March 26, 1908J 



NATURE 



499 



Black Sr-;i plankton. Astronomers will be interested in 

 the calculations of Mr. G. A. Tikhoff with regard to the 

 position of stars. Of wide general interest is the article 

 by Mr. K. N. Davidoff on the islands of the Indo- 

 Australian archipelago. The fusion of Europeans and 

 Malays in Aniboina has produced a curious type, and the 

 Malay tongue is mingled w'ith Dutch and Portuguese 

 words. According to a horrid custom, a would-be bride- 

 groom cannot be accepted until he makes the maiden an 

 offering of the head of an enemy. Mr. A. Birula writes 

 on the Solifugae of Persia, with frequent references to 

 Mr. R. Pocock's notes on this order. In vol. xxiii., the 

 eminent naturalist Mr. V. Bianchi describes Passeriformes 

 and Palfearctic larks (.AlaudidcE), basing his observations 

 on collections in the museums of London, Tring, and 

 Paris. He expresses indebtedness to Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, 

 the Hon. W. Rothschild, and other naturalists for help. 



Mr. N. Donitch conlributes reports of observations of 

 the annular solar eclipse of March, 1904, made at 

 Cambodia, and of the total solar eclipse of August, 1005. 

 In the latter case, observations were made at ."Mcala and 

 .Assouan, and Mr. Donitch acknowledges indebtedness for 

 assistance from members of the British Survey Depart- 

 ment in Egypt. Notes of inundations at St. Petersburg 

 are furnished by Mr. S. Griboyedoff, and lengthy studies 

 of rainfall in the capital, with diagrams and tables, are 

 given by Mr. E. Rosenthal. Mr. A. Belopolsky's investi- 

 gations of the radial velocity of the variable star .Algol 

 appear in vol. xxiv., and there is another astronomical 

 paper, by Mme. Zhilov. on the proximate absolute orbit 

 of the minor olanet Doris. Mr. V. Bianchi describes a 

 new species of pheasant from the mountain regions of 

 western China. Balloon experiments at Kutshino are 

 described by Mr. A'. Kuznetsoff. From fossils collected by 

 the polar expedition of Baron Toll, igoo-3, Mme. M. 

 Pavloff is able to draw deductions as to the changes of 

 climate of east Siberia from the Tertiary period. Several 

 papers on aerial mechanics are by Mr. D. P. Riabushinsky, 

 and Mr. M. Golenkin writes on a botanical visit to Java. 

 The report of the geological museum of Peter the Great 

 (.-\cademv of Sciences) concludes the volume. 



THE CORALS OF HAWAII.' 

 T^HE madreporarian corals present some of the most 

 dilVicult problems in the matter of the determination 

 of species that are to be found in the whole range of the 

 animal kingdom. So difficult are these problems that Mr. 

 Bernard in his indefatigable labour on the catalogue of 

 the Madrcporaria of the British Museum frankly gave 

 them up, and, abandoning the time-honoured binomial 

 system, adopted a new numerico-geographical system of 

 nomenclature. 



The difficulty arises from our want of knowledge of 

 the influence played by environmental conditions in the 

 formation of the characters that are presented by a colony 

 of coral polyps and the skeletal structures to which they 

 give rise. In the absence of any direct experimental 

 evidence, upon which alone the problems can be solved, 

 it has been the custom to give specific names to groups 

 of specimens which seem to be separated from other and 

 similar groups of specimens by appreciable differences in 

 the sum total of their characters. The species that are 

 thus constituted inevitably break down if new specimens 

 are found that are intermediate in character between the 

 specific groups already determined, but when they are 

 based on the examination of a very large number of speci- 

 mens collected from a restricted area, thev have at least 

 the advantage of serving a useful purpose for the 

 systematist for a considerable period of time. 



It is this system which Mr. V'aughan has adopted in the 

 very handsome memoir of 415 pages, and illustrated by 

 ninety-six plates, which appears under the modest title of 

 " Bulletin 59 of the Publications of the United States 

 National Museum." The author has given himself the 

 task of examining a very large number of specimens from 

 the Hawaiian Islands and the island of Laysan, of form- 

 ing a conclusion as to the most convenient limits for the 



1 " Rece.it M.idreporaria of the Hawaiian Islanis and Laysan." By T. 

