6-: 



NATURE 



[February 6, 19 13 



away from him, and he sees light from llie sky 

 rofloiltd from the smooth cuticle on their upper sur- 

 face;. Where the roller has travelled in a direction 

 towards the observer the blades of grass are bent over 

 towards him, so that he sees more of their under 

 surface, which, besides bein^- partially shaded, has 

 not so highly reflecting a cuticle as the upper surface, 

 hence these strips appear, in comparison with the 

 first, darker and of a deeper green. 



H. Franklin Parsons. 

 Crovdon, Februarv i. 



With reference to the letters by Messrs. Evershed 

 and Fermor in N.ature of January 30, it may be of 

 interest that an amusing description of the appear- 

 ance of halos around shadows is given by Benvenuto 

 Cellini in his autobiography (book i., chap, cxxviii.). 

 .■\fter being released from a well-deserved term of 

 imprisonment, he noticed a halo round the shadow of 

 I'.is head, and interpreted it as a mark of the especial 

 favour of heaven. A rough translation of the passage 

 is as^ follows: — '"Also I must not leave unmentioned 

 .' ihing, the greatest that has happened to any man, 

 which I tell to the glory of God and of His mysteries, 

 who condescended to make me worthy of it. From 

 that time . . . there remained a splendour (wondrous 

 thing ! ) on mv head, which is evident to all sorts of 

 men to whom I have shown it (who have been very 

 few). This is seen over my shadow in the morning 

 from sunrise until two hours later, and is seen much 

 better when the grass has dew upon it ; it is visible 

 again at sunset. I became aware of it in France at 

 Paris, because the air there is so much more free 

 from mist that one sees it more markedly than in 

 Italy, where mists are more frequent." 



Doubtless the " pochissimi " to whom he showed it 

 knew him too well to confess that they saw the halo 

 around the shadows of their own heads, not his. 



I have often noticed the appearance, especially on 

 short turf, such as that of golf links, when the grass 

 is wet with dew, but it may sometimes be seen on dry 

 grass. L. Doncaster. 



Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, February i. 



Flowers in January. 



Several interesting letters have recently appeared in 

 these columns directing attention to the abnormal 

 number of phanerogams in fiower at the present time 

 in Gloucestershire and other counties. In Somerset 

 we have a similar increase in the number of plants 

 flowering, as compared with the average January, 

 and this month is not the only winter one in which 

 such an increase has occurred. During the latter 

 part of November I noticed more than eighty in- 

 digenous plants in flower, and many of these 1 con- 

 sidered to be survivals due to the retarding influence of 

 the cold and wet summer followed by the cold and 

 frosty nights of October. For the past two years the 

 paucity of flowers in the early part of October has 

 been particularly noticeable, but how different were 

 the causes! In igii the flowering period had been 

 accelerated by the large amount of sunshine, whilst in 

 1912 it was retarded or altogether eliminated owing 

 to the lack of sunshine. In both years November was 

 a happy month for flowers, in the first year the flowers 

 being largely second blooms, in the last year retarded 

 first blooms. 



The acceleration of the life-cycle is also noticeable 

 to a student of the lower forms of vegetation, some 

 mosses, liverworts, and lichens sliowing a similar 

 advance in the time of spore-production. For in- 

 stance, amongst the mosses Eiicalypta vulgaris has 



NO. 2258, VOL. go] 



well-developed capsules, and amongst the liverworts 

 Lophocolea cuspidata is already shedding its spores, 

 these phases of the life-cycle being one to three 

 months earlier than the normal time. No doubt, in 

 the case of these and many other accelerated crypto- 

 gams, the wet weather is as potent a factor in the 

 acceleration of the life-cycle as the mildness of the 

 season. W. Watson. 



Taunton School, Taunton, Somerset. 



The Current Winter. 



A FEW years ago (in 1908) I expressed in your 

 columns two views about the Greenwich winter, 

 which both appear to gain further support from what 

 is now happening. One is that after a very wet 

 Rothesay summer, the Greenwich winter tends to 

 be mild (N.\ture, March 12, igo8, p. 438), the other 

 that after an autumn at Greenwich with all three 

 months dry, the Greenwich winter tends to be mild 

 (N.ature, December 24, 1908, p. 221). We have both 

 those antecedents in 1912 — that is, the Rothesay 

 summer was very wet, and the three months Septem- 

 ber-November at Greenwich were all dry — and the 

 current winter may now be safely characterised as 

 mild. Alex. B. M.acDowall. 



Torquay, January 25. 



MATERIAL FOR THE HISTORY OF MAN 



AND BEAST.1- 

 TT is easy to understand why Weimar was chosen 

 -L as the meeting-place of the German Anthropo- 

 logical Society in 1912. The surrounding country 

 is rich in remains of man of the Pleistocene and 

 prehistoric periods ; the municipal museum con- 

 tains the fauna and flora of celebrated palaeolithic 

 stations such as Taubach, Suessenborn and 

 Ehringsdorf; in this museum, also, can be seen 

 one of the best collections in Europe for illustra- 

 ting the evolution of prehistoric culture. 



The three memoirs reviewed here were prepared 

 to give the members of the Anthropological 

 Society a just conception of the prehistoric treasures 

 preserved at Weimar, but it must not be supposed 

 that they will serve only a passing purpose. Far 

 from it ; each memoir is a valuable contribution 

 to the department of knowledge to which it 

 belongs. Dr. Ludwig Pfeiffer, well known to the 

 medical men of Europe as a physician, writes on 

 the evolution of human handiwork from the 

 Pliocene to the present, employing the collections 

 in the Weimar Museum to illustrate his memoir. 

 Dr. Soergel deals with the greater mammals 

 which became extinct during the Pleistocene 

 period. Dr. Moeller, curator of the Weimar 

 Museum, gives an account of the systematic ex- 

 ploration of one of the most remarkable tumuli 

 ever opened. The subject-matter of all three 

 memoirs is thus illustrated by the contents of the 

 Museum of Weimar; Dr. Soergel's paper covers 

 the Pleistocene epoch ; Dr. Moller's deals with 



1 Fpstfichtirt /iir xliii. .illeemeinen Versammlung tier Deiitschen .Anthro- 

 pologischen Ctsellschafl, Weiiri.ir, 4 bi* 8 August, 1912. Erstes Heft. 

 Die steinzeilliche 'JVchnik und ihre Beziehuneen zur Gegenwart. By Dr. 

 I.udwig Pfeiffer. Pp. vii + 340. Price 13 mark';. 



Zweites Heft. Das Auwterben diluvialer S.iugetiere und die J.igd des 

 diluvialen Mcnschen. By Dr. W. Soergel. Pp. iii + 81 + 3 plates. Price- 

 5 marks. 



Drittes Heft. Der Derfflinger Hiigel hei Kalbsrielh (Grossherzogtum 

 .Sachsen). By Arinin Moller. Pp. ii + 76+4 plates. Price 5.40 marks. 

 (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 19,=.) 



