NATURE 



[November 21, 1912 



B. Kitto, Prof. A. Liversidge, F.R.S., Dr. R. Pearce, 

 Dr. G. F. H. Smith, and Mr. H. H. Thomas. 



We offer our congratulations to The Electrical 

 Rcvie-^' upon the celebration of its fortieth anniversary. 

 Tlie first number of our contemporary was issued on 

 November 15, 1872, and the current issue bears the 

 date exactly forty years later. From the first number 

 The Electrical Review has represented the best in- 

 terests of the electrical profession, and has adapted 

 itself to the great changes which have taken place 

 during the period of its existence. How remarkable 

 have been the developments of electrical science and 

 engineering may be judged from a complimen- 

 tary message which Sir William Preece sends to our 

 contemporary. The prominent electrical industries in 

 1872 were electroplating and the electric telegraph. 

 The Society of Telegraph Engineers (later to become 

 the Institution of Electrical Engineers) was founded 

 in that year, which was also the year of birth of 

 Mr. W. Duddell, F.R.S., who now occupies the presi- 

 dential chair of the institution. "The life of The 

 Electrical Review," says Sir William, "is a history of 

 the life of the electrical industry." The journal has 

 established an important position as the organ of the 

 practical electrician and manufacturer, and we have 

 no doubt it will continue on its successful career for 

 many years to come. 



We notice with regret the anouncement of the death 

 on November 19, in his ninety-seventh year, of Mr. 

 W. B. Tegetmeier, formerly a frequent contributor to 

 Nature, and whose name is well known to many 

 naturalists. We print the following particulars of his 

 career from an obituary notice in Wednesday's 

 Times : — Mr. Tegetmeier was destined for the medical 

 profession, and studied at University College, and 

 though he did not qualify, the knowledge of anatomy 

 and physiology which he acquired was of great ser- 

 vice to him as a practical breeder and writer on 

 poultry, pigeons, and general natural history subjects. 

 He was a recognised authority in all that concerned 

 pigeon racing, and his article on " Utilisation of 

 Homing Pigeons" in N.-vture of February 4, 1892, is 

 of permanent value. In 1855 he was introduced by 

 Yarrell to Darwin, whom he supplied with a good deal 

 of material in the shape of skulls and skeletons, and for 

 whom he carried out many experiments in breeding. 

 Mr. Tegetmeier 's reputation as a breeder and fancier 

 caused him to be chosen as judge at principal shows 

 and secured his appointment as poultry editor of The 

 Field, a position which he held for more than forty 

 years, retiring only in 1907. During this period he 

 also contributed largely to the natural history columns 

 of the paper, and for many years supplied the leading 

 articles for The Queen. He became a Fellow of the 

 Zoological Society in 1S66, and was made an honorary 

 Fellow in 1905 ; his membership of the British 

 Ornithologists' Union dates from 1873, and he was a 

 frequent exhibitor at the meetings of the society and 

 of the British Ornithologists' Club. In 1S54 he pub- 

 lished " Profitable Poultry," and in 1856 edited a serial 

 issue of Wingfield and Johnson's "Poultry Book," 

 which seems to have formed the basis for his own 

 "Poultry Book" in 1867; this was a great advance 



NO. 2247, VOL. go] 



on any previous work on the subject, and a second 

 edition was called for in 1873. Besides some smaller 

 books on poultry, pigeons, and economics, Mr. Teget- 

 meier published " Pheasants " in 1873, and, with 

 Colonel Sutherland, a book on horses and mule- 

 breeding in 1895; he also edited and enlarged Blyth's 

 articles on the cranes, and revised R. B. Morris's 

 "British Game Birds" and F. O. Morris's "Nests 

 and Eggs of British Birds " ; and contributed the 

 article on poultry to the ninth edition of the 

 " EncyclopEedia Britannica." The funeral will be at 

 the Marylebone Cemetery, Finchley, on Saturday, at 

 2 o'clock. 



During the session of the International Congress of 

 Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology, held at 

 Monaco in 1906, a committee was appointed to secure 

 uniformity of craniometric and cephalometric measure- 

 ments. This aspect of the subject having been finally 

 settled, the congress at a subsequent meeting at 

 Geneva in 1912 adopted similar measures for the 

 unification of anthropological measurements of the 

 living subject. A translation of the rules thus adopted 

 has been issued by one of its members, Dr. W. H. 

 Duckworth, from the Anthropological Laboratory at 

 Cambridge. The rules now authoritatively adopted 

 define the position of the subject under examination 

 and the classification of the measurements now ap- 

 proved. To these are added a general caution that 

 no person should undertake work of this kind without 

 undergoing a preliminary course of instruction, and a 

 recommendation that anthropologists should append 

 complete lists of measurements to their publications. 

 The committee is to be congratulated on a scheme 

 which will promote uniformity of measurement both 

 of the living subject and of prehistoric remains dis- 

 covered in the course of excavations. 



The Research Defence Society has issued (through 

 Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd.), at the modest price 

 of 4(i., an excellent pamphlet of fifty-six pages on 

 sleeping sickness, by Dr. F. M. Sandwith. The 

 author, after giving a brief historical account of the 

 disease., describes fully the progress and present posi- 

 tion of our knowledge with regard to the trypano- 

 somiases of animals and human beings in Africa, 

 both in their clinical aspect and from, the point of view 

 of their etiology and causation. The problems that 

 still require solution, and their practical bearing on 

 administrative measures having as their object the 

 prevention and control of these diseases, are set forth 

 concisely and clearly. This little work should be 

 extremely useful to those, especially who, without an 

 expert knowledge of these matters, are confronted 

 with them in the performance of their oflicial duties. 

 At the same time, it furnishes a most striking example 

 of the all-importance of experiments on living animals 

 in order to obtain the knowledge necessarj' to combat 

 effectually the most terrible of all plagues afflicting 

 both men and animals in our African dependencies. 



In addition to interesting matter in the text, a 

 recent number of Country Life contains an ex- 

 quisite coloured plate of a dew-spangled web of the 

 garden spider (Kpcira diadema) and its owner. 



