Marcu 25, 1915] 

NATURE 97 

Scientific Expedition. The value of this exploration 
will be shown only when full studies have been made 
of the 2500 and more specimens of birds and mammals 
which have been collected. This will for the first 
time provide an outline of the mammalogy and 
ornithology of this hitherto unknown region, which 
includes a river as long as the Rhine, of which there 
appears to be no trace on the existing maps. Of 
special interest is the account of the man-eating fish, 
the piranha. ‘South America,’ Col. Roosevelt re- 
marks, ‘‘makes up for its lack relatively to Africa and 
India of large man-eating Carnivora by the extra- 
ordinary ferocity or blood-thirstiness of certain small 
creatures of which the kinsfolk elsewhere are harm- 
less. It is only here that fish no bigger than trout 
\xill swimmers, and bats the size of the ordinary 
\flittermouse of the northern hemisphere drink the 
blood of big beasts and of man himself.”’ 
In the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal 
Asiatic Society for December, 1914, Mr. J. C. Moulton, 
curator of the Sarawak Museum, continues his list of 
the butterflies of Borneo, dealing in this instance with 
the whites and swallow-tails, or Papilionide. No 
fewer than forty-three species, together with a number 
of subspecies of the true swallow-tails of the genus 
Papilio, are recognised, against twenty-nine in a list 
published by Dr. Russel Wallace in 1865. 
To the March number of the Irish Naturalist Dr. 
R. F. Scharff contributes a tentative list of the native 
names of Irish mammals. There is a considerable 
degree of uncertainty with regard to the proper appli- 
cation of some of these names, and in a few instances, 
which may represent species now extinct, identifica- 
tion has not yet been practicable. Several names for 
the bear and the wolf are known, and it is possible 
that one or more of the unidentified terms may refer 
to the extinct giant Irish deer or “ells.”’ 
A sTRIKING coloured plate of the king-condor of the 
Andes forms the frontispiece to an article in the April 
number of My Children’s Magazine on the vertical 
distribution of animal life on land and in the ocean. 
Most of the more striking instances of animals dwell- 
ing at great heights in the mountain-ranges of the 
world are mentioned, and the article as a whole is a 
mine of information. The artist cannot, however, be 
congratulated on his rendering of the red deer’s antlers 
or on his so-called wild sheep and yak, which are 
obviously drawn from domesticated breeds. 
In Mr. T. Southwell’s report of the Bengal, Bihar, 
and Orissa Fishery Department for the year ending 
June 30, 1914, attention is directed to the extent of 
the area under the control of the Department, the 
smallness of the staff, and the difficulties encountered, 
in endeavours to improve the present condition of 
affairs owing to the indifference and lack of energy 
on the part of the fishermen. It is admitted that in 
Bengal the supply of food-fish, always short, is steadily 
falling, but since the occupation of fishing or dealing 
in fish is carried on exclusively by the lower classes 
the whole industry is left in the hands of people with 
no capital, no education, and no business capacity. 
In such circumstances it is scarcely to be wondered 
NO. 2369, VOL. 95 | 



at that the fish-supply is scanty. In area and poten- 
tiality the fresh-water fisheries of Bengal are second 
to none; but the establishment of hatcheries for carp 
and other species of fish is highly desirable in order 
to mitigate the disaster to eggs and fry occurring 
annually in the big rivers during the rains. The 
rearing of eggs and fry removed from the mouth of 
the Damodar and their return to the river as young 
fish at an age when they are able to look after them- 
selves, seems to be a step in the right direction, and 
one which should eventually give satisfactory results. 
As time and opportunity allow, the stocking of other 
small rivers will be carried on, where the necessity 
is indicated. The rearing of fry in special tanks will 
further enable small fish to be supplied for tank- 
culture throughout the province, at an age when they 
are unlikely to be devoured by voracious fish, whereby 
considerable improvement in tank-culture generally 
may be expected. 
AMONG specimens received by the U.S. Museum 
from the Lower Eocene of Fort Union, Montana, 
particular interest attaches to the left half of the 
lower jaw of a small mammal described by Dr. J. W. 
Gidley in No. 2077 of the Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 
(vol. xlviii., pp. 395-402) as a new genus and species 
under the name of Myrmecoboides montanensis. The 
specimen, which retains the canine and seven cheek- 
teeth, is regarded by its describer as indicating a 
marsupial, which may be related to the Australian 
banded anteater (Myrmecobius fasciatus). The denti- 
tion presents the distinctly marsupial feature that all 
the last four cheek-teeth are molariform, and of the 
same general type, the first of the series being, how- 
ever, slightly more complex than the other three. 
In many respects all the teeth present resemblances 
to those of Myrmecobius, although those with a 
molariform structure are relatively larger, and not 
separated from one another by intervals. If, how- 
ever, the dentition of Myrmecobius be of a degenerate 
type, as is now generally believed, such differences 
are precisely those which would be expected in an 
ancestral form. What an important bearing such a 
relationship would have on the origin and dispersal 
of marsupials will be obvious. In addition to this, 
the Fort Union fossil may serve to solve a disputed 
point in regard to marsupial dentition. For, as Dr. 
Gidley points out, the first molariform tooth presents 
several features suggestive of its being a persistent 
milk-molar rather than a molar; and if this idea be 
well founded, there will be decisive evidence in favour 
of the view first suggested by Dr. Winge, and also 
arrived at independently by Mr. Lydekker in 1899, 
that the first molariform tooth of marsupials is a 
persistent milk-molar, and not, as previously sup- 
posed, a molar, and consequently that both placentals 
and marsupials normally possess but three pairs of 
molars. 
We note with interest that the Lincolnshire 
Naturalists’ Union is taking steps to preserve the 
ancient flora of Lincolnshire from extinction. Owing 
to cultivation, drainage of bogs, eating off by sheep, 
and the rapacity of trippers much has been lost. By 
educating the populace to respect the flora and. by 
