April 17, 19 13] 



NATURE 



169 



series, and the collection will be of interest to artists 

 and students of the relig-ions of the East. 



We recently deplored the lack of encouragement 

 and support received by the Royal Anthopological 

 Institute of Great Britain and Ireland from the State 

 and the public of this country. When we turn to 

 America the case is very different. From the forty- 

 sixth report of the Peabody Museum of American 

 Archaeology and Ethnology, connected with the Har- 

 vard University, we learn that steps are being taken 

 to complete the museum buildings according to the 

 original plans prepared fifty-three years ago by Louis 

 Agassiz. The plans provide for the addition of five 

 exhibition halls, each ioo by 60 ft., a stack-room for 

 the library, several workrooms and offices, a photo- 

 graphic room, a lift, and other conveniences. These 

 important extensions are needed to supply accom- 

 modation for the vast collections of material which 

 are being collected by parties of explorers at work in 

 all parts of the country, under the guidance of the 

 museum authorities, and the large donations presented 

 to the institution by members of the public. 



In Man for April Mr. T. C. Hodson discusses the 

 question of seasonal marriages in India. During last 

 February the Kadva Kanbis of Gujarat celebrated, 

 after an interval of some ten years, the weddings of 

 all the marriageable youths and girls in the tribe. 

 A similar custom prevails among a group of the 

 Madras Chettis, and among some Karens in Burma 

 it is only when an official visits their country and 

 orders a wedding to take place that the ceremony is 

 performed. This custom may be an extension of the 

 human pairing season which has been discussed bv 

 Prof. Westermarck. At present, among the Kanbis, 

 it seems to be the result of a system of hypergamy 

 — the desire to marry a girl in a grade higher than 

 her own — which results in a scarcity of bridegrooms 

 and increase of the bridegroom price. But it may 

 have originated in some belief connected with astro- 

 logy, or some tribal custom the cause of which is 

 now obscure. 



The Journal of Genetics for February (vol. ii., No. 4) 

 contains three papers, two of which are more 

 of the nature of general reviews and discussions than 

 records of original observation. Dr. A. H. Trow dis- 

 cusses " Forms of Reduplication " — the phenomena 

 more generally known as gametic coupling and repul- 

 sion. He points out that if there are factors A, B, 

 C, in which there is coupling between A and B and 

 between A and C, then there will of necessity be 

 secondary coupling between B and C. He works out 

 formulae for the "secondary reduplication" and com- 

 pares them with actual cases already recorded. Mr. 

 Clifford Dobell reviews the present knowledge of 

 mutation in bacteria, devoting the greater part of his 

 paper to physiological mutations, i.e. inherited 

 changes in the power of producing ferments or pig- 

 ments. He shows that such mutations have been 

 frequently described, that many of them are appar- 

 ently spontaneous, but that in some cases at least they 

 are due to change of environment, and that in this 

 case they are not rarely adaptive. Mr. K. Toyama 

 NO. 2268, VOL. 91] 



gives 'a detailed account of the inheritance of egg- 

 characters in the silkworm (Bonibvx mori). There 

 are a number of definite characters (shape, colour, 

 &c.) in various breeds, and his most important result 

 is that the majority of these characters, even when 

 they depend upon the embryo and not upon the shell, 

 are determined by the constitution of the female 

 parent, and not by that of the embryo. For example, 

 a female of' a' breed having eggs with the recessive 

 character, mated with a male of a breed having eggs 

 with the dominant character, produces eggs of the 

 recessive character, but the females reared from these 

 eggs, however mated, lay eggs with the dominant 

 character. 



"Do.MiN.iMV in Nature" is the title of the presiden- 

 tial address (of which we have been favoured with a 

 copy) delivered by Mr. J. W. Taylor at the annual 

 meeting of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, held on 

 December 14, 1912. The author holds the view that 

 western and central Europe was the birthplace, or 

 dispersal centre, of nearly all groups of animals. 



Ix an account of the manner in which bees collect 

 pollen, published as Bulletin No. 121 of the Entomo- 

 logical Bureau of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

 the author. Dr. D. B. Casteel, states that the articles 

 published by Mr. F. W. L. Sladen in 191 1, 1912 (one 

 of which appeared in our own columns, February 29, 

 1912, p. 586), afforded the first true explanation of the 

 function, and that his own observations have confirmed 

 the accuracy of Mr. Sladen's work. " Pollen," he 

 writes, "may be collected by the worker upon its 

 mouth-parts, upon the brushes of its legs, and upon 

 the hairy surface of its body. When the bee collects 

 from small flowers, or when the supply is not 

 abundant, the mouth-parts are chiefly instrumental in 

 obtaining the pollen. The specialised leg-brushes of 

 the worker are used to assemble the pollen, collecting 

 it from the body-parts, to which it first adheres, and 

 transporting it to the pollen-baskets, or corbiculas, of 

 the hind-legs. In this manipulation the fore-legs 

 gather pollen from the mouth-parts and head ; the 

 middle-legs from the fore-legs and from the thorax; 

 the hind-legs from the middle-legs and from the 

 abdomen. ... A little pollen is loaded directly from 

 the middle-legs into the baskets when these legs are 

 used to put down the pollen-masses." 



In the March number of The American Naturalist 

 Prof. Kellogg, of Stanford University, reviews the 

 results of his laborious investigations into the geo- 

 graphical and "host" distribution of the external 

 parasitic insects commonly known as bird-lice (Mallo- 

 phaga). Despite their popular name, nearlv 100 out 

 of the 1500 known species are parasitic on mammals, 

 although none of those infesting mammals visits 

 birds, or vice versd. Indeed, with a few exceptions 

 in a couple of genera, the mammal-infesting species 

 belong to families distinct from those parasitic on 

 birds ; the members of the former group, in adaptation 

 to a life spent among fur instead of feathers, having 

 discarded one of the two terminal claws of the limbs. 

 After referring to the fact that the various species of 

 these parasites are to a great extent restricted to 



