February io, 1910J 



NA TURE 



437 



July 24, igog, in which he recommends the alliaceous plant 

 locally known as " knoblauch " {_.Mlium ursinum and also 

 A. acutangidum) as a table-vegetable. These plants grow 

 abundantly at Rosenthal, where cabbages cannot easily be 

 raised, and, when properly cooked, are stated to have a 

 flavour superior to that of spinach, the garlicky odour 

 entirely disappearing after a prolonged soaking in water 

 and the application of salt. 



The Transactions and Proceedings of the Perthshire 

 Society of Natural Science for igoS-q, vol. v., part i., 

 contain the report of an address delivered in March last by 

 the president, Mr. W. Barclay, on the proposal to re-afforest 

 large areas in Scotland. The scheme is cordially approved 

 in the address, and a resolution was carried at the meeting 

 in support of the recommendation of the Royal Commission 

 that a State forestry department should be established, with 

 power to put the work in hand. The scheme, it was 

 urged, would eventually prove a financial success, and 

 would provide present employment. 



No. 2 of section h of vol. xxviii. of the Proceedings of 

 tlie Royal Irish Academy is devoted to a list of the Neuro- 

 ptera of Ireland, by Messrs. J. J. F. X. King and J. N. 

 Halbert. This catalogue, which is to replace one published 

 more than twenty years ago by one of the present authors, 

 it is hoped will form a standard of reference for future 

 observations. Although our knowledge of the native 

 dragon-flies, like that of the other Neuroptera, is far from 

 complete, there is no doubt that Ireland possesses fewer 

 of these insects than Great Britain. Twenty-five species 

 were included in the Irish list of i88g, but the number 

 must now be reduced to twenty-three. The study of the 

 may-flies has been so neglected that there are few changes 

 to record from the old list. 



Angler-fishes (Pediculati) and their habits form the 

 subject of a richly illustrated paper by Dr. T. Gill, pub- 

 lished in the Smithsonian Report for 1908. Nearly all the 

 species inhabiting shallow or moderately deep water are 

 provided with an angling apparatus — the " illicium " — 

 which undoubtedly serves as a rod, line, and bait, although 

 the action is probably automatic. Certain stoutly built 

 members of the group are, however, denizens of deep 

 water, and in these the fishing apparatus has been modified 

 into a rod with a bulb furnished with a phosphorescent 

 terminal portion, while the surrounding " bait " has like- 

 wise been specialised and augmented ; and, in addition to 

 all this, a lantern and worm-like lures are present. How 

 efficient this apparatus must be will be apparent to all who 

 have witnessed salmon-spearing by torchlight. 



Great interest attaches to an article by Dr. R. S. Lull, in 

 the January number of the American Journal of Science, on 

 the distribution of dinosaurian reptiles. It should be 

 premised that dinosaurian remains are unknown from 

 Central and North-eastern Asia, which may be attributable 

 cither to our lack of knowledge of the palaeontology of 

 that area or to the circumstance that these reptiles never 

 occurred there. The theropod group is believed to have 

 originated in North America — " Laurentia " — whence they 

 migrated in one direction, probably at a late epoch, into 

 South America, and in another, by way of Greenland and 

 Iceland, to Europe, and thence to India, Africa, Mad.n- 

 Srascar, and Australia. The Sauropoda, on the other hand, 

 .ire regarded as an Old World group, migrating early in 

 the Jurassic into the great southern continent of the 

 Old World, "' Gondwanaland," and also into the New- 

 World. In the southern hemisphere they had a distribu- 

 tion nearly as extensive as that of their carnivorous cousins, 

 NO. 2102, VOL. 82] 



and survived long after they had disappeared from the 

 north, occurring in India during some part of the 

 Cretaceous, and in Patagonia — their last stronghold — 

 during the Laramie, or topmost Cretaceous. On account 

 of their semi-aquatic habits, they were independent of 

 complete land-connections, and could thus extend their 

 migrations across areas impassable to the strictly terrestrial 

 Ornithopoda (Orthopoda), as typified by the iguanodon. 

 This may be the reason why the latter group never suc- 

 ceeded, so far as our present information goes, in pene- 

 trating the southern hemisphere, although it is possible that 

 the date of their radiation may have been later, when 

 communication between Europe and Gondwanaland was 

 interrupted ; while it has also to be borne in mind that, 

 judging from their dentition, they were dependent upon a 

 particular kind of food. Originally the Ornithopoda were 

 probably a North .»\merican group, and the horned, cr 

 ceratopsian, section appears to have been restricted to the 

 western continent. 



The seventh volume of the Journal of Experimental 

 Zoology, which was completed with the November (igog) 

 number, contains no fewer than a dozen memoirs on re- 

 generation in animals. Now that the study of this subject 

 includes the effect of drugs upon the rate of regeneration, 

 with the whole pharmacopoeia on the one hand and the 

 entire animal kingdom on the other from which to select 

 material for experiment, there seems no reason whv such 

 researches should ever come to an end. Of course, the 

 same may be said of almost any other branch of biological 

 investigation, and, indeed, the rapid accumulation of litera- 

 ture at the present time threatens either to swamp biologists' 

 altogether or else to force them to take refuge in a verv 

 narrow specialisation. 



The problem of sex-determination continues to receive 

 a very large share of attention from cytologists. One of 

 the most notable recent contributions to the already ex- 

 tensive literature of the subject is a memoir, bv Prof. 

 T. H. Morgan, entitled " A Biological and Cytological 

 Study of Sex Determination in Phylloxerans and .'\phids," 

 published in the Journal of Experimental Zoology for 

 September, igog (vol. vii., No. 2). In addition to the 

 author's own observations, this paper contains a critical 

 review of the recent literature of the subject. The theory 

 of accessory chromosomes and the Mendelian interpreta- 

 tion of sex are dealt with. It is admitted, however, that 

 the problem has as yet by no means reached a satisfactory 

 solution. Prof. Morgan regards the quantitative interpreta- 

 tion of sex-determination as only the first rough approxima- 

 tion to such a solution, and he thinks that the accessory 

 chromosome may follow sex or be associated with other 

 differences that determine sex rather than be its sole 

 cause. 



The genus CEnothera has received world-wide attention 

 from botanists since Prof, de Vries founded his mutation 

 theory largely on the variations he obtained by cultivation 

 of certain wild forms. In the hope that North American 

 and European botanists may be induced to make a careful 

 examination of other wild colonies, Mr. R. R. Gates, who 

 has already investigated several of the variants, has com- 

 piled an analytical key to the principal segregates and' 

 mutants of the genus, which is published in the twentieth 

 annual report of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Ten 

 species and fourteen forms derived from Oenothera 

 Lamarckiana are delimited. 



The consequences of cattle-grazing in Indian forests are 

 discussed by Mr. J. W. Best in the Indian Forester 

 (November, igog), where he notes the results of his observa- 



