7o8 



NATURE 



[February 27, 1913 



ni-csiclcnt, the Rev. J. C. Harris; (3) the satisfactory 

 iTorts of the publicity and tickets committees to 

 advertise the exhibition beforehand in the district. 



LORB CARNARVON and I\Ir. C. L. Woolley have 

 recently been e.^cavating Beacon Hill, in Hampshire, 

 and the results are communicated by the latter to 

 the January issue of llan. The fine contour-fort sup- 

 plied examples of two types of construction, large 

 circles, possibly pens surrounded by wattle enclosures, 

 and hut dwellings sunk down to the chalk. The 

 former contained a fragment of black pottery of the 

 Bronze age. A mile or so from Beacon Hill is the 

 ijroup of tumuli known as the "Seven Barrows." 

 In one of these, which had not previously been dis- 

 turbed, were found several burnt flints, which in the 

 absence of human bones suggest disposal of the dead 

 bv cremation, as was usual in southern England. 

 The form of the barrow is its most interesting 

 feature, the open stone ring recalling the external 

 structure of the long barrows, and suggesting that 

 this constitutes an intermediate link between the long 

 and round types of barrow. 



To the January number of the New York Zoological 

 Society's Bulletin Prof. H. F. Osborn communicates 

 an illustrated account of the remarkably fine series 

 of wild horses, asses, and zebras at present living in 

 the menagerie, where a new house has recently been 

 built for their reception. The paper is accompanied 

 by a couple of maps showing the distribution of the 

 various species and races. 



According to an article by Mr. E. R. Waite in the 

 fourth number of Records of the Canterbury (N.Z.) 

 Museum, that institution has acquired, at a cost of 

 400;., the skeleton of a Sibbald's rorqual, prepared 

 from an individual stranded near Okarito, on the 

 west coast of the south island. In the flesh this 

 monster measured 87 ft. in length. The museum has 

 also added to its collection a cast and the skeleton of 

 a stranded specimen of Layard's beaked whale. 



We have received from Mr. J. A. Hutton, of Wood- 

 lands, Alderley Edge, a table showing the annual 

 number of salmon taken in the Wye from 1905 to 

 ic)].>, with nets and with rods, and also the number 

 of tons of "fish" taken, year by year, from 1890 to 

 1912. In the first table the "record" occurred in 

 1912, when the total number of salmon was 6205, with 

 a collective weight of 91,068^ lb., while in the second 

 the maximum catch, by Miller's netting, was 60J tons. 



In the February issue of British Birds, the editor 

 records that a swallow ringed in Staffordshire in 

 May, 191 1, was taken near Utrecht, Natal, on Decem- 

 ber 23, 1912. After commenting on the length of the 

 journey made by this bird, Mr. Witherby expresses 

 the opinion that the evidence at present available 

 docs not support the view that British swallows 

 normally travel southwards by the East African route, 

 as might be inferred to be the case from the new 

 record. 



Some months ago we recorded the arrival at Mr. 

 Carl Hagenbeck's establishment of five specimens of 

 the pigmy West African hippopolamiis, thc^e, which 



NO. 2261, VOL. go] 



were sold to Berlin and New York, being the first 

 living e.xamples of their kind to reach Europe. As 

 announced in Tlie Times of February 7, an immature 

 living specimen has been received at the Zoological 

 Gardens in Regent's Park. A descriptive illustrated 

 account of the animal, which has been conditionally 

 purchased by the society, is given by Mr. Pocock in 

 The Field of February 15. 



That the mysterious humming in the air heard at 

 times in fine summer weather in this country is due 

 (as recorded in Nature in November last) to chiro- 

 nomid fiies, is fully endorsed in a note communicated 

 to the February number of The Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine by Dr. E. E. Green. Writing 

 from Ceylon, Dr. Green states that when bicycling 

 by the border of a lake he heard a loud noise, which 

 he had first attributed to machinery in motion, but 

 that soon after he ran into a dense fog of minute 

 flies, from which the sound proceeds. These flies, 

 which sometimes swarm into the houses of the resi- 

 dents in such numbers that they may be swept up in 

 the morning by the bushel, are, it seems, a species of 

 Chironomus. Dr. Green also endorses the opinion 

 that the sound is produced by a true stridulating 

 action. 



Prof. A. H. Trow has during the last six years 

 made a study of the inheritance of certain characters 

 in the common groundsel {Senecio vulgaris), and has 

 published some of his results in The Journal of Gene- 

 tics, vol. ii.. No. 3. He finds that this is an aggre- 

 gate species which includes many segregate or elemen- 

 tary species, of which he has cultivated twelve; these 

 were maintained pure and true to type for at least 

 several generations. Six of them have been studied 

 in detail, and are distinguished by more or less de- 

 scriptive names ; the others are for tlie present simply 

 designated with their place of origin, all except one 

 being British. The investigation has included the 

 critical examination of about 10,000 groundsel plants ; 

 the most exacting work, consisting of long and 

 tedious series of measurements of the vegetative 

 organs, will form the basis of a further paper by 

 the author. 



Under the title, "World Weather Bureau 

 Favoured," The Pittsburg Post (Pa.) of January 27 

 contains the report of a statement by Mr. H. H. 

 Clayton, for many years meteorologist at the late 

 Prof. Rotch's observatory at Blue Hill (Mass.), with 

 reference to the importance of the establishment of 

 a central international weather bureau, where the 

 accumulating observations from all parts of the world 

 could be discussed. The idea of such an institution 

 was mooted many years ago, and Mr. Clayton thinks 

 its want is growing greater ; he remarks : " It is ever 

 becoming more apparent that if we are to leap the 

 bounds of day-to-day forecasts for the seasons we 

 must collect observations and study the meteorology 

 of the world as a whole." And with reference to 

 crops and their connection with droughts and rain- 

 fall he points out that fabulous sums are at stake. 

 Bearing upon the latter subject we may also refer 

 to an interesting lecture, " Meteorology and .Agricul- 



