170 



NATURE 



[October 10, 19 12 



as a fitting memorial to a man who succeeded, where 

 many others had failed, in laying open the secrets of 

 the Pacific Ocean, thanks mainly to inborn deter- 

 mination and courage. Cook was not a man of many 

 or varied attainments. He was born of lowly parents, 

 and from his earliest years his whole energy was 

 directed towards perfecting himself in the work of 

 his calling on the sea. The same energy and sted- 

 fastness of purpose, joined to his temperance and his 

 mastery of every detail of his profession, enabled him 

 to carry through the journeys which elucidated the 

 questions as to the amount and e.\.tent of the lands 

 in the Southern Ocean, the answer to which had 

 eluded so many less competent and persevering ex- 

 plorers. It is on his work as a voyager and dis- 

 coverer that Cook's chief claim to fame is based, but 

 the fact that he was the first to take scientific pre- 

 ventive measures against scurvy, the disease which 

 has wrecked the hopes of so many explorers, earned 

 him the gratitude of voyagers. It was for his splendid 

 work in this direction that he was unanimously elected 

 a fellow of the Royal Society after his return from 

 his second voyage in 1775. On this he had kept the 

 sea for three years, and but one of his crew of 118 men 

 was lost. 



In the report of the Rhodesia Museum — which is 

 now under the joint control of the Bulawayo muni- 

 cipality and the Rhodesia Scientific Association — 

 for 191 1, it is stated that the building opened by 

 H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught in 1910 is alreadv 

 well-nigh filled, and that proposals for enlargement 

 are already under consideration. There is the usual 

 complaint as to the insufficiency of funds, even for 

 ordinary purposes. 



The hundredth volume of the Zeitschrift fiir wissen- 

 schaftliche Zoologie was completed with the part pub- 

 lished on June 25 last, and already three parts of the 

 hundred and first volume have appeared since that 

 date. The degree of elaboration to which it is pos- 

 sible to bring the study of invertebrate anatomy is 

 well illustrated in recent volumes of this valuable 

 series. The last part issued (vol. ci., part 3) contains 

 the first continuation of the fifth part of Dr. Friedrich 

 Voss's memoir on the thorax of the domestic cricket, 

 and this continuation alone contains no fewer than 

 134 pages. Truly the accumulation of detailed in- 

 formation with regard to the animal kingdom goes 

 on at a great rate, especially in Germany. 



Canada, it appears from the report of the Com- 

 missioner of Dominion Parks for igii, published by 

 the Government Printing Bureau at Ottawa, now 

 possesses seven public parks in which native animals 

 are preserved. Some of these, which contain hotels 

 and medicinal baths, are to a great extent self-support- 

 ing, and all are stated to be making rapid and satis- 

 factory progress. In the Rocky Mountain Park at 

 Banff, where the use of firearms, save in excep- 

 tional circumstances, is prohibited, the animals are 

 becoming increasingly tame, deer visiting the lawns 

 of the residences, and bighorn sheep wintering within 

 half a mile of the Pacific Railway. The bison 

 (buffalo) in the Buffalo Park at Wainvvright are in a 

 NO. 2241, VOL. 90] 



thriving condition, and promise a large natural in- 

 crease in the future. 



The last report of the Madras Museum records steady 

 progress in the arrangement of this important collec- 

 tion and in the acquisition of new specimens. The 

 great series of bronze images has been re-classified, 

 and a considerable number of fresh copper plates has 

 been added. The numismatic department has received 

 large additions in the shape of pagodas, fanams, and 

 six Venetian sequins. Among the accessions to the 

 natural history collections may be mentioned the first 

 Indian specimen of Swinhoe's snipe {GaUinago 

 megala), shot recently in the Chingleput district, a 

 bird which breeds in Eastern Siberia and Northern 

 China, and migrates in the cold season to Southern 

 China and the Malay Peninsula, the few existing 

 specimens having been procured from the Malay 

 Peninsula, Burma, and .\ssam. 



In the August number of The National Geographic 

 Magazine, Mr. Carl E. Akeley narrates, with a great 

 wealth of photographic illustration, his experiences 

 during an expedition to East Africa for the purpose 

 of obtaining a series of elephants to form a group 

 in the American Museum of Natural History. The 

 main note of the article is the growing scarcity of 

 old bulls with tusks of more than 50 lb. in weight. 

 The best specimen obtained was a young bull stand- 

 ing II ft. 3 in. at the shoulder, with tusks weighing 

 i respectively 100 and 102 lb. These tusks were com- 

 paratively young ivory, and it is estimated that if the 

 animal had been suffered to live another fifty years 

 it would have developed tusks of something like 

 200 lb. weight, such tusks being by no means 

 abnormal, but merely the ordinary development of 

 mature bulls of the Uganda race. When, however, 

 a bull grows tusks of 50 lb. weight, which he does in 

 about twenty-five years, he becomes the target of ever}' 

 hunter in the country, and it is consequently only 

 a few individuals, wliich obtain protection by living 

 amid large herds of cows or in dense forests, that can 

 attain full maturity. Large tusks must therefore be- 

 come very rare in the near future, .'\ttention is also 

 directed to the damage to forests and cultivation due 

 to herds of elephants from which tuskers have been 

 killed off, damage which may lead to reprisals fron? 

 proprietors as the country becomes opened up. 



The forty-third annual report of the American 

 Museum of Natural History for the year igii begins 

 by recording that the trustees have resolved to com- 

 plete the building of the southern half of the museum 

 in time for the celebration of the jubilee in 1919- 

 Special halls will thus be provided for whales, fishes, 

 oceanography, and geography, while numerous re- 

 arrangements for the more adequate display of the 

 collections will be possible. With characteristic energy, 

 and with the aid of private benefactions, the museum 

 employed no fewer than forty-four parties for the col- 

 lection of specimens in various parts of the world. It 

 is, therefore, making haste to rival in opportunities 

 for natural history research the older foundations, 

 the growth of which has been more gradual. .Among 

 notable accessions thus obtained during 191 1 may be 



