i6 



jYA TURE 



[NOVEMUEK 4, 1909 



species is given, but liiere are no diagnoses. An index of 

 the species of this family is given at the end of the part. 



To the October number of the Zoologist Mr. A. H. 

 Patterson communicates tlie first part of an interesting 

 account of the fisheries and fish of east Suffolk, with 

 •special reference to the takes of herring and mackerel at 

 Lowestoft. In regard to the apparently capricious move- 

 ments of the shoals of mackerel, the author expresses the 

 ■opinion that these are entirely due to tidal and other 

 influences affecting the natural economy of the species. 



In their report for the year ending June 30, the members 

 of the committee of the Manchester Museum put on record 

 their regret at the resignation of Dr. VV. E. Hoyle, who 

 ■held the office of keeper (a title latterly changed to 

 ■director) of the establishment for the long period of twenty 

 years. Dr. Hoyle resigned on March 25, when he was 

 ■appointed director of the National Museum at Cardiff. 

 Among important additions to the museum during the 

 year under review, reference may be made to a collection 

 of fossil fishes made by the late Mr. John Ward. 



According to the Museum News, the authorities of the 

 Children's Museum at Bedford Park, Brooklyn, have been 

 ■devoting their attention during the past summer to exhibits 

 illustrative of the Hudson-Fulton celebration. A large 

 series of the animals inhabiting the country at the time 

 of Hudson's visit has been placed on exhibition, with 

 special notes to those which are now on the point of dis- 

 appearing or which have been already exterminated. Such 

 •species of trees growing in the museum gardens as were 

 native to the country in Hudson's time have also been 

 marked with special labels. 



It is satisfactory to learn from the September number 

 of the Victorian Naturalist that the colony of sea-lions on 

 ■" Seal Rocks," in Bass Strait, continues to flourish under 

 Government protection. In November, 1908, a party of 

 naturalists left Melbourne for a cruise in Bass Strait, and 

 one of their number gives the following account of their 

 visit to the sea-lions : — " As we approached this haunt of 

 the seals, hundreds of the animals could be seen in the 

 water, and from the rocks came, borne on the wind, the 

 sound of their voices. The rookery presented a ' moving 

 spectacle, ' as we surveyed it through binoculars from the 

 ■steamer's deck. Huge brown forms were clambering 

 among the pools and darting in and out of the surf, 

 while sleek cubs lay basking in the sunlight beside their 

 anxious mothers." In the same issue attention is directed 

 to the serious destruction now being inflicted on the native 

 bird-fauna of the country by the progeny of introduced 

 European fo.xes. 



In vol. cxviii., part i., of the Sitzungsherichte der k. 

 Academic der Wisscnschaflen, Prof. O. Abel gives a 

 restoration of the skeleton of Eurhinodelphis coclieteuxi, of 

 the Belgian Upper Miocene, in which the prolongation of 

 the toothless rostrum far in advance of the lower jaw is 

 well shown. The length of the figured skeleton, which 

 is probably that of a male, is nearly 16 feet, but the 

 majority of specimens are smaller. From the strong 

 development of the caudal vertebra;, indicative of powerful 

 tail-muscles, the author infers that these cetaceans were 

 swift swimmers, while the free cervical vertebrse per- 

 mitted, as in the fresh-water Iniidse and PlatanistidK, of 

 considerable movements of the head. These circum- 

 stances, taken in connection with the long edentulous 

 rostrum, projecting far in advance of the lower jaw, and 

 the weak state of the dentition generally, suggest that 

 these long-snouted dolphins swam on the surface of the 

 NO. 20SS, VOL. 82] 



sea, where they captured their food — probably fishes — in 

 much the same manner as does the skimmer (Rhynchops) 

 among birds. Dr. Abel also describes the slcuU of Sauro- 

 delphis argentiiiHs from the Argentine Pliocene, and shows 

 that the genus was nearly allied to the existing Amazonian 

 Inia. 



The brain of the late Prof. D. J. Mendel^eff, the 

 chemist, has been investigated and described by Profs. 

 \V. von Bechterew and R. Weinberg. The results of 

 their investigation, with eight finely finished plates, form 

 the first of a series of monographs dealing with the 

 anatomy and development of the body, which is to be 

 edited by Prof. Wilhelm Roux, of Halle, and published 

 by Mr. W. Engelmann, of Leipzig. The size of the great 

 chemist's brain was above the average, but not remark- 

 ably so ; its weight was 1571 grams. The convolutions 

 are simple in their arrangement ; indeed, no one, from 

 a mere examination of the organ, could have formed any 

 opinion — at least in our present state of knowledge — as to 

 the very special qualities manifested by it in life. Only 

 two features were in any degree peculiar — a highly con- 

 voluted part of the left parietal lobe and a comparatively 

 small and simple temporal lobe. Profs. Bechterew and 

 Weinberg have made a very welcome addition to the 

 limited number of descriptions of the genius-brain, and 

 if at present the results of their labour appear to be 

 negative, the day may soon come that will provide a key 

 to the facts which they have been content merely to 

 tabulate and to describe accurately. 



Prof. E. G.\upp, of Freiburg, has devoted the fourth 

 part of the " Sammlung anatomischer und physiologischer 

 Vortrage und Aufsatze " to the consideration of the 

 asymmetry of the human body (Jena : Gustav Fischer). 

 From a consideration of the literature dealing with this 

 matter, he has come to the conclusion that asymmetry in 

 the right and left halves of the body is normal, and is 

 to be regarded, not as a defect, which was the opinion 

 formulated by Bichat a century ago, but as an advance 

 and sign of specialisation. The asymmetry of the skull, 

 face, jaws, spine, chest, pelvis, and limbs is not present 

 at birth ; it appears as the individual becomes adapted to 

 his surroundings. The asymmetry is not a question 

 altogether of right- or left-handedness or right- or left- 

 biainedness ; in Prof. Gaupp's opinion the tendency to a 

 right- and left-sided specialisation is inborn in the individual. 

 I'he asymmetry is simply exaggerated by the reaction of 

 use and disuse. Classical sculptors represented in their 

 work a degree of asymmetry of the face equal to that 

 seen in modern races. The greater the degree of 

 asymmetry the higher the point of evolution. Prof. EUiot 

 Smith found that the hemispheres of the negro brain, and 

 especially those of the anthropoids, showed a smaller degree 

 ot asynmietry than those of European races. 



An article by Mr. B. L. Issatchenko, continuing two 

 earlier communications on the conditions for chlorophyll 

 formation, is published in the Bulletin du Jardin Imperial 

 Botanique, St. Petersburg" (vol. ix., part v.). The author 

 states that a low temperature (—8° C.) does not prevent 

 the formation of chlorophyll, and that it is formed in 

 plants as quickly at a low temperature as a high one, the 

 formation of the pigment depending exclusively on the 

 strength and duration of the light. According to other 

 results obtained, the formation of chlorophyll continues in 

 the presence of the vapour of formaldehyde or chloroform. 



Dr. F. Kr.4SSER has prepared for publication a series of 

 diagnoses, left by the palaeontologist Stur, of some fossil 

 plants found in Triassic beds at Lunz, in Lower Austria, 



