Jtine 3, 1880] 



NA TURE 



97 



plain, and simple as possible, conforming as nearly as may be to 

 the popular terms in use, and above all that there should be nothing 

 to mislead an ignorant person. Now I would ask what idea is 

 conveyed to an ordinary unscientific mind by the term "snow- 

 sheet " ? The name is perfectly correct if read in the light of M. 

 Poey's explanation ; but to an average lighthouse-keeper or 

 coastguard it would certainly convey the idea of a so-called 

 "pallio cumulus," n"«(/;' /<7 discharge snmc', and would be used 

 accordingly. 



" Wind cloud " appears also distinctly misleading. To most 

 minds it would, I believe, imply a cirrus or cirro-cumulus, as 

 being the harbinger of wind. We have tivo excellent names in 

 common use — "scud" and "rack," — either of which would 

 serve. 



" Stratified cloud" is a very vague term, applicable to many 

 v.arieties besides "cirro-stratus."' 



Objections might also fairly be raised against "Belt cloud," 

 as compared with the familiar " Noah's ark " which Poey him- 

 self quotes elsewhere, and to the " Globular tempestuous cloud," 

 as a very cumbrous term, although a correct one. 



It is to be hoped that all the=e details will be fully discussed 

 before M. Poey's' sugges;ions are either admitted into general 

 use, or, on the other hand, too readily rejected. E. H. 



Walthamstow, Essex 



Note. — The references are to Howard's Essay on the Modi- 

 fications of Clouds, third edition, Churchill, 1865, and to 

 Poey's Comment on observe les Nuages, Paris, 1879. 



"Chipped Arrow heads " 



In a number of Nature (vol. xx. p. 483) which only lately 

 reached us here I read an interesting account of Mr. Cushing's 

 researches into the manufacture of flint weapons as practised by 

 aboriginal tribes ; and as I have had many opportunities of 

 observing the method by which the Fuegians of Magellan's 

 Straits fasliion their glass arrow-heads, a few words on the matter 

 may not be without interest to some of your readers. 



One of the indications of the increase of traffic through these 

 Straits which has of late years taken place is that empty bottles 

 are now to be found about the shores of those anchorages w-hich 

 are used by passing vessels as stopping-places for the night ; and 

 bottle-glass is consequently the material used by the Fuegians of 

 the present day, to the exclusion of obsidian, quartz, or flint. 

 The following is the process : — A fragment somewhat approach- 

 ing to the shape of the intended arrow-head is grasped firmly in 

 the left hand, while in the right hand is held an old iron nail 

 stuck into a short wooden handle. The fingers of the closed 

 right hand are turned upwards, and the point of the nail is 

 directed towards the operator's breast. Pie then presses \\ith 

 great force the blunt point of the nail obliquely against the edge 

 of the piece of glass, when a thin scale flies off towards him. 

 One side of the edge having been bevelled in this way, the glass is 

 turned round, and the opposite edge flaked off in a similar 

 manner. Working the edges alternately in this way, the glass 

 is readily brought to the required shape. The fashioning of the 

 point is the most difficult part of the process, the formation of 

 the barbs being easily effected. 



I have seen a native thus make a large arrow-head out of a 

 piece of broken pickle liottle in about half an hour. The glass 

 is never struck, but is fashioned entirely by pressure. After a 

 little practice I succeeded in making fair imitations. 



I find, moreover, that the iron tool above mentioned can be 

 dispensed with, and that the flaking may be effected by pressing 

 with an angular flint or %vith a piece of bone, \^ hich were probably 

 the methods used by the Fuegians before they possessed any iron 

 implements. R. W. Coppinger 



H.M. Surveying Ship Alert, Swallow Bay, Straits of 

 Magellan, March 21 



V r Cup and Ring Stones 



In reply to Mr. Middleton's letter I beg to fay that the Ilkley 

 cup and ring stones have been carefully described and illustrated 

 in a paper read by me before the Brit. Archa;olog. Assoc, (see 

 yournal B. A. A. for 1S79, p. 93). 



Further information will be found in Sir Jas. Simpson's work 

 on the subject, which forms the appendix to vol. vi. of the Proc. 



