496 



NA TURE 



[February 24, 1910 



A. P. Coleman ; Lyell medal to Dr. A. Vaughan ; Wollaston 

 fund to -Mr. E. B. Bailey ; Murchison fund to Mr. J. W. 



<,•-•' '-rli fund, to Mr. F. R. Cowper Reed and Dr. 



;im. The president delivered his anniversary 

 lich dealt with the antiquity of man, 

 '!- : vpnrt of the council was presented at the annual 

 ;al meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 

 iir. February iS. Among other matters of interest dealt 

 with we notice that a grant of 200!. was made towards 

 the cost of depositing at the National Physical Laboratory a 

 set of British standard Whitworth-, and fine-thread hardened 

 plug screw-gauges, with other screw-gauges and measuring 

 machines. .\n exhaustive research into the properties of 

 some alloys of copper, aluminium, and manganese was 

 completed at the National Physical Laboratory in May by 

 Dr. W. Rosenhain, in conjunction with Mr. F. C. A. H. 

 Lantsberry. This forms the ninth report of the Alloys 

 Research Committee, and is now before the Institution for 

 discussion. In view of the extremely heavy task of com- 

 pletely investigating a ternary system of alloys, the com- 

 mittee, under the chairmanship of Sir William H. White, 

 is now limiting its researches at the National Physical 

 Laboratory to the study of light alloys of aluminium, and 

 is dealing, in the first place, with those containing zinc or 

 nickel. Prof. H. C. H. Carpenter is continuing at the 

 University of Manchester his research, referred to in the 

 last annual report, on the production of castings to with- 

 stand high hydraulic, steam, and gas pressure. A report 

 is expected towards the end of 1910. The summer meet- 

 ing of 19 10 of the institution will take the form of a joint 

 meeting in Birmingham and London with the American 

 Society of Mechanical Engineers. This occasion will afl'ord 

 members an opportunity of reciprocating the hospitality 

 extended to them in the United States during the joint 

 meeting of 1904. 



Dr. .\. M. McAldowie read a paper before the Cottes- 

 ■wold Field Club on February 15 on field-notes on certain 

 prehistoric remains near Cheltenham. The object of the 

 paper was to show that many of the camps and barrows 

 on the Cotteswold Hills, such as those of Leckhampton, 

 Crickley, Coopers Hill, and others, were used in pre- 

 historic times for observations of the rising and setting 

 -sun at the solstices and equino.xes. By the use of a series 

 of diagrams he showed that the position of these monu- 

 ments was in many cases in remarkable agreement with 

 the solstitial lines. In the discussion which followed, the 

 remarkable character of these coincidences was recognised, 

 but the opinion was expressed that the suggestion that 

 these camps and barrows were used for solar observations 

 before they were utilised for purposes of protection and 

 interment of the dead was improbable. The author re- 

 ferred to the curious custom of planting trees on barrows, 

 possibly as homes for the spirits of the dead, and to the 

 fact that a right of way very commonly was found to 

 exist leading to the more important barrows, suggesting 

 that they were scenes of assemblages for some religious 

 purpose in early times. 



We have to welcome the first part of a new Yorkshire 

 natural-history journal, in the form of the Proceedings, 

 &c., of the Hull Junior Field Naturalists' Society. It con- 

 tains a reprint of Mr. j! Ritchie's paper on the occurrence 

 of the Arctic hydroid Selaginopsis mirabilis in British 

 waters, and likewise of Mr. T. Sheppard's account of a 

 specimen of the crustacean Eryon antiquus from the 

 Yorkshire Lias. 



To the February number of Witherby's British Birds 

 Mr. C. E. Fagan, secretary of the natural-history branch 

 NO. 2104, VOL. 82] 



of the British Museum, communicates a full memoir, 

 accompanied by an excellent portrait, of the late Dr. 

 R. B. Sharpe. In the sarqe issue Dr. N. F. Ticehurst 

 records the occurrence of a pair of black wheatears, or 

 black chats (Saxicola leucura), at Rye Harbour between 

 .'\ugust 31 and September 16, 1909, both of which were 

 killed. This is the first record in Britain of this south 

 European and north African bird. 



We have received a copy of the report of the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union for 1909, reprinted from tjie January 

 number of the Yorkshire Naturalist, from which it may 

 be gathered that the work of that body is being carried 

 on as energetically as ever. We have been struck by the 

 statement that Mr. J. F. Musham " sent a brood of young 

 pipistrelles taken in a bedroom in the Northallerton dis- 

 trict," since this would seem to imply (although it may 

 bear another interpretation) that the pipistrelle may pro- 

 duce several young at a time. Information on this point 

 would be of interest. 



In vol. iii., part iv., of Records of the Indian Museum, 

 Dr. N. Annandale describes and figures, under the name 

 of Alaptiis magnanimus, what is apparently the smallest 

 known insect, the length of the type-specimen being only 

 02 1 mm. and the wing-expanse 085 mm. The only 

 known specimen made its appearance in the field of vision 

 while its describer was engaged in observing under the 

 microscope certain organisms in oil-of-cloves. It proved 

 to belong to the hymenopterous family Myrmaridje, and 

 to be nearly allied- to Westvifood's Alaptus excisus. As the 

 insect was unlikely to be met with by any professed student 

 of the Hymenoptera, Dr. Annandale considered that he was 

 not justified in neglecting the opportunity of publishing 

 a description. 



Two articles in the February number of the Popular 

 Science Monthly are devoted to an account of modern work 

 on marine biology and oceanography. In the first of these 

 Prof. C. L. Edwards gives an illustrated description of 

 the Swedish marine zoologigal station at Kristineberg, near 

 the village of Fiskebackshil, on the west coast. Fiske- 

 backshil was first brought into prominence as a promising 

 situation for the study of marine biology in 1835, and 

 four years later Sven Lov^n and others joined the colony 

 of naturalists who were then working with the meagre 

 resources afforded by the place. In 1877 the Kristineberg 

 station was founded by the Danish Ro3'al Academy of 

 Science at the initiation of Lov^n, who became director, 

 and held the post until 1892, when he was succeeded by 

 his friend Hjalmar Th^el. The second article, by Prof. 

 C. A. Kofoid, is devoted to the Museum fiir Meereskunde 

 at Berlin, which was opened in 1906, and is designed to 

 illustrate everything connected with the sea and its 

 products. 



The perennial discussion as to the homology of the 

 columella auris in Amphibia is renewed in a lengthy 

 memoir by Messrs. B. F. Kingsbury and H. D. Reed in 

 the Journal of Morphology (vol. xx., No. 4, November, 

 1909). This memoir constitutes the second contribution of 

 the authors' work on the columella auris in Amphibia, 

 and deals with the Urodela, of which a large number of 

 types have been studied by means of serial sections. It 

 will probably be long before unanimity of opinion is arrived 

 at on this difficult question, but it is satisfactory to those 

 who have been brought up in the old faith that the colu- 

 mella auris of amphibians is homologous with the 

 hyomandibular of fishes to learn that this view is sup- 

 ported by the present detailed investigation. 



