LY ee2 LOLS) 
NATURE 

a consequence of the huge orders placed, the United 
States will have the means of providing for national 
defence; the plants now used for supplying European 
requirements, could be used to equip home armies in 
a remarkably short time. In other words, the United 
States has obtained insurance against attack for prac- 
tically nothing, so far as equipment preparation will 
provide. 
In the July issue of Man Mr. E. J. Wayland de- 
scribes a series of stone implements collected by him 
on the Monapo river in the Portuguese province of 
Mozambique, East Africa. All, with one possible ex- 
ception, are extremely crude, being chipped out of 
nodules of chalcedony and jasper with which the 
basalt ridges of the sedimentary coast belt are be- 
strewn. There is no certainty about their age, the 
fact that they are found on the surface not necessarily 
showing that they are of comparatively modern date. 
They closely resemble those found by Mr. Lamplugh 
near the Victoria Falls. No local evidence justifies 
their attribution to a period earlier than the early 
Paleolithic, but they may be of much later date. 
In Man for July Dr. W. H. Rivers describes speci- 
mens of the boomerang found on the coast of Espiritu 
Santo, New Hebrides. They differ from the Austra- 
lian type in having the ends almost square or showing 
a slight curve not continuous with the general curva- 
ture of the implement. The antiquity of the use of 
the boomerang in the New Hebrides may be assumed 
from its connection with tribal rites, and one group 
claim descent from it. This discovery raises an im- 
portant problem. The weapon is generally regarded 
as an ancient element in Australian culture, but Dr. 
Rivers suggests that it was introduced by the race 
which, in his studies on Melanesian social life, he 
calls the Kava people. The discovery is, he thinks, 
sufficient ‘to put us on our guard concerning the 
supposed antiquity of the Australian boomerang, for 
in spite of their difference of form, there can be no 
reasonable doubt that the Australian and Melanesian 
instruments are but divergent manifestations of the 
handiwork of one people.” 
In his presidential address to the Royal Society of 
South Africa (May 19) Dr. L. Péringuey summarised 
the conclusions he has reached regarding Paleolithic 
man in South Africa. He still maintains that the 
early Palzolithic cultures—Chellean, Acheulean, and 
Mousterian—which occurred in sequence in Europe, 
existed together in South Africa. The later Paleolithic 
cultures, particularly the Aurignacean and Solutrean, 
are richly represented in South Africa, where they are 
associated, as in Europe, with a particularly realistic 
form of art. The evidence which associates the later 
Paleolithic cultures with the ancient Bushman is, in 
Dr. Péringuey’s opinion, now quite complete. He 
endeavours “to show that the Bushman, if himself 
not the ancestor of those Solutrean and Aurignacean 
people, may have been of them, and that he has re- 
tained many parts of their handicraft is equally cer- 
tain.’ Dr. Péringuey is prepared to believe that the 
later Paleolithic cultures of Europe were introduced 
from South Africa. 
NO. 2386, VOL. 95] 

569 

Tue Hydrachnide, or. water-mites, are favourite 
subjects of study for students of ‘ pond-life.””. Such 
students are indebted to Messrs. W. Williamson and 
C. D. Soar for an illustrated account of the genus 
Lebertia, which appears in the Journal of the Quekett 
Microscopical Club, vol. xii., No. 76. if 
A RECENT number of the Philippine Journal of 
Science (vol. ix., section D, No. 4) is almost filled by 
an exhaustive account of the Palasmons of the Philip- 
pines by Dr. R. P. Cowles; a feature of the paper is 
the careful series of measurements of the segments 
of the chelate thoracic limbs in the various examples 
of each species described. 
Dr. A. RANDELL Jackson, whose studies in British 
spiders are well known, has published (Proc. R. Phys. 
Soc., Edin., vol xix., No. 7) a ‘‘Second Contribution 
to the Spider Fauna of Scotland.’ This includes a 
Clubiona, hitherto undescribed, and several species not 
before found in Great Britain. As might have been 
expected, Ben Nevis and the Cairngorm group of 
summits proved exceptionally good collecting grounds. 
But why does the author write ‘‘ Ben McDhui,”’ as if 
the famous Aberdeenshire mountain were named after 
a Highland clan, instead of preserving the original 
‘“Ben Muich Dhui” (=‘‘ Mount of the Black Hog’’)? 
Many marine animals of high interest have been 
made known through the activities of the Irish 
Fisheries Surveys. Some new light on the life-history 
of echinoderms has been shed by larvae dredged or 
tow-netted off the south-west coast of Kerry, and 
described by Dr. J. F. Gemmill (Proc. R. Phys. Soc. 
Edin., vol. xix., No. 7). A single Brachiolaria larva, 
resembling that of Asterias rubens, is carefully figured ; 
it was taken in a tow-net at 1150 fathoms’ depth. An 
advanced bipinnaria stage, found in five different 
localities, and referred to Luidia ciliaris, is also de- 
scribed and drawn. 
ORNITHOLOGISTS may turn with profit to some 
“Notes on the Moults and Sequences of Plumage in 
Some British Ducks,” by Miss Annie. C. Jackson, 
which appear in -the July issue of British Birds, for 
there are yet some who hold that acolour change with- 
out a moult is not only possible but demonstrable, a 
conclusion based on an inability to weigh evidence 
and a want of knowledge of the structural peculiarities 
of feathers. But the merit of Miss Jackson’s paper 
lies not so much in controverting these fallacious argu- 
ments as in establishing the fact’ that female surface- 
feeding ducks undergo a complete moult in the spring. 
This moult extends also to the underclothing of down- 
feathers.. But by far the most important item in her 
work isthe discovery that at this spring moult an 
additional form of down, longer and coarser, is de- 
veloped, apparently to serve as a lining for the nest. 
Presumably this peculiar type of down is developed on 
the breast alone. Further particulars of the structural 
peculiarities of this down, which disappears with the 
autumn moult, would be acceptable. 
A very useful summary of what is known in regard 
to the emission ‘of: light among insects is given by 
Mr. K. G. Blair in the Proceedings of the South 