1 I am not aware whether Gcschichtetc IVolkctt is an accepted term in 

 Germany. In the Bernese Oberland a very expressive name is used, 

 Gestrei/ie Wotken, only l')o well known to mountaineers. 



Soc. Ant. Scot., and in Prof. Boyd Dawkins' "Early Man," 

 P- 338- 



In a large number of instances cup and ring marks have been 

 found on the stones of cists, stone circles, and menhirs. It 

 would therefore appear that they are connected with sepulchral 

 rites. Cup marks are found in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, 

 Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, Switzer- 

 land, Sweden, and India (see Rivett Carnac's papers m Journal 

 of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 187S-9). I should be glad of 

 evidence of their existence in Derbyshire and elsewhere in the 

 South of England. J. RoMlLLY Allem 



23, Maitland Street, Edinburgh 



Songs of Birds 

 Can any musical reader of Nature tramcribe for me the 

 notes of the king lorry (Afrosinectus scapnlatus) ? May not the 

 major and minor keys of the cuckoos noticed by John Birming- 

 ham be sexual characteristics? The males are believed to exceed 

 the females in number in the proportion of four or five to one, 

 and, if this be so, the male note must be heard more often than 

 the female. The "jerkiness of style" in the major cuckoo, as 

 described, suggests that the performer is a female. A. N. 



C. W. Harding.— The teeth belong to a yomig horse— not 

 yet "in mark" (Equus cabalhis). Their geological horizon appears 

 uncertain, and they are as likely to be historic or prehistoric as 

 pleistocene. 



COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF MAN"- 



III. ' Y 



Modifications of the Ncg?'o type. — At several parts of the 

 equatorial region of Africa, from the Gulf of Guinea to the 

 White Nile, indications have been met with of a small race 

 of negroes, sometimes so small that the name of pygmy may 

 truly be applied to them, differing from the ordinary 

 negro in the short rounded form of the head. These bear 

 some resemblance to the diminutive members of the 

 oceanic black races who inhabit some parts of the East 

 Indian Archipelago, especially the Andaman Islands, and 

 to whom the name Negrito is now generally applied, and 

 Dr. Hamy, who has collected together all the evidence 

 at present accessible as to their existence, has proposed 

 to distinguish them by the term Negrillo. The Akkas of 

 Schweinfurth appear to belong to this race. In many 

 districts they are more or less mixed with the ordinary 

 negroes, and their physical characters are therefore 

 obscured, but some skulls from the West Coast of Africa 

 in the collection of Dr. Barnard Davis bear a striking 

 resemblance to those of the Andamanese, and have a 

 cephahc index of 80 or upwards. 



The greater part of Africa, between the equator and the 

 most southern parts, where the Hottentots and Bushmen 

 dwell, is inhabited by negroes, who for linguistic reasons 

 are grouped together, and separated from the more 

 northern tribes, and are now generally known to ethno- 

 logists by the name of Bantu. Their range seems to 

 have extended southwards in comparatively recent times, 

 encroaching upon that of the original inhabitants. They 

 are a pastoral people, warlike, energetic, and intelligent, 

 owning large herds of cattle, and living in villages com- 

 posed of a number of beehive-like huts. The southern 

 Bantu, who at present are the best known, from their 

 vicinity to the British and Dutch settlements of .South 

 Africa, are divided by Fritsch into i. The Ama-Xosa, 

 who inhabit at present the south-east portions of the Bantu 

 territory, adjoining the sea, between the Cape Colony and 

 Natal. To these the name Kafir, derived from an Arabic 

 word applied to them as unbelievers or heathens, is com- 

 monly given, but the name is sometimes used in a wider 

 sense for the Bantu negroes generally. The Ama-Xosa 

 include the well-known tribes of Gaikas and Galeikas, 

 with whom we were at war in 1S77. 2. The Ama-Zulu, 



^ Abstract Report of Prof. Flower's lectures at the Royal College of 

 SurReons. Jlarch i to March 19, on the Comparative Anatomy o£ Slan. 

 Continued from p. So. 



