530 



NATURE 



[September 20, 1906 



tubercles, and the spiracles show as brown spots. The 

 legs are spotted with black, and the head is shiny black. 



When mature the larvae fall to the ground and spin I heir 

 cocoons amongst moss, grass, &c., beneath the trees. The 

 cocoons are more or less cylindrical in form and brown 

 in colour. Many may occur close together. Fortunately 

 these larvas are preyed upon by several hymenopterous 

 parasites. It is probably these that cause its sudden dis- 

 appearance in localities where it has occurred. It is, never- 

 theless, as the Board of Agriculture advises, " of the utmost 

 importance that outbreaks should be discovered at an early 

 stage so that they may be suppressed while still of re- 

 stricted extent " — an axiom that applies to all insects and 

 fungi that are lilcely to cause harm to man's crops, trees, 

 or stock. 



The Board is preparing an illustrated account of this 

 insect, which will be published in the October issue of 

 its journal. Many such isolated outbreaks of insect pests 

 of greater importance might with advantage be treated 

 in a similar manner. F. V. T. 



SOME RECENT PAL/EONTOLOGICAL 

 PAPERS. 



TOURING the wide range of field-observation covered 

 by the Austrian Geological Survey, numerous new 

 localities for fossils come to light, while the collections 

 brought to Vienna from outside the Empire furnish the 

 members of the Reichsanstalt with rich material for com- 

 parison. R. J. Schubert (Jahrbtich der k.k. geol. 

 Reichsanstalt, 1905, p. 613) has continued his compre- 

 hensive research on the otoliths of fishes, which is finely 

 illustrated with photographic plates. In the Verhandluiigen 

 of the same body (1906, p. 124) he summarises his results, 

 which are shown to have a bearing on the geographical 

 conditions of Miocene and Pliocene times in Europe. For 

 instance, in accordance with what we knovi' of the 

 Congeria-beds, the otoliths in these strata are found to 

 belong to the Scisenida:, a family haunting especially the 

 mouths of large rivers, and even penetrating into fresh 

 water. 



Franz Toula (Jahriuch der Keichsanstalt, 1905, p. 51) 

 also throws new light on the Congeria-beds of Vienna by 

 describing Pelamycybium, a new genus of fish, which has 

 been discovered in them. He discusses a wide range of 

 literature on allied forms of tunny. In the current volume 

 for 1906, p. I, O. Abel investigates the fishes with greatly 

 developed fins that have been recorded from various 

 formations, and states that the Triassic genera Thoraco- 

 pterus, Bronn., Gigantopterus, and Dollopterus are the 

 only ones that can be referred with certainty to the flying- 

 fish. The two last-named genera are new to science. 

 .Ml these fossil forms are constructed outwardly on the 

 type of the modern Exoccetus. The species of Chirothrix 

 with large fins, and other members of Smith Wood- 

 ward's Chirothricidae, are believed by Abel to have 

 been incapable of flight. It is hard, moreover, to have 

 to note that a species known as Engraulis evolans 

 is similarly rejected. Zoologists will be interested in the 

 general discussion of the flight of fishes and its origin 

 (pp. 55-84), and the comparison between true flying-fish 

 and others with expanded pectoral or ventral fins. The 

 author, to avoid misconception, would prefer to speak of 

 " parachute-fish " rather than of " flying-fish." There is 

 no indication that any fossil example used its pectoral fins 

 more effectively for flight than is the case in modern 

 times. The memoir is fully illustrated ; and the realisation 

 of flying-fish gleaming in the Triassic sunlight adds a new 

 fascination to the ancient European sea. 



G. Stache {VerhaiidUingen, ibid., 1905, p. 292) directs 

 the attention of zoologists as well as palaeontologists to 

 his Sontiochelys, a new chelonian from the Cretaceous of 

 Gbrz, the affinities of which are with living forms in 

 Australia and Brazil, rather than with fossil Jurassic forms 

 in Europe. 



O. Abel (Jahrbtich, ibid., 1905, p. 375) has described a 

 cetaceim, Palaeophocaena andrtissovi. from the Middle 

 Miocene of the Taman peninsula in the Black Sea. Thiji 

 e.-u'lv form has led him to examine the living Phocaena of 



NO. 192^, VOL. 74 



the Black Sea, and to assign to it the specific name relicta. 

