44 
NALCO 
[Marcu II, 1915 

Amone the articles in the February number of the 
American Naturalist is one by Messrs. Castle and 
Fish on the black-and-tan rabbit and the significance 
of multiple allelomorphs, in which the origin of the 
breed is indicated. 
In vol. x., No. 7, of the University of California 
publications on archeology and ethnology, Mire PoE 
Goddard has collected a number of tales and legends 
of the Chilula tribe, a group of Indians now nearly 
extinct. The collection is a strange complex of primi- 
tive types of belief : animal tales, witchcraft, demono- 
logy, follk-medicine, and incidents of social life. It 
is well that the opportunity has been taken to place 
on record the language and foll beliefs of a people 
which in a few years it will be impossible to recover. 
A puoroGrapu of the European bison cow and calf 
in the Zoological Gardens is one of the features in 
the February number of Wild Life. Although this 
calf is the first of its kind born in the London estab- 
lishment, cow-bison have produced offspring on more 
than one occasion in the Duke of Bedford’s park at 
Woburn. In connection with a photograph of 
Canadian wild geese, Mr. S. J. Wigley states that the 
omission of these birds from the list of species pro- 
tected in Alberta is a testimony to their alertness and 
cunning. 
Tue report of the Indian Museum for 1913-14 deals 
largely with last year’s celebration of the centenary 
of that institution, of which a notice has already been 
published in our columns, and the inauguration of a 
series of public lectures. Much of the rest relates 
to administrative details and other matters of purely 
local interest; and attention has also been directed in 
Nature to the biological survey of the Chilka Lake, 
which is discussed in the report under the heading of 
field-work. Among noteworthy additions to the 
zoological collections were specimens from the Chilka 
Lake, specimens received from the marine survey, 
mammal-skins sent by the Bombay Natural History 
Society, and a series of, chiefly fresh-water inverte- 
brate, specimens from Kashmir. 
New reptiles and amphibians from the Permo-Trias 
of South Africa are described by Mr. S. H. Haughton 
in vol. xii., part 2, of the Annals of the South African 
Museum. Very striking is a fine stegocephalian skull 
referred to the European genus Trematosaurus, under 
the name of T. sobeyi. A skull allied to Tapino- 
cephalus is made the type of a new genus and species, 
with the designation Struthiocephalus whaitsi; and of 
two new therocephalians, one is regarded as entitled 
to represent a new generic type (Trochosaurus). Three 
dicynodonts are described new, in one of 
which it is shown that the bone in Lystrosaurus 
hitherto regarded as the exoccipital, really represents 
both that element and the paroccipital (opisthotic). 
also as 
Tue Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 
for January 19 (No. 2, of vol. v.) contains an interest- 
ing paper by Mr. H. S. Graves on the place of forestry 
among natural sciences. The importance of the forest 
as a distinct plant society and its connection with 
botany, plant geography, meteorology, sociology, and 
NO. 2367, VOL. 95] 

engineering is well put forward. In the same number 
Mr. P. C. Standley describes a new genus of Cheno- 
podiaceze from Arizona, under the name of Zuckia, 
which is most closely related to Atriplex. 
Pror. H. H. W. Pearson publishes an account of 
his observations on the internal temperatures of 
Euphorbia virosa and Aloe dichotoma in the Annals 
of the Bolus Herbarium, vol. i., part ii., 1914. The 
plants grow on the dry slopes of the Great Karas- 
berg. The stem structure of the Euphorbia is re- 
markable from the large air cavities in the stem. 
The Euphorbia attains its maximum external tem- 
perature more rapidly than the Aloe, and temperatures 
as high as 51:5° C. were recorded when the blacl-bulb 
registered 65-8° C. On wounding, the temperature of 
the Euphorbia falls suddenly, and the fall is attributed 
to the expansion of the pith gases due to the with- 
drawal of latex. When a rubber pellicle has been 
formed over the wound by the exuded latex the fall 
in temperature ceases. In Aloe the lowering of tem- 
perature on wounding appears to be due to surface 
evaporation and the recovery in this case is slow, since 
there is no protective formation of rubber over the 
wound. 
In Knowledge for January Mr. L. Claremont de- 
scribes the methods of ruby-mining in Burma, with 
the aid of a number of photographs, and of illustra- 
tions by Burmese artists. He deals also with the red 
spinels, or ‘‘balas rubies,’”’ of which a large example, 
, 
presented to the Black Prince, occurs among the 
crown jewels of Great Britain. The possible sedi- 
mentary origin of the ruby-bearing limestone in 
Burma has been lately pointed out by Mr. T. H. D. 
La Touche (see Nature, vol. xciv., p. 348). 
Tue Revue Scientifique, which continues its fifty- 
third volume in Paris, publishes (February 6) a lecture 
given in 1914 by Prof. Stanislas Meunier on ‘Le 
probleme des montagnes.”’ The author repeats his 
suggestion that earthquakes may be caused by the 
explosion of steam, when water-bearing blocks of the 
earth’s crust slip down into regions of high tem- 
perature. He declines, however, to look forward, 
with Termier, to catastrophic displacements of the 
surface. We may note that the Revue invites records 
of Frenchmen destined for scientific careers, who have 
fallen, in heroic circumstances, in the present con- 
flict. Two such obituaries are published in the 
number here referred to. 
Tue Meteorological Office with its recent Weekly 
Weather Report has issued a summary of tempera- 
ture, rainfall, and duration of bright sunshine for the 
past winter, as comprised in the period for the thirteen 
weeks from November 29, 1914, to February 27, 1915- 
The temperature for the winter was in excess of the 
average over the whole of England, the greatest differ- 
ence occurring in the east and south-east and in the 
midland counties, where the mean was approximately 
2° warmer than the normal. In Scotland there was 
a deficiency of nearly 1°, and in Ireland the defect 
for the winter was about 1-5°. The duration of bright 
sunshine was not very different from the normal, the 
amount being slightly deficient in the eastern districts, 
