March 20, 19 13] 



NATURE 



&5 



Mr. O. G. S. Crawford, in the- February issue of 

 Man, discusses a remarkable funereal vase, now in the 

 Isle of Wight Museum, which was found on Nunwell 

 Down, Isle of Wight. The form and ornamentation 

 of the vase, among those found in this country, are 

 unique, and the nearest analogue to it appears in 

 central Germany, whence it was probably imported. 

 The remains associated with the vase are identified 

 by Prof. A. Keith as belonging to a typical individual 

 of the Bronze age type, a race which probably brought 

 the vase with them from the Continent. This theory 

 is strengthened by the fact that the Isle of Wight 

 lies athwart the path of every invader of Wessex ; 

 the island has been, from the earliest times, in close 

 touch with the opposite coast of France, and the 

 Jutes followed the same route as their predecessors 

 of the Bronze age. 



To the Atiales del Museo National, Buenos Aires, 

 vol. xxiii. (incorrectly lettered xx. on side of cover), 

 Mr. F. Lahille describes a new species of malaria- 

 producing mosquito from Tucuman under the name 

 of Anopheles tucumanus, and likewise gives a new 

 formula for indicating the wing-venation in this and 

 other members of the group. He also states, in 

 referring to the Argentine representative of Stegomyia 

 fasciata, that the alleged sexual difference in the 

 number of joints in the palpae of that species is in- 

 correct, and that the difference is really due to the 

 extremely minute size of the terminal one in the 

 female, which renders its recognition very difficult. 



In the same volume (An. Mus. Biicims Aires, xxiii., 

 p. 269) Mr. Lahille describes, as Phocacna dioptrica, 

 a new porpoise from the estuary of the La Plata 

 River. It is described as having the upper part of the 

 head and body, as well as the lips, deep lustrous 

 black, but on the flanks this gives place suddenly to 

 milk-white, which occupies the whole of the under- 

 pays, the flippers and a semicircle above each eye 

 being also white. There are sixty-eight vertebrae, and 



~"~~' teeth. On p. 701 of the volume Mr. A. Gallardo 



19 H JJ 



describes a specimen of Fitzroy's dolphin (Lageno- 

 rhynchus fitzroyi) stranded at Mar del Plata in Decem- 

 ber, 1912. 



To Dr. N. V. Nasonov, director of the museum 

 at St. Petersburg, we are indebted for a copy of a 

 paper on Ovis arcar (or arkar) and its relatives, pub- 

 lished in the Bull. Ac. Imp. Sci. St. Petersbourg. 

 1912, pp. 1-32, plates i.-v. ; the text being, unfor- 

 tunately, wholly in Russian. Brandt, in 1852, gave 

 the name O. arkar (from the Turki designation of all 

 big wild sheep) to the wild sheep of the Ust-Urst 

 plateau, Transcaspia ; but in Blasius's " Siiugethiere 

 Deutschlands " the name was corrupted into arkal. 

 by which title the animal has been almost universally 

 known. Most naturalists regard the arkar as a race 

 of the sha or urial (O. vignei), but Dr. Nasonov is 

 of opinion that it should rank as a species, with three 

 iccai races. One of these, from the Kopet-Dagh, 

 dividing Persia from Turkestan, has been previously 

 named O. v. varentzowi by Dr. Satunin, but the third, 

 NO. 2264, VOL. 91] 



which is based on two heads collected by Karelin, it 

 is believed in the neighbourhood of Astrabad, is de- 

 scribed as new, under the name of O. a. dolgopolovi. 



Prof. Omori, the well-known Japanese seismo- 

 logist, directs attention in the Tokyo Asahi (January 

 29) to a remarkable coincidence between the frequency 

 of earthquakes as recorded by the seismometer at 

 Tokyo and the amount of rain- and snow-fall in north- 

 western Japan. The relationship is borne out by 

 statistics covering the whole of the Meiji era — forty- 

 five years from 1867. The number of earthquakes 

 recorded annually at Tokyo between 1876 and 1909 is 

 found to be practically in direct ratio to the amount 

 of rain- and snow-fall at Niigata and Akita, on the 

 Japan sea coast. The curves for earthquake fre- 

 quency in Japan show that these disturbances gradu- 

 allv increase in number over a period of years, and 

 then undergo a corresponding decline, and in accord- 

 I ance with a recognised principle destructive earth- 

 : quakes are most likely to occur in a period of mini- 

 i mum earthquake frequency. Such minima occurred 

 in 1883, 1893, and 1903, and very violent earthquakes 

 took place in 1884 and 1894. These periods, it is 

 noted, corresponded with a conspicuous freedom from 

 rain- and snow-storms in the north, while in the years 

 of maximum earthquake frequency at Tokio — i.e. 

 with no violent shocks — the amount of rain and snow 

 falling in the north was much above the average. 

 No reason for this apparent relationship can at pre- 

 sent be assigned. 



A new form of rain-gauge has been constructed by 

 Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, of Holborn Viaduct, 

 under the directions of Dr. H. R. Mill, of the British 

 Rainfall Organisation, and the instrument has been 

 named the " Seathwaite " rain-gauge. It is designed 

 especially for use at out-of-the-way stations, where 

 the gauge is visited at only long intervals. The 

 registrations it affords will be of great value to science 

 in those districts from which at present rainfall 

 records are scarce, owing to the difficulty of frequent 

 access, and it will probably be greatly appreciated by 

 borough councils, waterworks, and various branches 

 of engineering. The feature of especial interest in 

 the construction is that it collects through a 5-in. 

 funnel, the dimension approved by the British Rainfall 

 Organisation, a large quantity of water, the receiver 

 having a capacity of 30 in. of rain. The advantage 

 over the older types of gauge is effected by enlarging 

 the funnel from the 5-in. rim to a cistern of 8-in. 

 I diameter. As a protection against evaporation or 

 frost, the gauge is lined with an insulating material. 

 The measuring apparatus is quite apart from the 

 gauge, and is carried in a small wooden case by the 

 observer. A tentative measurement is first made by 

 means of a graduated cedar rod, which gives approxi- 

 mately the depth of water in the gauge. For the 

 ordinary measurement a dipper, made of copper, 

 holding exactly 5 in. of rain, is used, and for the 

 residue after the several 5 in. an ordinary glass 

 measure is used, graduated up to 1 in. in subdivisions 

 of 0-05 in. The total height of the gauge is 28 in., 