 The author points out the differences between it and 

 Ph. communis, and urges that it arose in the Black Sea 

 area as a direct descendant of the Miocene type. Phocaena 

 is absent from the Mediterranean, while the two dolphins 

 found with it in the Black Sea, Tursiops tursio and 

 Delphinns delphis, abound there, and Herr Abel is thus 

 supplied with additional grounds for his contention. He 

 also describes (p. 393) a Miocene transitional form between 

 Halitherium and Metaxytherium. 



Passing to the primates, we note that Prof. Rzehak 

 (Verhandhirtgen, ibid., 1905, p. 329) gives a preliminary 

 account of a lower jaw belonging to a being of the Spy 

 and Krapina type, from Ochos, near Briinn in Moravia. 

 Every addition to our knowledge of this early type of 

 man in Europe, Wilser's Homo primigenius, is to be 

 welcomed, especially as it seems not so long ago when 

 the Neanderthal calvarium was the sole representative of 

 the race. The features shown by the lower jaw of a child 

 found in a cave at Shipka, and hitherto regarded as ex- 

 ceptional, are interestingly repeated in that of the adult 

 from the Ochos cave. 



T. Fuchs (ibid., p. 198) defends the organic character 

 of the honeycomb-markings known as Palaeodictyon, in 

 opposition to the views of Capeder in 1904, who reproduced 

 artificially a fairly similar structure. 



Prof. Yokoyama sends a paper on Mesozoic plants from 

 Nagato and Bitchu (Journal of the College of .Science, 

 Imperial University, Tokyo), illustrated by three beauti- 

 fully executed plates. The work confirms the author's 

 previously expressed opinion that a Rhaetic flora occurs at 

 Yaraanoi. 



Part iii. of vol. xxxii. of the Records of the Geological 

 Survey of India is mainly concerned with paleontology. 

 Prof. Diener, of Vienna, describes the permo-Carboniferous 

 fauna of the Subansiri valley in Assam, adopting 

 Waagen's term " .'\nthracolithic " for beds of the two 

 systems considered jointly. Mr. G. E. Pilgrim reviews the 

 distribution of Elephas antiquus, which he regards as 

 having originated in the Pliocene of Europe, reaching 

 India somewhat later in geological time, as glacial con- 

 ditions set in across Europe. In neither area, however 

 (p. 218), did it leave any direct descendants. The paper 

 is accompanied by five handsome plates. Prof. Diener, in 

 a second paper, points out that a bed of Triassic limestone 

 in Byans, 3 feet thick, represents the Noric and Carnic 

 faunas, the forms from distinct horizons becoming mixed in 

 so small a thickness of sediment. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Prof. Wilhelm Wien, professor of physics in the Uni- 

 versity of Berlin, has been invited to occupy the physics 

 chair in the University of Berlin, in succession to the late 

 Prof. Drude. 



Science states that by the will of the late Mr. T. 

 Kearney, of Freno, his entire estate, amounting to about 

 200,000/., is bequeathed to the department of agriculture 

 of the University of California. 



The authorities of the Ltland Stanford University, which 

 suffered severely through the San Francisco earthquake, 

 are reported to have decided to sell the jewels of Mrs. 

 Leland Stanford, bequeathed to them by their late owner, 

 for the purpose of restoring the University library ; the 

 value of the jewels is estimated at a million dollars. 



BiRKBECK College will commence its eighty-fourth 

 session on Wednesday, September 26, when Sir Edward H. 

 Busk, \'ice-Chancellor of the University of London, will 

 give the opening address. The college has added consider- 

 ably to its appliances in recent years, and the physical, 

 chemical, biological, and metallurgical laboratories are well 

 equipped. Courses in mining, metallurgy, and assaying 

 are given both in the day and evening. 



The council of University College, Bristol, has offered 

 the chair of chemistry, just vacated by Dr. Travers, 

 F.R.S., 10 Dr. Francis Francis. Dr. Francis studied at 



