NATURE 



[September 26, 1912 



lain also reports of the discussions and of the speeches 

 delivered at the inaugural banquet. As might be 

 expected, a very wide range of subjects is covered. 

 On one page we read of the inheritance of fecundity 

 in fowls and on another of proposed temperance legis- 

 lation in Norway. The comparative merits of hectine 

 and saivarsan are set forth by one author, while another 

 discusses the elements which go to make up a success- 

 fid demagogue. History, anthropology, and experi- 

 mental psychology have all been drawn on, yet nothing 

 has been included which is not to some extent or in 

 some manner relevant. 



DuRiNT, this season's excavations of the Maumbury 

 Rings, Dorchester, the removal of much materinl 

 from the terrace thrown up during the Civil Wars 

 (1642-43) has disclosed remains of the Roman period, 

 including Samian and other ware of that age, with a 

 brass coin of Constantine. Search was made for indi- 

 cations of tiers of seats, but without result. It must, 

 however, be remarked that according to Valerius 

 Maximus the Senate forbade the erection of such con- 

 veniences for public use, although Ovid records that 

 it was Romulus who first arranged seats of turf for 

 the spectators. 



The Bureau of American Ethnology announces a 

 forecast of the results of a tour conducted in Argentine 

 territory by Dr. Hrdlicka with the object of studying 

 the remains of early man in that region. In order to 

 ensure the verification of the necessary g'eological data, 

 he was accompanied by Mr. Bailey Willis, of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey. Unfortunately, the results of this 

 investigation are not in harmony with claims previously 

 made by the discoverers of certain "finds" in South 

 America. The conclusion now reached is unfavour- 

 able to the hypothesis of the great antiquity of man 

 in this region, more especially as to the existence of 

 very early predecessors of the Indian in South 

 America ; nor does it sustain the theories of the evolu- 

 tion of man in general, or even that of an American 

 race alone, in the southern continent. The facts 

 collected attest only the existence of the already differ- 

 entiated and relatively modern American Indian. It is 

 not, of course, denied that early man may have existed 

 in South .America, but the position taken is that this 

 hypothesis cannot be accepted without much additional 

 scientific evidence. The importance of this announce- 

 ment in connection with the theories advanced by Prof. 

 Elliot Smith at the recent meeting of the British 

 Association is sufificiently obvious. 



In a paper published in the Archives oj the Roentgen 

 Ray, Dr. Hall-Edwards directs attention to diffusion 

 figures — figures obtained by dropping different coloured 

 dyes in definite amount and regular order on absorbent 

 paper. Very beautiful coloured geometrical figures 

 may thus be produced, four of which are reproduced 

 in a coloured plate, and Dr. Hall-Edwards anticipates 

 that Iheir study may throw some light on the produc- 

 tion of patterns in nature. 



A TECHNICAL engineering journal is a somewhat 

 curious place in which to describe new species of 

 mosquitoes, and yet this has been done by Dr. M. N. 

 NO. 2239, VOL. go] 



Tovar in iiie June issue of the Revista Tecnica deV^ 

 Ministerio de Obras Publicas, published at Caracas, 

 Venezuela, in the course of an article on the biting 

 gnats and flies of the Monagas estate, Maturin, such 

 new species being respectively named Psorophora 

 blaiichardi and Sabcthoides rangeli. In a second 

 illustrated article in the same issue Dr. L. Alvarado 

 describes certain prehistoric objects from Venezuela. 



The fiftieth number of " Scientific Memoirs bv 

 Officers of the Medical and Sanitary Departments of 

 the Government of India " contains a preliminarv 

 report by Captain W. S. Patton upon his investiga- 

 tions into the etiology of Oriental sore in Cambay. 

 The author concludes that the house-flies (Musca spp.) 

 play no part whatever in the transmission of the 

 disease in Cambay. Although he has failed up to the 

 present to transmit the parasite bv the bed-bug, he 

 has "no doubt whatever that the bug Cimex rotund- 

 atus is the only insect transmitter of the disease " in 

 Cambay, on the ground that the parasite only passes 

 into its flagellate stage in the bug below a certain 

 temperature, and that " this observation exactly coin- 

 sides with the geographical distribution of the disease 

 in India." The problem of the transmission of this 

 disease is therefore still without its final solution. 



The importation of tuberculosis in frozen meat 

 forms the subject of a short note bv Prof. Guide 

 Bordoni-Uffreduzi in the Rendiconti del R. Istituto 

 lombardo, xlv., 12. According to this writer something 

 like a scare has occurred in Italy, and exaggerated 

 statements have been circulated to the effect that 90 

 per cent, of the cattle in the Argentine Republic, 

 whence the beef is obtained, are tuberculous. Prof. 

 Uffreduzi, on the other hand, finds the Argentine 

 cattle to be far less affected by tuberculosis than those 

 bred in Italy ; further, he refers to the circumstances 

 (i) that the bacillus occurs rarely in the muscular 

 parts and that only in animals obviously unfit for 

 food ; (2) that cooking destroys the bacillus ; (3) that 

 adults are not very liable to infection from tuberculosis 

 introduced in the form of food. Hence it is concluded 

 that the danger is more imaginary than real, and is 

 not based on circumstantial evidence. 



The need of legislative protection for tlie Califor- 

 nian so-called valley quail {Lophortyx californica) 

 forms the subject of an article by Mr. H. C. Bryant 

 in the July number of The Condor. In some districts 

 these birds show a great diminution in number, 

 although in certain areas there is an increase. The 

 provision of sufficient food and proper covert is stated 

 to be necessary. 



The Egyptian Gazette of August i contains a list 

 of twenty-four species of Sudani mammals and ten 

 of birds living examples of which have been recently 

 received at the Government Zoological Gardens at 

 Giza. The most interesting of these is a white-eared 

 kob antelope {Cobus leucotis), from the swamps of 

 the White Nile, believed to be the first example of 

 its kind that has ever left the Sudan alive. 



A NEW species of the minute annelids of the genus 



Achaeta — so called from the absence of bristles — from 



' Armagh is described by the Rev. H. Friend in the 



