system of empty 

 interspaces. " Their value lies in their emptiness, that is, 

 in their containing nothing that olifers resistance or has an 

 appreciable weight. Flying is the highest form of loco- 

 motion, and as such only possible to a body of high 

 mechanical efficiency. Our most effective machines are by 

 no means compact and solid, but composed of parts as 

 strong as possible in themselves and arranged in the most 

 appropriate manner. The interspaces between the parts 

 are left empty and taken up by air. The Sauropsida, at 

 the time they obtained the power of flight, became adapted 

 to its mechanical requirements, and thereby similar to the 

 efficient machines mentioned above ; they divested them- 

 selves of all superfluous material, filling the body-space 

 thus obtained with air sacs." 



In No. 29 of the .Scientific Memoirs of the Governmi?nt 

 of India, Captain Christophers, I. M.S., discusses the 

 disease of dogs due to the protozoan parasite Piroplastna 

 canis. The symptomatology of the disease, the morpho- 

 logy of the parasite, and its transmission by the tick 

 R. sanguineus, are fully described, and the developmental 

 cycle of P. canis in the tick detailed. In the tick the 

 parasite becomes a club-shaped body, then a zygote which 

 breaks up into sporoblasts, and these again into sporo- 

 zoites. A full bibliography of piroplasmosis in general is 

 appended, and the memoir is illustrated with diagrams and 

 two plates. In Memoir No. 30 of the same series. Captain 

 Harvey, I. M.S., and Captain McKendrick, I. M.S., discuss 

 the theory and practice of antirabic immunisation, and 

 conclude that the methods of Hbyges and of Ferrans, in 

 which fresh material is used, present certain advantages 

 over those in which dried or heated material is employed 

 for purposes of antirabic immunisation. 



The geographical variation in birds, with especial refer- 

 ence to the effects of climatic humidity, forms the subject 

 of a paper by Mr. C. W. Beebe in the first number of a 

 new serial issued by the New York Zoological Society. 

 Unfortunately, the cover and title-page are lettered 

 Zoologia, whereas, as we learn from an erratum-slip, the 

 designation should be Zoologica. The serial is published 

 by the society at New York, the first number being dated 

 September 25, 1907. Mr. Beebe attaches great import- 

 ance to the effects of humidity in producing local phases 

 in particular species, and refers to the well-known fact that 

 while hot, damp situations tend to melanism, dry, sandy 

 localities are equally favourable to the production of light 

 tints. One of the most marked instances of this occurs 

 in the pigeons of the genus Scardafella when kept in 

 captivity in a warm, humid atmosphere. In the typical 

 .S. inca the whole breast is uniformly pale-coloured, but 

 specimens kept in captivity under the above conditions 

 assume • after the first moult the characters of S. 1. 



