February 4, 1909J 



NATURE 



407 



period. Over England ihe mean temperature for the week 

 was from 7° to 9° below the average, and in all the 

 English districts the sheltered thermometers fell below 

 20°. In the south-west of England and in the Midland 

 counties the lowest temperature was 13°, whilst at Llan- 

 gammarch Wells the temperature on the grass was 2°. 

 The week w-as everywhere very dry, and, indeed, the rain- 

 fall for the whole of January was much below the average 

 over tht whole of England. In London the aggregate 

 rainfall for the month was 07 inch, which is less than 

 one-half of the average. At Bath the total measurement 

 was 1-02 inches, which is 1-56 inches less than the average, 

 and at Portland Bill the measurement for the month was 

 only o-7j inch, which is 1-58 inches less than the normal. 

 .\t Valencia the deficiency of rain for the month was 2-64 

 inches. In parts of Scotland the rainfall was in excess 

 of the average. There was a deficiency of sunshine in 

 Ireland during January, but in other parts of the British 

 Isles there was generally an excess. 



A REPORT issued by the honorary secretaries of the 

 .\erial League of the British Empire states that the league 

 is making good progress. So soon as possible it is hoped 

 to circulate an oflicial journal and establish a school or 

 college of aeronautics. Arrangements are being made for 

 lectures to be given in all important centres of population 

 in order to interest the public in aerial flight. The pur- 

 pose of the league is to secure and maintain for the Empire 

 the same supremacy in the air as it now enjoys on the 

 sea; to disseminate knowledge, and spread information, 

 showing the vital importance to the British Empire of 

 aerial supremacy ; and to urge these matters upon the 

 nation and upon public bodies and public men throughout 

 the Empire by constitutional means. The league will not 

 favour any one type of airship or any industrial interest. 

 We are in sympathy with the desire expressed in the report 

 that the British nation may'take an honourable share in 

 the development of means of aerial navigation. We trust 

 it will be recognised fully by the executive officers of the 

 iiew league that there is little hope of success of a lasting 

 kind unless the methods of science are adopted from the 

 beginning. The hearty and active cooperation of those 

 men of science who have studied the questions connected 

 with the problem of aerial flight should be obtained at 

 the outset, and their knowledge must be used in deter- 

 mining the forms of activity^ of the league if national pro- 

 gress in aeronautics is to be secured. 



The record of a trip through the Vedda country of 

 Ceylon, by C. G. and B. Z. Seligmann, forms the sub- 

 ject of the opening and longest article in the number of 

 Spolia Zeylanica for December, 1908. Some difficulty was 

 at first experienced in ascertaining whether any pure-bred, 

 cave-dwelling Veddas remain, but, after encountering 

 some half-bred tribes, who dressed (or rather undressed) 

 for the part when the arrival of visitors was signalled, 

 the travellers were finally successful in meeting with the 

 objects of their search, several of whom were interviewed. 

 It is less satisfactory to be informed that the numbers of 

 such folk now appear to be comparatively small. Good 

 descriptions are given of the caves these tribes inhabit. 

 Very curious is the discovery that certain beads worn by 

 some local tribes, by w'hom they are regarded as semi- 

 sanct, are of Venetian manufacture, and date from the 

 sixteenth or seventeenth century. 



The second number of the Memoirs of the National 



-Museum, Melbourne, is devoted to a monograph, by Mr. 



F. Chapman, of the Silurian bivalved molluscs of Victoria. 



Eighteen per cent, of the collection has been identified 



NO. 2049, VOL. 79] 



with species found in other, and frcqucnlly widely 

 sundered, areas, the distribution of these ranging in Great 

 Britain through the Wenlock and Ludlow groups, although 

 the German forms occur in the Lower and Middle 

 Devonian. The American types are found in their own 

 home mainly in the Middle Devonian, although one belongs 

 to the upper division of that period. " From this," observes 

 the author, " the inference may be drawn, that since both 

 in Western Europe and .Australia the species made their 

 first appearance in the Upper Silurian, the point of dis- 

 persal would probably be situated mid-way between those 

 places, provided the conditions were equal, and that there- 

 were no barriers to their migration." 



The zoological portion of the imposing building in 

 Singapore known as the Raffles Museum is in the main 

 devoted to the Malay fauna, of the representatives of which 

 a very extensive series of specimens appears to be dis- 

 played in the public galleries. To illustrate and e.xplain 

 this collection, the authorities of the museum have just 

 published a guide-book, drawn up by Dr. R. Hanitsch, 

 the director, which is entitled to take high rank among 

 works of this nature. It is, in fact, a concise and popular 

 compendium of the leading elements of the Malav fauna, 

 and ought, therefore, to be of considerable interest to 

 naturalists generally, as well as to the class for which 

 it is primarily intended. The guide is illustrated by 

 twenty-one plates, reproduced from photographs mainlv 

 taken by two local gentlemen. While a few of these 

 are devoted to the building itself, the great majority 

 depict the specimens in the collection ; these serve to 

 show that in the classes of mammals and birds the series 

 boasts some very fair examples of modern taxidermv, 

 among the most striking being the groups of anthropoid 

 apes and Carnivora. 



Now that attention is centred on Slav politics, the essay 

 by Mr. F. P. Marchant on the Slavonic languages, which 

 appears in No. 53 of the Journal of the Anglo-Russian 

 Literary Society, is certainly timely. It discusses the 

 relationship of the languages spoken by the race, which 

 is divided into an eastern and a western division, the 

 former including Russians (Great, Little, and White), 

 Bulgarians, and Serbo-Croats ; the latter Poles, Cecks. 

 Moravians, and Lusatian Wends. The writer, while dis- 

 cussing the inter-relation of these forms of speech, denies 

 that the so-called Palseo-Slavonic is, as has been assumed 

 by some writers, the mother tongue. Another difficulty is 

 the absence of a common syllabary, which can hardly be 

 met by the adoption of the Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet for 

 the whole group. There is a certain but limited degree 

 of affinity between the various subdialects. A Russian 

 scholar in Warsaw or Prague will understand shop-signs 

 and street directions provided he knows the compounds 

 of Latin letters representing certain consonants, and he 

 may occasionally catch the drift of the conversation of 

 persons passing him in the streets. Cecks are sometimes 

 able to understand Russian, but Russians seem generally 

 to fail to understand them. In short, proficiency in one 

 Slavonic tongue does not, we are told, lead to the mastery 

 of others, and the theory held by some Russian students 

 that they know all about other Slav languages is said to 

 be a patent fallacy. It is obvious that this difficulty of 

 intercommunication is a decided bar to that political com- 

 bination which is now so often suggested. It is much to 

 be regretted that the limited facilities of intercourse between 

 the Slav countries and western Europe have so long pre- 

 vented the valuable scientific and literary work of these 

 races from gaining the recognition which it deserves. It 



