422 



NATURE 



[March 6, 1902 



Specimens of ihe dust have been microscopically examined by 

 competent authorities, and it appears to be of the same nature 

 as that which is often carried over from Africa to Kurope. 

 Further particulars are needed for the purpose of a more 

 detailed account. Dr. H. R. Mill gives some particulars 

 respecting the high barometer readings of January last. The 

 highest pressure before recorded in the British Isles was 3l'lo8 

 inches, at Ochtertyre, on January 9, 1896, but the reading at 

 Aberdeen on January 31, namely 31 1 1 inches, as given in the 

 Daily IVealher Report, was apparently a trifle higher than the 

 previous record. Dr. -Mill directs attention to the fact that the 

 popular belief that a high barometer involves calm weather was 

 somewhat rudely shaken by the easterly gale which raged in 

 the Channel from January 31 to February 2 — under the in- 

 fluence of the low-pressure area in southern Europe. 



The September issue (vol. vi. art. i) of the BitlUtiii of the 

 Illinois State Laboratory contains the first part of a history 

 of the dragon-flies of that State by Messrs. Needham and Hart. 

 The authors state that these insects, together with their near 

 relatives the May- flies, are the isolated remains of an extremely 

 primitive group, the members of which have become specialised 

 along certain lines. 



We have received from the author, Mr. F. Finn, a copy of an 

 interesting paper on the cage-birds of Calcutta, which appeared 

 in the Ibis for July last. The taste for keeping birds in con- 

 finement h.is been prevalent for centuries among the natives of 

 India, although now somewhat on the decline, the author citing 

 evidence to show than an Australian cockatoo was imported in 

 the time of Jehangir. It is satisfactory to learn that, on the 

 whole, the treatment of these cage-birds is good. The natives 

 display especial capacity for keeping soft-billed insectivorous 

 species in confinement ; and as an instance of the interest taken 

 in birds, the .author mentions that when a living bird-of-paradise 

 was for the first time received in Calcutta, the then Amir sent 

 a special messenger all the way from Cabul to ascertain whether 

 it was really the bird he knew so well by report. 



In the course of a description of a new "agricultural ant " of 

 the genus Pogonomyrniex, published in the American Naturalist 

 for February, Prof. W. M. Wheeler takes occasion to dispose, 

 once and for all, of the myth that certain ants of this group sow 

 and reap the so-called "ant-rice." If the nests of the species 

 in question be observed at the proper season, it will be seen 

 that the worliers often carry out from the store -chamber grains 

 of ant-rice which have .sprouted to deposit them in a heap some 

 distance ofT. These seeds frequently, of course, take root and 

 grow, and .since the ants feed mainly upon such grass-seed, it is 

 no matter for surprise that " ant-rice " should predominate in 

 the ring of vegetation surrounding the nest. To state, how- 

 ever, that the ant, " like a provident farmer, sows this cereal 

 and guards and weeds it for the sake of garnering its grain is 

 as absurd as to say that the cook is planting and maintain- 

 ing an orchard when some of the peach-stones she has thrown 

 into the yard chance to grow into peach-trees." The myth 

 will, however, probably be hard to kill, since it is supported, 

 not only by the authority of Darwin, but is repeated in Lord 

 Avebury's well-known work on ants. 



The oviparous species of peripatus form the subject of a 

 long article (illustrated with a coloured plate) by Dr. A. Dendy 

 in the February number of the Quarterly Journal of Miiroi(Opiial 

 Science. The fact that an Australian species of peripatus (using 

 this term in a general sense) lays eggs was announced by Dr. 

 Dendy in Nature of February 14, 1SS9 ; and although, largely 

 owing tc some confusion in the identification of species, the 

 statement was received with considerable scepticism, the author 

 has now been enabled, not only to fully demonstrate its truth, 

 NO. 1688, VOL. 65] 



but to show that the phenomenon occurs in a second Austra- 

 lian species. It is certainly a very remarkable circumstance that 

 while the other Jcnown species of these primitive arthropods are 

 viviparous, these two forms (now designated Ooperipatus) 

 should lay eggs ; and it would be of the greatest interest could 

 the reason for the departure from the general rule be accounted 

 for. Dr. Dendy, after describing the anatomy of the egg-laying 

 species in considerable detail, discusses the phylogeny of the 

 whole group. 



To the same journal Messrs. Bradford and I'limmer com- 

 municate an important paper on the organism infesting the blood 

 of animals suffering from tsetse-disease. This parasite, for which 

 the authors have proposed the name Trypanosoma brucei., is fully 

 described and its life-history sketched. Many experiments 

 have been made with the view of discovering whether any 

 animals are immune against this parasite, but so far without 

 success. The authors add, however, that there is probably in all 

 animals some attempt at resistance to its attacks, and that this is 

 effected by means of phagocytes. The parasite is closely allied 

 to one afi'ecting sewer-rats, which belongs to the same genus. 

 The rat Trypanosoma does not, however, in the least protect 

 the animal containing it against the tsetse parasite. It maybe 

 added that a beautiful series of greatly enlarged models illus- 

 trating the life-history of the latter is now exhibited in the 

 Natural History Museum. 



In the Last Bolletiino of the Italian Seismological Society 

 (vol. vii. No. 5), Dr. Cancani describes an interesting series 

 of earthquakes felt during April and May, 1901, in the district 

 round Palombara Sabina, near Rome, the strongest of which 

 (on April 24) caused some damage to buildings. The focus of 

 this earthquake being evidently at a very slight depth, Dr. 

 Cancani ascribes the shocks to readjustments of the superficial 

 strata due to the erosion of the underlying rock. From records 

 obtained at Rome, Padua and Casamicciola, the mean velocity 

 of the earth-waves was found to be 4 85 km. per second. 



The Journal of Geography, a new American monthly, 

 succeeds the Journal of School Geography and the Bulletin of 

 the American Bureau of Geography. The January number 

 contains a paper on useful products of the century plants, by 

 W. B. Marshall, and the first instalments of papers on field 

 work in physical geography, by Prof. W. M. Davis, and on the 

 trade and industries of western South America, by Emory R. 

 Johnson. A special feature is " Geography Current," a series 

 of notes and reviews on subjects bearing on various branches of 

 geography. 



THEyi)«>-Ka/of the Society of Arts for February 14 contains 

 a valuable paper by Commander R. Whitehouse, R.N., on the 

 Uganda Railway and the survey of Lake Victoria Nyanza. 

 On the opening of the whole line, the journey from Mombasa 

 to Port Florence will take two and a half days, and the steamer 

 journey from Port Florence to Mengo another day, as against 

 seventy days by caravan. The railway has already opened up 

 a large amount of country, and until other railways are con- 

 structed it must command the trade of the whole of that part of 

 Central Africa. 



The Berlin Gesellschaft fiir Krdkunde begins the year with 

 a change in the form of its publications. The Zeitschrift and 

 the Verhandlungen are now combined in a single journal, 

 which retains the name of the former, and is to appear ten 

 times a year. The January number contains, among other 

 things, papers by llerr O. Neumann, on a journey from the 

 Somali coast through southern Ethiopia to the Soudan, by 

 Herr K. Sapper, on the physical geography of Honduras, by 

 MM. E. Roclus and Valcre Maes, on the "disque glubulaire " (the 



