NA TURE 



[May 31, 1906 



■information of value to all who are interested in the culti- 

 vation of fruit. 



In- the Trinidad Bulletin (April) Mr. J. H. Hart gives 

 a list, with descriptions, of fourteen varieties of orange of 

 which well-established plants can be supplied from St. 

 Clair experiment station. The Pineapple and Jaffa are 

 especially recommended ; the list also includes Homosassa, 

 Parson Brown, and Washington Navel ; in fact, all the 

 varieties have been carefully selected. A new edition of 

 the guide-book to the Trinidad Gardens is to be published 

 shortly, in which there will be special references to the 

 features depicted by Kingsley in " At Last." 



The North American species of Festuca are collated by 

 Mr. C. V. Piper in vol. x., part i., of the Contributions 

 from the United States National Herbarium. In North 

 America twenty-two perennial and twelve annual species 

 are recognised, as compared with twentj'-eight perennial 

 and twenty-six annual species in Europe. In addition to 

 the sheep and red fescues, Festuca altaica and Festuca 

 viridula are regarded as excellent fodder grasses, and 

 Festuca octoflora is valuable in semi-arid districts. The 

 term " lemma " is adopted to signify the outer or lower 

 palea. A number of plates accompany the text, and a 

 tentative list of Mexican species is appended. 



Botanists who have attempted to classify the different 

 varieties of such plants as rice, cotton, &c., that are 

 extensively cultivated in India have noted the extraordinary 

 power of discrimination manifested by the peasant culti- 

 vators. In a Bulletin (No. 55) recently published by the 

 Madras Department of Agriculture on the great millet, 

 Sorglium viilgare, a plant grown very widely as a food 

 and fodder crop, Mr. C. K. Subba Rao enumerates with 

 comparative notes more than sixty forms referable to seven 

 botanical varieties. Three of these varieties are represented 

 in other parts of India, and in addition there are the forms 

 that would be grouped under fifteen varieties that are not 

 represented in the presidency. 



The latest number, vol. xi.\., part i., of the Transactions 

 of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural .Society contains, as 

 usual, a number of interesting papers on forestry subjects. 

 A working plan for the Alice Holt woods in the east of 

 Hampshire has been prepared by Dr. Schlich. In 1812 an 

 .Act was passed providing for the cultivation of navy timber 

 in the forest, but owing to the low standard of the oak 

 trees that occupy 95 per cent, of the area it is proposed 

 to plant certain portions with beech, larch, and Douglas 

 fir, and others with spruce and pine. Dr. R. S. 

 MacDougall reports the discovery of larvse of the chalcid 

 species Megastigmus spermotrophus in seed of the Douglas 

 fir received from Aberdeenshire, and adduces evidence to 

 prove that the larvae are really plant parasites. Mr. G. 

 Brown provides some figures in connection with the natural 

 regeneration of Scots pine at Beauly, and Prof. T. Hudson 

 Beare points out a few of the difficulties in obtaining 

 accurate results when testing timbers. 



An excess of rain is again shown by the weekly weather 

 report of the Meteorological Ofiice to have occurred over 

 the entire country for the period ending May 26. The 

 heaviest rains were experienced in the south-west of 

 England, the measurement for the district being 1-64 inches, 

 which is more than three times the average. The rainfall 

 was about double the average in different parts of the 

 kingdom. The aggregate rainfall for the spring months 

 is deficient in the Midland counties and in the south and 

 east of England, as well as in the Channel Islands, but 

 NO. 1909, VOL. 74] 



i..^ 



mostly in excess in other parts of Great Britain. '! he 

 total measurement since the commencement of the yeat is 

 everywhere considerably in excess of the average. 



The eighth Bulletin of North Queenslan3 Ethnography is 

 entitled " Notes on Government, Morals, and Crime," but 

 the four plates and part of the 

 text deal with message sticks. 

 Dr. Roth takes the view that 

 they are merely mnemonic, and 

 convey no communication 

 properly so called. This state- 

 ment seems to require qualifi- 

 cation outside the area with 

 which he deals ; for instance, 

 among the Mundainbura of 

 Durham Downs certain marks 

 have recognised meanings, and 

 indicate the marriage classes ; 

 in a case reported by Dr. 

 Howitt another tribe with the 

 same classes interpreted cor- 

 rectly a stick sent to put this 

 question to the test. TRe 

 ordinary use of the stick is, 

 however, mnemonic, and it 

 also guarantees the bona fides 

 of the messenger. In North 

 Queensland the stick is some- 

 times carried at the end of a 

 rod, as shown in Nature of 

 April 26 (vol. Ixxiii., p. 610), 

 but held vertically ; the object 

 of this is unknown. In addi- 

 tion to being figured in the 

 plates, the thirty-three speci- 

 mens are elaborately described. 

 The purely mnemonic character 

 of Dr. Roth's specimens is 

 shown by the accompanying 

 figures, which arc alternative 

 forms of stick for the same 



message. Interesting information is also given on customs 

 of inheritance, a remarkable feature being the succession 

 of females only to property in certain edible plants. 



. J.— So-called 

 ' message '" 



Length, 



' letter " or 

 sticks, Boinj^ 

 1. (a) Length, 

 adth, J in. (*) 

 in. ; breadth, f 

 1 place of («), 

 which was stated to have 

 been lost, in order to ascer- 

 tain whether the same mes- 

 sage necessitated similar 

 markings, which it clearly 



We have received a copy of the meteorological report 

 of the Survey Department of Egypt for the year 1903, 

 containing hourly observations at Abbassia Observatory 

 (Cairo), monthly summaries at eighteen climatological 

 stations in Egypt and the Sudan, and some additional 

 rainfall results. The value of the work is much enhanced 

 by graphical representations of the Abbassia observations. 

 In a preliminary examination of soine of the data, the 

 superintendent points out that the rainfall at Abbassia 

 and the southern Delta generally is small and irregular, 

 but that it was thought worth while to see whether it 

 showed any signs of periodicity such as that assigned to 

 it in India or Mauritius by Sir Norman Lockyer. A 

 smoothed rainfall curve for the years 188S-1900 shows some 

 resemblance to the inverse sun-spot curve, especially in 

 the coincidence of the maximum of the sun-spots and the 

 minimum of the rainfall in the year 1893. 



Dr. W. N. Shaw's lecture at the University of London 

 on May 24 brought this most interesting series to a close. 

 The audience no doubt shared the lecturer's views as 

 to the difficulty of dealing sufficiently with the subject in 

 the space of four hours ; we hope that the matter will not 



