November 7, 1901] 



NA TURE 



area. In BiilUlin No. 29 of the entomological division of the 

 U.S. Agricultural Department, Mr. F. H. Chittenden gives an 

 account of this visitation and also of the life-history of this pest, 

 as well as of the variegated cut-worm. The account of the 

 former is the fullest hitherto published, but the sudden dis- 

 appearance of the insect as a pest in 1900 prevented observa- 

 tions from being taken to complete its history. It is considered 

 probable that the sudden destruction of this and other insect 

 pests of apparently southern origin is due to peculiar atmo- 

 spheric and other conditions in the late autumn. When the 

 northern localities are restocked the following season, it appears 

 to be owing to an influx of moths from the south. 



We have received two Bulletins (Nos. 28 and 30) from the 

 Entomological Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

 the one dealing with " Insect Enemies of the Spruce in the 

 North-east" and the other recording some miscellaneous results 

 of the work of the Division. Dr. A. D. Hopkins is the author 

 of the former, while Dr. L. O. Howard and several other 

 writers contribute to the latter. It appears that in New 

 England and adjacent territories the valuable forests of red spruce 

 {Pi\ea rubens) have during the greater part of the last century 

 been in a very unhealthy condition, numbers of trees dying 

 over large tracts. The chief cause of the mischief is a beetle, 

 described as a new species under the name of Dmtroctonus 

 ficeaperdcL After describing the life-history of this pest, the 

 author suggests various remedies for checking its ravages. The 

 more important contents of the second Bulletin include a dis- 

 sertation on the ravages of the "differential grasshopper" in 

 the Mississippi delta, experiments on insecticide, the carriage of 

 disease by flies, the invasion of the codling moth in Idaho 

 during 1900, and the influence of theiweather on insect life in the 

 same year. Mr. F. H. Chittenden, the author of the last- 

 mentioned memoir, previously hazarded the suggestion that 

 certain northern forms would continue to flourish after protracted 

 cold weather, which would probably prove fatal to southern 

 types invading the area under observation, and this prediction 

 has been to a considerable extent verified. Both Bulletins are 

 well illustrated, the plates in No. 28 being exceptionally good. 



In No. 8 of the Btilletin of the Royal Belgian Academy for 

 the current year, M. Julien Fraipont publishes the first instal- 

 ment of a re-exploration of the Engihoul cavern, Engis, carried 

 out with the assistance of the " Elizabeth Thompson fund." 

 In this communication the author describes the remains obtained 

 from a bears' resort. These are provisionally assigned to 

 Ursus arvernensis, priscics, spelaeus, ferox ( = lwrriliilis) and 

 arctus. From comparison with the skull of a large brown bear 

 from the Asiatic coast of Bering Strait, the author makes the 

 suggestion that all these forms may eventually turn out to be 

 specifically inseparable from U. arctus. 



In" the October issue of \\\e American Naturalist Vto{. W. M. 

 Wheeler brings to a close his dissertation on the compound 

 and mixed nests of American ants, to which allusion has been 

 made on two previous occasions in our columns. In his con- 

 cluding paragraphs the author observes : " Wasmann has shown 

 in detail why it is quite unnecessary to assume the existence of 

 anything beyond instinct and simple intelligence in the ants 

 which form compound and mixed nests. I should even be in- 

 clined to place a more moderate estimate than Wasmann on the 

 psychical endowments of these animals. . . . Having arrived 

 at the same conclusion as Wasmann, that there are no evidences 

 of ratiocination in ants, we have reached the limits of our brief 

 inquiry. This conclusion, however, even if it be extended so 

 as to exclude all animals except man from a participation in this 

 faculty, does not imply the admission of a qualitative difltrence 

 between the human and AmmaX psyclie." 



NO. 1671, VOL 65] 



To the American Naturalist Prof. Bashford Dean communi- 

 cates some highly interesting notes on living nautili from the 

 strait between the islands of Negros and Cebu in the southern 

 part of the Philippine group. Hearing that these cephalopods 

 were commonly captured by the inhabitants of those islands, Prof. 

 Dean paid a visit to Negros, but as the time of year was not 

 propitious he succeeded in obtaining only a few e.xamples. In 

 June, which is the best season, as many as twenty specimens are 

 occasionally taken in a single fish-trap. These fish-traps, of 

 which examples are figured by the author, are sunk by the 

 fishermen in deep water (from, about 225 to 350 fathoms), and 

 the nautili are taken in considerable numbers. Not that they 

 are an object of the fishery, for although their flesh is eaten it is 

 but little esteemed, and the shells have till recently found little 

 sale, although matters are improving in the latter respect. Prof. 

 Dean gives several figures of the shell, with and without the soft 

 parts, and shows how male are distinguishable from female speci- 

 mens by the form of the aperture. Twenty hours was the longest 

 time a specimen was kept alive. Nautili in this region appear to 

 have a definite breeding-season, during which the author thinks 

 it probable that the natives not unfrequently obtain eggs. Our 

 readers will recall a description of nautilus eggs from New 

 Guinea by Prof. Willey which appeared in our columns in 1897 



The first part of a new Cryptogamic Flora of Germany, by 

 Dr. W. Migula, has been issued, in connection with Thome' 

 " Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich, und der Schweiz." 



Dr. a. Tommasi has sent us a copy of a memoir on a col- 

 lection of Triassic fossils from the Valle del Dezzo, Italy, 

 recently published in Mem. 1st. Lotnbardo (vol. xix. pt. 4). 

 The fauna seems most nearly allied to that of St. Cassian ; but 

 a number of new species of molluscs and brachiopods are 

 described. 



The October number of Climate is mainly devoted to the 

 subject of malaria, and has in it a paper by Sir William 

 MacGregor entitled "Malaria and its Prevention," articles on 

 the malaria question, and the West African climate, also the 

 general outlines of a course of ten health lectures, which, at the 

 suggestion of the Governor, have recently been given to 

 sanitary inspectors, hospital nurses, teachers and others at 

 Lagos. 



The Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society (vol. ix. 

 part I, 1901) contain important communications by the late 

 G. H. Morton on the Carboniferous Limestone series of North 

 Wales, and of especial interest is his tabular list of the fossils, 

 showing their range in the various subdivisions and their occur- 

 rence in the four districts of Llangollen, Flintshire, Vale of 

 Clwyd and Llandudno, and Menai Strait and Anglesey. In the 

 same publication Messrs. T. Mellard Reade and P. Holland 

 deal with the Green Slates of the Lake District and discuss the 

 subject of slaty cleavage. They maintain that real slaty cleavage 

 is always accompanied by mineral changes in the body of the 

 rock, which not only give the foliaceous character, but supply the 

 necessary cement to bind together the overlapping constituents 

 and convert what svas originally mud into a rock possessing the 

 tenacious and economically useful properties of slate. 



The clays and clay industries of Wisconsin form the subject 

 of a memoir, by Dr. E. R. Buckley, which is published by the 

 Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey (Bulletin 

 No. vii., Economic Series, No. 4, 1901). Following the plan 

 adopted in many American works, the author commences with 

 the origin of clay, and passes on to the composition, classification, 

 properties and behaviour of clays in general before he deals with 

 the clay deposits of Wisconsin. These are both residual and 

 transported, the residual clays being due to the decomposition 

 of granite, greenstone, limestone, shale and other rocks. The 

 transported clays are by far the more extensive, comprising 



