April 2 1, 1881] 



NATURE 



579 



be decided by actual examination of my published ] apers on 

 symbolical logic, of which Prof. Jevons has very kindly given 

 in Nature a full and complete list. Hugh MacColl 



73, Rue Siblequin, Boulogne-sur Mer, April 7 



Agricultural Communism in Greece 



The article in Nature, vol. xxiii. p. 525, on Aryan villages 

 and other Asiatic communities reminds me of what I saw in 

 1843 in the course of a journey through Greece. On St. 

 George's Day, a high festival with the Greek pea>ants, when 

 crossing the range of Mount Cilhoeron between Thebes and 

 Eleusis, I saw my companion, who was about half a mile ahead, 

 surrounded by a number of men, and then pulled from his horse. 

 The man we had engaged as interpreter, guide, and protector, the 

 "dragoman," bolted as a matter of course, thinking we had 

 fallen upon a nest of brigands ; but when I reached the scene of 

 action I was surpri ed to find that the yelUng and uproar heard 

 in the distance were not murderous nor at all malignant, but 

 purely hilariou?. I was dragged from my horse alsf), and sur- 

 rounded by about twenty young fellows with shaven heads and 

 long scalp locks, half stripped, half drunk, and very dirty, but 

 perfectly goo'd-humoured. 



We were presently made to join in a wild dance, a survival of 

 the Pyrrhic dance of antiquity, which we improved very success- 

 fully ; my companion, C. M. Clayton, from Delaware, doing a 

 nigger break down and I the sailor's hornpipe. 



On the final arrival of our dragoman we learned that the 

 twenty young men were brothers, and that the old man with 

 long white beard who sat gravely looking on and playing a sort 

 of tom-tom to tune the dance was their father. On ourexpre.^sing 

 surprise at so large a family of sons being so nearly of the same age 

 he explained that dStXcfos did not always signify a blood relation, 

 and that these were merely a°riciiltural brethren. They were 

 the united proprietors or renters (I do not remember which) of 

 the adjoining farmhouse and the surrounding land, which they 

 cultivated under the direction of the old man w hom they had 

 selected as their father, who was entrusted with the custody and 

 division of their capital and profits, who arbitrated in cases of 

 quarrels, and w as otherv\ ise obeyed in most things. 



Here was a patriarchal form of communism that we after- 

 wards met w ith in several other instances, but in this and the other 

 cases it was limited to young unmarried men. There were no 

 women in the dance and none visible on this farm, which was 

 some miles distant from the i.earest village, Platsea. 



At that time the Klephts, or brigands, were united in similar 

 communities, who sternly abjured all communication w ith the 

 fair sex. 



When we had finished our dance and paid for sufficient 

 wine to go round the family circle we found that before going 

 we must kiss all the brothers or give mortal and dangerous 

 offence. Andrew, our dragoman, with the inventive facility of 

 his nation, extricated us from this by solemnly stating that in 

 England it was an established custom to show respect for a 

 family by embracing the father only, and bowing separately to 

 each of the sons. 



I am unable to supply any further particulars concerning the 

 internal economy of these communities, cannot say whether 

 they prevail chiefly among the Greeks or the Albanians (the 

 latter constitute a large proportion of the agricultural population of 

 Greece), nor how they dissolve when the brothers become married 

 or the father dies. I have met with no account of them in the 

 course of my reading, but am not at all surprised at this, seeing 

 how profound is our general ignorance of everything pertaining 

 to Greece, an ignorance which is most glaringly displayed by 

 political w riters and others, « ho speak of Athens as though it 

 were Greece, and of Athenian proceedings as though they were 

 the action of the Greeks. 



But for the accident of this rather startling festive encounter 

 with these brethren on this particular holiday, we might have 

 travelled for weeks without meeting any visible indications of 

 such fraternities. We should have passed the brothers if they 

 were working in the fields, and the patriarch had he teen sitting 

 alone at the farmhouse door, without special notice. It was only 

 after our curiosity had been excited that we discovered other 

 patriarchs and other brethren by special inquury where their 

 existence was vaguely indicated. 



Among the readers of Nature there may be some who have 

 sufficient acquaintance with the Greek people, outside of Athens, 

 to be able to supply interesting particulars concerning these 



curious communities. They may be survivals of our ancient 

 communism, or a modern device for mutual protection forced 

 upon the rural population by the absence of any enforcement of 

 law and social order by those w ho consume the taxes in Athens. 

 W. M.\ttieu Williams 



Heat of Stellar Masses 



I SEND you a working hypothesis which' I think will well pay 

 for its place in the world. It is as to the heat of large stellar 

 masses ; that the imperfect conduction of the kinetic force pro- 

 ducing gravitation through large stellar masses causes heat in 

 them. 



The quantity of heat stored 'up may 'depend partly on the 

 proportion of mass to radiating power, and partly, perhaps, on 

 the condition of the mass for such conduction. 



Washington, D. C., March 25 Saml. J. Wallace 



Shadows Cast by 'Venus 



On March 21 last, about S p.m., I w.-is walking among some 

 trees by a river's bank. The ground w^as covered with recently- 

 fallen snow, and the shadows of the trees were unmistakably, 

 though faintly, tracealle on the white surface. The night was 

 dark ai.d the shadows were thrown by Venus, which was shining 

 with unusual brilliancy. I believe this obvious form of the 

 phenomenon is not a common one in our latitude. 



Chas. T. Whitmell 



31, Ilavelock Street, Shefiield, April 18 



The Sparrow and Division of Labour 

 The following curious fact may possibly interest your 

 ornithological readers : — Last year and the year previous two 

 pairs of swallows made their nests and successfully reared their 

 broods under the eaves of my house. Within the past fortnight 

 a brace of a: tute London sparrows have apparently recognised 

 the principle of division of labour as applicable to their require- 

 ments in the art of nest-building. They have selected the largest 

 and most substantial of the swallows' nests referred to ; and, 

 after devoting a day or two, on starting on their enterprise, to the 

 enlargement of the entrance hole, which was probably too narrow 

 for them, have constructed their bed within of bits of grass and 

 feathers in the usual fashion. They are now enjoying their 

 honeymoon in their new quarters. G. C. Wallich 



3, Christchurch Road, Roupell Park, April II 



SIR PHILIP DE M ALP AS GREY EGERTON' 

 M.P., F.R.S. 



IN Sir Philip Egerton geologists have lost one of that 

 band of workers who placed their science upon the 

 footing which it now occupies in this country. Unfor- 

 tunately that band has been of late years greatly diminished 

 by death. Born in 1807, Sir Philip Egerton with his old 

 friend and fellow-worker, Lord Cole (now the Earl of 

 Enniskillen), while still at Oxford commenced the collec- 

 tion of fossils, and very soon their attention was especially 

 directed to fossil fish, of which but very little was at that 

 time known. As specimens of this group of organisms 

 often occur in duplicate, the individuals breaking across 

 so that two opposite slabs each contain one-half, the two 

 friends agreed to share their spoils, and thus both collec- 

 tions were enriched. When in 1840 Agassiz visited this 

 country, intent upon his great ichthyological memoirs, 

 he found in the museums of Sir Philip Egerton and Lord 

 Cole an abundance of materials ready to his hand. The 

 specimens were carefully figured, and descriptions of them 

 included in the several g:reat works which Agassiz succes- 

 sively issued. The original drawings by Dinkel are now 

 among the archives of the Geological Society. But Sir 

 Philip Egerton was by no means merely a collector of 

 fossils, he was a very diligent and successful student 

 of ichthyology. Many valuable papers on fossil fishes 

 were written by him at different times, and a series 



