188 
NATURE 
fAPRIL® 15) 10ers 

correlate their results with those obtained in other 
regions by the application of methods which alone 
can make a botanical survey what it is now generally 
expected to be—a correlated study of the plant com- 
munities and the plant habitats of the area surveyed. 
Bene 

ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES. 
T the annual meeting of the Royal Society for the 
Protection of Birds, held at the Middlesex 
Guildhall, on March 11, when the Ranee of Sarawak 
presided, an optimistic tone prevailed in the first 
portion of the report for 1914, as several of the schemes 
and objects for which the Society had long been 
labouring were apparently on the point of realisation. 
Then came the war, when all these fair prospects— 
particularly the expected passing of the Government 
Plumage Bill—were dissipated, to be renewed, it may 
be hoped, at the conclusion of the war. In other 
respects the work of the Society was, on the whole, 
satisfactory; but finance is a matter on which there 
is serious ground for anxiety, as a falling-off in 
subscriptions during the current year is almost inevi- 
table. 
The condor forms the subject of the first article in 
the March number of the Children’s Museum News, 
where particular reference is made to the long period 
taken by these birds to attain the adult plumage. 
Hatched during the height of the southern summer, 
the young exchange their white nestling dress for 
a uniformly brown garb, which is not finally discarded 
until the seventh year, in February or the early part 
of March. Although able to fly when a year old, 
young condors do not leave their parents until the 
completion of their third year. 
In the course of a wonderfully illustrated article on 
a breeding-colony of buff-backed herons, published in 
the March issue of Wild Life, Mr. B. Beetham directs 
attention to the small size of the nests of these birds, 
which alone renders it possible for so many to be 
crowded into a single bush. So heavily weighted, 
indeed, are some of the boughs that they hang almost 
vertically ; and it is little short of marvellous how the 
eggs and young are retained in the shallow, cup-like 
nests, generally overhanging a lagoon, into which the 
hapless offspring may be precipitated by a gust of 
greater strength than usual. The nests are devoid of 
lining, and in some cases so flimsy in structure that 
the pale blue eggs are visible from below. 
The nesting-habits of fulmar-petrels on a precipitous 
cliff in the Orkneys form the subject of an article by 
Mr. O. G. Pike in British Birds for March. The 
author arrived on the scene in the second week in 
July, when most of the young were hatched; but he 
was able to secure a couple of photographs of sitting 
birds, as well as one of a downy nestling. Each 
female lays but a single egg, and at a very early 
stage the young bird is capable of indulging in the 
distinctly petrel-trait of discharging a forceful jet of 
evil-smelling green oil from its mouth in the face of a 
real or supposed enemy. 
To the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal 
Asiatic Society for December, 1914, Mr. J. C. Moulton, 
curator of the Sarawalx Museum, contributes a list of 
Bornean birds. In an appendix to Hugh Low’s 
**Sarawak,’’ published in 1848, the number of species 
then recognised was fifty-nine; this was raised in 
1889 in a list drawn up by the late Mr. A. H. Everett 
to 536 (exclusive of thirty-four from Palawan), while 
in the present list the number is again augmented to 
555; and this, too, despite the fact that several birds 
formerly regarded as distinct species have been rele- 
gated to the rank of local races. 
NO: 2372, VOL. 95) 

According to the report in the January number of 
the Emu, the fourteenth annual session of the Royal 
Australasian Ornithologists’ Union, held in Mel- 
bourne in November, 1914, was a thorough success, 
a number of interesting excursions being taken and 
several papers read. In the same issue Mr. A. J. 
Campbell directs attention to the apparent extermina- 
tion of three beautifully coloured species of parrots 
namely, the scarlet-shouldered Psephotus pulcherrimus, 
the chestnut-shouldered grass-parrot (Euphema pul- 
chella), and the night-parrot (Geopsittacus occi- 
dentalis), all of which were to be met with a few 

| years ago in Queensland or the neighbouring districts. 
Their disappearance is attributed to domesticated cats 
run wild, aided by bush-fires and the spread of cultiva- 
tion. 
In the Zoologist for March, Prof. J. C. Patten 
describes an immature aquatic warbler picked up at 
Tuskar light-station, County Wexford, on August 9, 
1913. The paper is illustrated by a plate showing 
how the plumage of this species differs from that of 
the sedge-warbler at the same age. In the aquatic 
warbler the back is marked by streaks of black and 
buff, which are but slightly developed in the sedge- 
warbler; both webs of the~middle pair of tail-feathers 
are also margined with buff, and all the tail-feathers 
are likewise longer, narrower, and more pointed than 
those of the sedge-warbler. The Tuskar bird is the 
second of its kind taken in Ireland; the number of 
specimens recorded from Great Britain (England) is 
seventeen. 
Rew 
MOUNTAIN GEOLOGY. 

1 the Mémoires de la Société de Physique et d’ His- 
toire Naturelle de Genéve (vol. xxxviii., pages 
69-168) M. Louis Dupare and Mme. M. Tikanowitch 
continue their worlk on the Ural Chain by an account 
of its rocks to the east of the main watershed and in the 
upper basin of the rivers Kakwa and Wagran. This, 
the fourth of their contributions to the geology of that 
chain, is prefaced by a sketch of the physical features 
of the district, the illustrations to which show that it 
consists of huge hills rather than of rugged moun- 
tains. The rocks are partly sedimentary, arenaceous, 
or slaty argillaceous, with some quartzose crystalline 
schists; partly igneous. Of the latter a very complete 
petrographical study has been made, including chem- 
ical analyses of the principal types, several of which 
are very interesting. Amones those of deep-seated 
origin are the following: quartz-bearing micaceous 
diorites (evidently allied to tonalites) and gabbro- 
diorites (in which probably the hornblende is second- 
ary), Olivine-gabbros, and massive dunites. Besides 
these and serpentines, are tilaite (a variety of eucrite) 
and pyroxenites. This association is interesting, for it 
often exists, more or less completely, in other regions, 
and suggests certain modes of magmatic differentia- 
tion. The dyke-rocks include hornblendic berbachites 
and various dioritic porphyrites, besides amphibolites, 
in some at least of which the hornblende appears to 
be secondary. The article ends with a description of 
the crystalline schists which, however, do not appear 
to be of any unusual interest. The memoir, illus- 
trated by twelve photographic figures of the micro- 
scopic structure of the more interesting rocks, forms a 
most welcome addition to petrology, the more remark- 
able when we learn the difficulties with which the 
authors had to contend in their three visits to this 
region, in consequence of the sparse population, the 
want of roads, and the absence of maps. 
In the next fascicule (pp. 169-98) M. Jules Favre 
describes the relation of the plant-life to the geology 
