642 



NATURE 



[August 21, igi; 



cannot, in all probability, withstand the high tem- 

 perature to which the biscuits are subjected in baking, 

 the eggs must be laid by the moths during the period 

 when the biscuits are being cooled before tinning. 

 Two species of moths, Ephestia kuehniella and 

 Corcvra cephalonica, both imported into this country, 

 are the chief causes of the damage ; and as a conse- 

 quence of the ravages of the larvae, the contents of 

 many of the tins are reduced to uneatable rubbish. 



The death is announced, as the result of an acci- 

 dent, of Prof. C. Bourlet, professor of mechanics at 

 the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris. 



The Permanent International Eugenics Committee 

 has accepted the invitation of Dr. C. B. Davenport, 

 of Cold Spring Harbour, Long Island, to hold the 

 International Eugenics Congress in the United States 

 next year, probably in the month of September. 



Mr. C. Carus-Wilson has recently presented to the 

 Royal Albert Memorial, Exeter, the large specimen of 

 a granite geode exhibited by him at more than one 

 Royal Society soiree, and awarded the bronze medal 

 of the Franco-British Exhibition. The specimen is a 

 fine mass of ■ granite in which the mineral consti- 

 tuents have crystallised out around the walls of a 

 large cavity. 



It speaks well for a general appreciation of the scien- 

 tific value attaching to Arctic and Antarctic research 

 that the actual conquest of both poles has not been fol- 

 lowed by any diminution of exploring activity. News 

 is to hand of the success of Captain Koch's Danish 

 expedition for the crossing of Greenland. Captain 

 Koch, who accompanied Mylius Erichsen on the 

 journey which ended with that brilliant explorer's 

 death, started in June, 1912, with the object of visiting 

 Queen Louise Land. The party failed to carry this 

 out owing to an accident which kept Captain Koch 

 a prisoner for three months, after which winter was 

 passed on the inland ice of Greenland. The expedi- 

 tion, starting on April 20 of this year from near the 

 east coast, reached Proeven, near Upernivik, in the 

 middle of July, after a march of 750 miles towards 

 the close of which the party was within a few hours 

 of starvation. A more prolonged journey is planned 

 by Captain Amundsen, the first explorer to reach the 

 south pole, who is shortly to board the Fram at 

 Colon, when that famous vessel will sustain the 

 honour of the first passage through the Panama 

 Canal. She will then convey Amundsen to the Arctic, 

 where he hopes to carry out a drift (such as Nansen 

 attempted) across the polar area, being prepared' to 

 spend six years over the task, a period which should 

 afford him almost unprecedented opportunity for scien- 

 tific investigations. 



In the issue of Man for August Mr. T. A. Joyce 

 describes the representation of the clan ancestor in 

 animal form on ancient pottery from the Peruvian 

 coast. The result of the investigation is to emphasise 

 the importance of the clan ancestor in Peruvian cults, 

 to illustrate the custom of dancing in dresses simulat- 

 ing animals, these dresses being almost the only kind 

 of personal property under the communistic system 

 of the Incas, and to show the wide distribution of the 

 centipede as a huaca or totem in the Nasca Valley. 

 NO. 2286, VOL. 91] 



Perhaps the most important paper in the excellent 

 issue of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological 

 Institute for January-June is the report by Mr. A. R. 

 Brown, Wilkin student in ethnology, Cambridge, on 

 three tribes in Western Australia — the Kariera, Nga- 

 luma, and Mardudhunera. The paper describes in 

 detail the complicated tribal organisation, totemism, 

 rites of initiation, sociology, and religious beliefs of 

 a people now rapidly disappearing. A good series 

 of outline maps and a bibliography of the scanty 

 published literature add to the value of this paper. 



In the issue of L'Anthropologie for January- 

 Februarv, 1913, Prof. H. Breuil and H. Obermaier 

 publish a review of the work done in examining the 

 cave paintings in Spain during 1912. A number of 

 curious illustrations of men and animals is provided. 

 The visit of M. Breuil and Prof. Sollas to Bacon Hole, 

 near Swansea, is described. It is possible that the 

 red bands observed on the cave walls may be the 

 work of Palaeolithic man, or they may belong to some 

 later period ; but there is no reason for trusting the 

 local gossip which ascribes them to quite modern 

 times. 



In 1906 Mr. R. F. Cummings supplied the Field 

 Museum at Chicago with funds for an ethnological 

 expedition to the Philippine Islands. The first part 

 of the results of the investigations by Mr. F. C. Cole 

 has now been issued in vol. i., No. I, of the Museum's 

 Anthropological Series. It is devoted to a study, his- 

 torical and ethnographical, of the introduction of 

 Chinese pottery into the islands. This pottery was 

 chiefly intended for use by some of the Filipinos as 

 burial jars. These in time acquired a high value, and 

 were believed to possess supernatural properties. 

 Among some tribes the bride-price is paid wholly or 

 partlv in jars. Porcelain plates are used by female 

 mediums in summoning spirits, and such plates are 

 so highly valued that they are never sold during the 

 lifetime of the medium, and after her death only to 

 her successors in office. The medium falls into an 

 ecstatical state, chants songs invoking the spirits, and 

 holding the plate on the finger-tips of her left hand, 

 she strikes it with a string of seashells or a piece of 

 lead, in order that the bell-like sound may attract 

 the attention of the spirits. Suddenly a spirit possesses 

 her, and she announces its wishes to the audience. 

 This elaborate and well-illustrated monograph will 

 interest anthropologists and collectors of Oriental 

 porcelain. 



A profusely illustrated article by Mr. George Shiras 

 on automatic flashlight photography of wild animals 

 by night forms the leading feature of the July number 

 of The National Geographic Magazine. In fixing 

 self-acting cameras in the haunts of nocturnal mam- 

 mals, the author states that he has frequently used the 

 same baits and scents as those employed by the 

 trapper, and he adds that in many instances animals, 

 after a brief experience, take little or no notice of the 

 flashlight, which they perhaps regard as a form of 

 lightning. 



Mi;. M. C. Tancjcary has published, as article 9 of 

 vol. ix. of the Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory 