 Wayland Vavighan. Pp. i.t + 427 ; illustrated. (Washinglon : Government 

 Printing OtTice, 1907.) 



NO. 2004, VOL. 77] 



specific groups, and of giving an opinion on the species 

 problem based on his extensive knowledge and experience 

 of these corals. The result is a work which cannot fail 

 to be of essential importance to all those who are interested 

 in the Madreporaria, and a most noteworthy adcjition to 

 human knowledge. 



But in spite of its undoubted value, and in spite of the 

 great skill and labour that have been spent in its compila- 

 tion, there are some points in this memoir on which it is 

 necessary to offer a few words of criticism, not in any 

 unfriendly spirit, but in the hope that they may influence 

 in some way those who follow in the author's footsteps 

 and attempt to write a memoir of a similar kind. 



Our knowledge of the anatomy of the coral polyps them- 

 selves, as distinct from the skeletal structures they form, 

 is admittedly imperfect, but the researches of Moseley, 

 Bourne, Fowler, Duerden and others have at least thrown 

 some light on the relations of the genera and on those 

 characters of the species that are comparatively free from 

 environmental variation. Such evidence as these researches 

 afford must be taken into consideration in any satisfactory 

 scheme of classification, and must be used, so far as it is 

 possible to use it, in conjunction with ^the evidence derived 

 from the structure of the skeletal characters 



In the light of this evidence, for example, the division 

 of the order into the old suborders Imperforata and 

 Perforata breaks down. The perforate Eupsammiidae are 

 not related to the Madreporidce and Poritid^e so closely as 

 to justify their inclusion in the same suborder, whereas the 

 imperforate Pocilloporidje are not related to the Oculinidse 

 and Stylophoridse with which they were formerly 

 associated, but exhibit much closer afSnities with some of 

 the Imperforata. It may be true, as Mr. Vaughan re- 

 marks, that there is at present no satisfactory classifica- 

 tion of the Madreporaria. It may be that for many years 

 to come no classification will be suggested that will be 

 satisfactory to all students of the group. But there is no 

 reason whatever for ignoring the valuable researches of 

 Duerden, and for retaining a classification that is 

 altogether antiquated and misleading, such as the one that 

 is used in this memoir. 



It is clear that until we have obtained far more in- 

 formation than we have at present concerning the structure 

 of the soft parts of the coral anatomy, the skeletar 

 characters must play the most important part in the deter- 

 mination of species, but in such a determination every 

 character that the hard parts exhibit must receive its 

 due recognition. For example, it is well known that some 

 genera, and perhaps some species, are more liable than 

 others to be influenced by the presence of epizoic Crustacea, 

 worms, and other animals, and no description of a series 

 of specimens is satisfactory if this influence is altogether 

 ignored. The genus Pocillopora is one of those that is 

 particularly liable to the attacks of the crab Hapalo- 

 carcinus, and in a note by Prof. Verrill that is quoted by 

 the author (p. 88), the statement is made that the species 

 of this genus in the Hawaiian Islands are usually subject 

 to the malformations caused by this epizoite. But in the 

 descriptions of the species of this genus the author makes 

 no reference to the crab galls, nor are they clearly shown 

 in any of the photographs that are given to illustrate the 

 text. ' This is a serious oversight, for when the memoir 

 is used for the purpose of the identification of the species 

 of Pocillopora, the galls will at once present a difficulty 

 which the museum curator will not be able to solve by its 

 help. He will ask how far he is able to neglect the 

 presence of these galls, or in what respect they are the 

 determining cause of the general form of growth upon 

 which the species and varieties are founded. 



An interesting form described in the volume is Leptoseris 

 lubiilifera, which differs from the other species of the genus 

 in showing a number of hollow, tubular cavities arouiid 

 which the corallum is folded. Similar tubes are found in 

 the alcyonarian genus Solenocaulon, in the stylasterine 

 genus Errina, and in the madreporarian genera Neohelia, 

 Amphihelia, &x., and in all these cases there seems to be 

 little doubt that they are due to the influence on growth 

 of epizoic Crustacea or worms. It is difficult to believe 

 that this is not also the case in Leptoseris tuhuhfera. and 

 if it is the specific distinction from L. haivaiicnsis is not 

 very clear. 



