544 



NATURE 



[November 21, 1912 



report on the first eighteen months' work of the ethno- 

 graphical department of the Geological Survey of 

 Canada, which, it will be remembered, was a direct 

 outcome of the visit of this Association to Winnipeg in 

 1909, and Dr. Hrdlicka, in a letter from Siberia 

 addressed to the President, announced that he had 

 discovered in north-eastern Asia living representatives 

 of the ancient race which gave North America its 

 Indians. 



BIRD NOTES. 



1 N an article on the food of nestling birds published 

 -'- in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture for 

 September, 1912, Mr. W. E. CoUinge commences by 

 referring to the fact that in the early stages of life 

 birds daily consume more than their own weight of 

 food. It is also mentioned that since nearly all birds 

 except pigeons feed their young upon an animal diet, 

 and that the nesting season occurs when insects are 

 most abundant, the value of birds as insect-destroyers 

 is self-apparent. 



In Witherby's British Birds for October an instance 

 of one cuckoo laying in the nest of a marsh-warbler 

 and of a second in that of a rock-pipit are recorded. 

 Only about five instances of a similar event have 

 been previously recorded in the case of each species. 



To The Zoologist for October Mr. Harvie Brown 

 contributes the first part of an article on the past 

 and present distribution of the fulmar petrel on both 

 sides of the Atlantic, and its recent spread in northern 

 Britain. 



For about a century naturalists were content with 

 the name Strix flamniea for the barn-owl. The late 

 Prof. Newton proposed to replace the generic name 

 by Aluco, but this usage was recently stated by Mr. 

 G. M. Mathews to be invalid. In No. 4 of The 

 Austral Avian Record, after referring to a couple 

 of alternative generic designations, the same writer 

 brings forward the name Flamniea vulgaris as one 

 to which no objection can be taken. It seems a pity 

 to try to displace a name which has become almost a 

 household word. This replacement of long-accepted 

 namo^ of British birds by others of earlier date forms 

 the subject of an editorial article in the September 

 number of The Scottish Naturalist, where it is re- 

 mnrked that "though our sympathies are strongly in 

 favour of the British Association's rules, yet we are 

 willing to view the present situation in a liberal spirit. 

 There must, however, be concessions, and we regard 

 it as essential that a number of time-honoured names 

 must be conserved." 



In the above-mentioned issue of The Scottish 

 Naturalist, Mr. Eagle Clarke describes, with an illus- 

 tration, a male hybrid between an eider drake and a 

 wild duck, which was shot early in 1912 in the Ork- 

 neys. What appears to have been a fellow-hybrid was 

 seen on the Pentland Skerries in the following May. 

 No other instance of a similar hybrid appears to be 

 on record. 



We are indebted to Mr. W. Junk, of Berlin, for a 

 con" of a sale catalogue of ornithological literature. 



R. L. 



REPORT OF THE METEOROLOGICAL 

 COMMITTEE. 



'T*HE report of the Meteorological Committee for 

 *• the year ended March 31, 1912, shows that 

 several important matters were dealt with during that 

 period, e.g. the reconsideration of the relations with 

 the Post Office as regards weather telegraphy, the in- 

 corporation in the official network of stations which 



NO. 2247, VOL. 90] 



had previously sent their observations to the Royal 

 Meteorological Society, the publication of results of 

 various classes of observations, and the revision of 

 rules under which the increasing number of tele- 

 graphic reports from health resorts can be accepted 

 for communication to the Press. 



The present capabilities of international and wire- 

 less weather telegraphy are well illustrated by the 

 frontispiece synoptic chart for April i of the distribu- 

 tion of weather phenomena over a large part of the 

 northern hemisphere compiled from data received 

 within ten days of the date of the chart. One great 

 advantage has been conceded by the Post Office at the 

 request of H.M. Treasury in allowing priority of trans- 

 mission to certain classes of meteorological telegrams 

 and to storm warnings ; but very much still remains 

 to be effected in the way of facilitating the telegraphic 

 distribution of forecasts to all parts of the United 

 Kingdom by some financial arrangement by which 

 the Meteorological Office would be placed on a better 

 footing in carrying out its important public work than 

 that accorded to a "private person." 



The percentage of complete success and the sum of 

 successes (complete and partial) of the 8h. 30m. p.m. 

 forecasts for the year 191 1 were both higher than in 

 any year since 1879, when the present service of daily 

 forecasts was inaugurated. The " further outlook " 

 frequently appended to the forecasts for twenty- 

 four hours has also been remarkably successful. 

 Want of space precludes special mention here of the 

 useful work carried on in other departments of the 

 oflfice. 



rjl£ METALS IN ANTIQUITY. 



THE Huxley memorial lecture was given by Prof. 

 W. Gowland, F.R.S., on Tuesday, November 

 19, at the Royal .'Anthropological Institute, the subject 

 being "The Metals in Antiquity." .\fter pointing out 

 the sources whence our knowledge of the use of 

 metals by man in prehistoric and protohistoric times 

 was derived, the lecturer gave an account of the primi- 

 tive metallurgy of copper, tin, gold, lead, silver, and 

 iron, the conditions under which they were extracted 

 from their ores, and the localities in which they were 

 first obtained. 



The origin of the smelting furnace was traced to 

 the camp fire, in which, if by chance a lump of ore 

 either of copper carbonate, tin-stone, or brown iron 

 ore or haematite, had been one of the ring of stones 

 surrounding the camp or domestic fire and had acci- 

 dentally become embedded in its embers, it would 

 undoubtedly be reduced to metal. 



The metals which occur — native copper, gold, and 

 iron — were undoubtedly the first to be known to man 

 in the localities in which they occurred, but until the 

 art of smelting metals had been invented, the dis- 

 covery and use of the native metals was insufficient 

 to affect to any great extent the old Stone age culture. 



Gold, although doubtless the first metal to be known 

 in many localities owing to its wide distribution in 

 the sands of rivers, was useless for any practical 

 purpose. 



Copper, however, or an alloy of the metal with tin, 

 antimony, or arsenic, was extracted from ores at a 

 verv remote period, and it or its alloys was the first 

 to be applied to practical use. In fact, the first metal 

 to be obtained by primitive man by smelting copper 

 ores depended on their composition, and in the locali- 

 ties where tin did not occur it was a more or less 

 impure copper. 



The extraction of gold from its ores on a large scale 

 in the earliest times was attributed to the Sudan 



