560 



NATURE 



[October 26, 191 1 



llourish, the chief cause of mortality among the inmates 

 being tights, in which victory is not always to the strong. 



The National University of La Plata has published in 

 vol. xvii. of the Re.vista del Museo de La Plata a valuable 

 monograph entitled " Los Tiempos Prehist6ricos y Proto- 

 histiricos en la Provincia de Cordoba," prepared by Senhor 

 Felix F. Outes, the secretary and director of the museum. 

 This museum, founded by Dr. F. P. Moreno, has become, 

 in its palEeontological and anthropological departments, one 

 of the most important in South America. It owes much 

 to the collections of the late Dr. F. Ameghino, to which the 

 present report is largely devoted. The writer reviews the 

 collections from the earliest period, the most interesting 

 series being the cave drawings and petroglyphs representing 

 rude animal and other figures. The report — a scholarly pro- 

 duction with full references to the literature of the subject — 

 is an important contribution to our knowledge of the 

 earlier civilisation of Argentina. 



In Man for October Prof. Flinders Petrie discusses a 

 series of Roman portraits found at Hawara, on the eastern 

 border of the Fayum, a site from which the most important 

 existing specimens of this form of art have been obtained. 

 The custom of decorating mummies with gilt stucco cases 

 was much developed in Ptolemaic times. By the end of 

 the first century a.d. it became the fashion to take the 

 canvas portrait of the dead, which had hung in a frame on 

 the house wall, and 10 place it over the face of the mummy 

 as a substitute for a conventional stucco head. Wax was 

 undoubtedly the medium for the colour, which was laid on 

 either with a full brush or in a creamy state with short, 

 sloping strokes. The personages depicted are of a mixed 

 type, mainly European, but mingled in some cases with 

 indigenous Egyptians, Syrians, and other Levantines 

 attracted to the Fayum in the course of trade. Lastly, 

 Roman jurisdiction had added an Italian upper stratum 

 of officials, who had no objection to mixing with other 

 local races ; and we also find instances of a Spanish or 

 Moresque-Spanish type in this curiously cosmopolitan 

 population. 



With the exception of one, by Dr. Annandale, on the 

 batrachians and reptiles of Yun-nan, the papers in vol. 

 vi., part iv., of Records of the Indian Museum are devoted 

 to various groups of invertebrates, among which reference 

 may be made to notes, by the same author, on fresh-water 

 sponges from the Poona district of Bombay. One of 

 these, Corvospongilla burmanica bombayensis, represents 

 an Indian race of a species originally described from 

 Burma. 



The appointment of Dr. F. A. Lucas to the directorship 

 of the American Museum of Natural History has caused a 

 vacancy in the office of chief curator of the Brooklyn 

 Museum. According to the October issue of The 

 (Brooklyn) Museum News, part of the work of excavating 

 and laying the foundations of an extension of the Central 

 Museum is in hand, while appropriations have been made 

 for the erection of a new Children's Museum. A unique 

 exhibit of animals and other organisms injurious to books 

 and libraries was installed during the year. The insects 

 include various larva? passing under the general name of 

 "book-worms,' cockroaches, white ants, silver-fish, and 

 the American spring-tail. 



The invertebrate marine fauna of the South Sandwich 

 group (lying to the east of South Georgia) forms the sub- 

 ject of several short communications in series 3, vol. xiv.. 

 of the Anales del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de 

 Buenos Aires. In a general account of the history of the 

 NO. 2 igi, VOL. 87] 



islands, which bears no author's name, although in the- 

 table of contents it seems to be attributed — apparently 

 incorrectly — to Mr. Chevreux, it is recalled that the Sand- 

 wich group, which was discovered by Cook in 1755. 

 consists ot twelve islands, or rocks, situated in 58° S. lat. 

 .Most of the specimens were collected by Dr. F. Lahille 

 of the La Plata Museum, but others were obtained by 

 Captain Larsen. The majority of the isopod crustaceans 

 were examined by Miss Harriet Richardson, who describes 

 two new species of Serolis, but a new Antarcturus is 

 named in the article which bears no author's name. The 

 amphipods comprise a new CEdiceroides and Eusirus, de- 

 scribed by Mr. E. Chevreux; but the pynogonids, which 

 were submitted to Mr. E. Bouvier, all pertained to 

 previously known forms. 



In view of the attention now concentrated on the brown 

 rat in connection with the spread of bubonic plague, and 

 the damage inflicted by this rodent on agricultural produce, 

 Mr. Newton Miller, of Clark University, has undertaken 

 an investigation of the rate of its propagation, the results 

 of which are published in the October number of The 

 American Naturalist (vol. xlv., p. 623). From this it 

 appears that these rats, which have a gestation period of 

 from 233 to 255 days, breed in every month of the year, 

 and may produce five or six litters annually, the number 

 of young ranging from six to nineteen, and averaging 

 between ten and eleven. Although full growth is not 

 attained before the eighteenth month, sexual maturity is 

 reached in both sexes at least as early as the end of the 

 fourth month. In one particular instance seven litters 

 were produced in as many months by a single female ; and" 

 in cases when all the young perish at birth, it is pre- 

 sumed that there would be a dozen litters in the course 

 of a year. In captivity brown rats devour nearly 50 per 

 cent, of their young at birth, most, if not all, of these 

 being eaten by the females. Full details are given in the 

 article with regard to the growth and development of the 

 young. 



The current issue (Bd. 43, Heft 3) of the Morpho- 

 logisches Jahrbuch contains a description, by Dr. H. 

 Bluntschli, of an ovarian dermoid cyst in which teeth of 

 two dentitions are recognisable ; and studies by G. P. 

 Frets on variations in the vertebral column of fruit bats 

 and squirrels, and by Dr. Kriegbaum on the anatomy of 

 the pharynx of certain mammals, birds, and reptiles. 



In the Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie (Bd. 98, 

 Heft 3) J. Sokolow gives an account of the eyes of 

 Pantopoda (" sea spiders "), which he considers to be more 

 primitive in structure than those of arachnids. Drs. 

 Lohner and Micoletzky describe two new acoelous turbel- 

 laria, namely, a new genus, Monochcerus, and a new 

 species of Convoluta (C. pelagica). The latter is light 

 green in colour, owing to the presence in the parenchyma 

 of clumps of symbiotic plant cells (zoochlorellae). This 

 worm, which is very voracious, feeding on pelagic cope- 

 pods, was taken in numbers off the west coast of Istria. 



The source of Chinese medical rhubarb is discussed by 

 Dr. C. C. Hosseus in an article — received as a separate 

 pamphlet — appearing in Archiv der Pharmazie (vol. ccxlix.). 

 The strongest evidence is put forward in a statement 

 received from Mr. E. H. Wilson that Rheum o//< 

 furnishes the commodity supplied from Tachien-lu, while 

 the best quality, taken from a variety of R. paltnatum, is 

 exported from the Suntang region. 



As in the Malay Archipelago, so in Siam, the family of 



Dipterocarpacea? is predominant in the forests ; but 



is species in the former region are numerous, only 



