oak ae eile 
May 27, 1915] 
NATURE 
347 


ing of the chicks) is about eighteen days, and the 
longest about twenty-eight days. The reason for 
the close-sitting is to guard the stones of the nest 
from being stolen, and to guard the young wives 
from the attentions of strange cocks. ~Conse- 
quent on the abstinence from food the excreta 
around the nest are bright green—the colour of 
the bile, and without the, red guano which is de- 
posited after the birds begin to feed. They depend 
solely on euphausias, somewhat prawn-like crus- 
taceans rich in zoonerythrin. 
When the eggs are laid one of the parents goes 
off for some days (up to seven or ten), and on its 
return the other partner has a similar respite. 
When the chicks are hatched the alternations are 
frequent. Very quaint is the way in which the 
parents often overload themselves with the 
euphausias with which they feed the young, so 
that they have to lean back to keep their balance. 
Sometimes the toil is too much for them, and they 



———————————————E 


to blame, of the ‘‘ecstatic attitude’ and “chant 
de satisfaction’? which mark a high sense of 
well-being among the Adélies; of the toughness 
of the birds, seen, for instance, in their surviving 
being imprisoned for weeks in a_ superficially 
frozen snow-drift ; of the puzzling “drilling on the 
ice,” which may be a reminiscence of massing 
before migration; and of the autumnal farewell 
to the antarctic shores and the journey to un- 
known winter-quarters, the report itself must 
speak. The author has our felicitations. 
THE ANTIQUITY OF HINDU 
CHEMISTRY. 
HE Panjabee of February 23 contains a report 
of a lecture on the antiquity of Hindu chem- 
istry, given before the Punjab University, Lahore, 
by Dr. P. C. Ray, of the Presidency College, Cal- 
cutta, which is of interest as demonstrating the 


Fic. 3.—Adélie Penguin; *‘ porpo'sing.” 
lose all their take and all their’ trouble at the last 
moment. For the chicks will not pick anything 
off the ground, or eat save in the proper way by 
thrusting their heads down their parents’ throats. 
The rate of growth is astonishing. Thus the 
egg weighed 4°56 ounces, the newly-hatched chick 
3 ounces, the five days’ old 13 ounces, the six 
days old 15°75, the eight days old 24°75, the nine 
days old 28'5, the eleven days old 37°75. When 
the chicks are about a fortnight old the parents 
“pool theit offspring,” leaving them in the care 
of domesticated individuals, while they enjoy 
themselves holidaying in the sea (Fig. 3) or on 
the ice. Of their “touch-last” and “excursion 
steamer’? games, of their mortal fear of the 
voracious sea-leopard (Hydrurga leptonyx)—their 
only enemy in adult life save man and his dogs, of 
the high mortality among the young for which the 
From 

voracious skuas and the vicious cocks are largely 
NO. 2378, VOL. 95| 
‘« Natural History of the Adélie Penguin.” 
origin of Indian chemistry and the influence of 
Hindu learning upon that of the Arabs and of 
European nations. Two thousand five hundred 
years ago the Hindus were skilled in the examina- 
tion and valuation of gold and gems; in a know- 
ledge of the colouring of gems and jewels, and in 
certain metallurgical processes. Long before the 
age of Paracelsus they recognised that chemistry 
was the handmaid of medicine, and that its de- 
velopment was intimately bound up with progress 
in the art of healing. As with the Iatro-chemists, 
Hindu chemistry became, for a time, the chem- 
istry of mercury. In the Sarvadarsansamgraha of 
Madhavacharyya the chemistry of mercury ranks, 
indeed, as a separate system of philosophy. “By 
the science of mercury is to be understood not 
only a branch of chemistry, but as applicable even 
to salvation, since the partaking of mercurial pre- 
parations renders the body imperishable.” From 
