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8 NATURE 
[Marcu 11, 1915 

region, as well as the crossing of the Little 
Khingdan, were made by Dr. Nansen, partly in 
horse carriages, partly in trolleys run along 
temporary rails, and partly in a motor-car, until 
he reached, on the Zéya plain, about 420 miles 
from Khabarévsk, a station where he could take 
the direct train to Petrograd. This station, from 
which Dr. Nansen could now travel by rail all 
the way to Petrograd, with but one or two inter- 
ruptions at unfinished bridges, received from the 
local engineers the name of “ Nansen’s.” 
On October 18 Nansen was at Chita, where he 
joined the Eastern Express. He passed Irkutsk 
at night, without stopping; six days later he was 
A BIOLOGIGAL PUZZELE.-* 
R. BRUN, of Ziirich, has done a fine piece of 
work in devising an elaborate and ingenious 
series of experiments which enable us to come to 
a decision among the rival theories of way-finding 
among ants. Let us first illustrate the facts. If 
we pick up one of the higher ants from an ant- 
road, turn it about in a box, and then empty it 
out again near the place of its capture, it makes 
no mistake in hurrying homewards. When an ant 
goes off alone on an exploring adventure, it often 
keeps persistently in one general direction, in spite 
of many divagations to one side or the other, and 



Men and women of the Yuraks and Yenisei Samoyedes. 
in the Urals, and on October 27 he reached Petro- 
grad; and yet, notwithstanding the rapidity of 
the journey, his observations and remarks about 
Siberia, ‘‘the land of the future,” ‘‘ Russia in the 
East,” and “The Yellow Question,” and so on, 
are both valuable and interesting. 
The book is richly produced, with numerous 
excellent reproductions of Dr. Nansen’s photo- 
graphs, and with three maps—one of the Kara 
Sea and adjoining lands, and two of Siberia. The 
transcription of Russian names, both in the text 
and on the maps, is quite correct, with the excep- 
tion of a very few words, in which the German 
spelling has been followed (Tas, Seya, Syriansky, 
instead of Taz, Zeya, Zyriansky). 
P. KROPOTKIN. 
From ‘‘ Through Siberia.” 
By Dr. F. Nansen. (London: W. Heinemann.) 
when it turns its face homewards, it does not 
usually retrace its steps, but pursues a parallel 
course until it comes near the nest. If a higher 
ant, such as Formica rufa, be gently but firmly 
induced to travel on a path chosen for it and not 
by it, it makes straight for home when freed from 
coercion. It may run along a line which is the 
hypotenuse of the triangle the other two sides of 
which it was compelled to follow, or it may com- 
plete a polygonal figure and reach the nest. If 
members of such species as Formica rufa and F. 
sanguinea be lifted up and carried some distance 
and put down in hunting ground which they have 
1 “ Die Raumorientierurg der Amei-en und das Orientierwnesprob’em im 
allgemeiien. Eine kritisch-experimentel’e Studie; zugle'ch ein Beitrag zur 
Theorie cer Mneme.” 3y Dr. Rucolf Brun. Pp. vilita3q+s51 hys- 
(Jena: Gustav F scher, 1914.) Price 6 marks. 
