178 
NATURE 
[Aprit 18, 1912 
the seasonal outbreak should be looked on mainly as 
a reimportation of the disease from these larger 
centres or as an independent development of a local 
focus dormant during the off-season. If the former 
were the case, we might expect a larger incidence in 
the villages near the main lines of communication, 
and taking the Amritsar district as the area for in- 
vestigation and the railways as the means of com- 
munication, Dr. Greenwood finds that in districts 
containing large centres, villages near a line of rail- 
way are, in fact, subject to a higher rate of plague 
epidemics than villages not so situated, while in dis- 
tricts purely or mainly agricultural, proximity to rail- 
ways does not increase the liability. The greater 
liability in the former case is probably due to in- 
creased opportunity for personal intercommunication 
rather than to transport of merchandise, and he con- 
cludes that in districts favourably situated for such 
intercourse the spread of plague can be better ex- 
plained on the hypothesis of reimportation than on 
that of recrudescence. The second paper bears on the 
problem of what circumstances determine the extent 
of an epidemic when plague has once shown itself, 
and why the mortality-rates in infected villages are 
subject to the variations actually observed. Dr. 
Greenwood is fully alive to the necessity of caution 
in accepting statistical conclusions based on the 
material at his disposal, and we give the barest in- 
dication of his results in saying that the rate of 
plague mortality is seen to depend on three factors: 
the length of exposure to infection, the number of 
inhabitants, and the situation of the village. 
Besides some observations on the breeding of Mus 
rattus in captivity, and a summary of some recent 
observations on rat fleas, the report includes an 
interesting account of plague as it occurs in Eastern 
Bengal and Assam. This province has suffered from 
the present epidemic to only a limited extent, and 
the report, which is liberally illustrated by photo- 
graphs, attributes this freedom chiefly to the scarcity 
of rats in the Bengali houses, a scarcity due both to 
the habits of the people and the structure of their 
houses. Two important papers by Dr. Rowland are 
sent from the research laboratory of the Advisory 
Committee, dealing respectively with a _ possible 
improvement in the preparation of plague-serum and 
with some of the problems connected with plague- 
vaccine. From the second of these it appears that it 
may prove practicable to obtain a vaccine of low 
toxicity, but undiminished immunising power, a result 
which if confirmed has a theoretical as well as prac- 
tical significance not confined to plague only, but 
affecting the general question of immunity in in- 
fectious disease. 
FOUR MAMMAL SURVEYS. 
FOUR papers which have recently reached us serve 
to show the energy and vigour with which the 
collecting of mammals is being carried on in various 
parts of the world. If continued at the same rate for 
a few years longer, such surveys ought to go a long 
way towards completing our knowledge of the mam- 
malian fauna of the globe, so far at least as external 
and cranial characters are concerned. 
The first of the four papers is a report on the pro- 
gress of the Indian mammal survey now being carried 
on under the supervision of the Bombay Natural 
History Society, in the Journal of which for October, 
1911, the report is published. Collecting has been 
carried on in Kandesh and the Berars, where about 150 
skins have been obtained. Apparently none of these 
represents new forms, thereby bearing testimony to the 
thorough manner in which collecting (for the most 
NO. 2216, VOL. 89] 
part amateur) has been previously carried on in this 
part of the country. Interesting results in regard to 
the geographical distribution of species and the occur- 
rence of local races are, however, expected in the 
future. 
To vol. iv., parts iii. and iv., of the Journal of the 
Federated Malay States Museums, Mr. C. Boden Kloss 
communicates an account of the results of a recent 
visit to the Trengganu Archipelago in search of mam- 
mals and other vertebrates. The chain of small 
islands, of which Great Redang and the Perkentians 
are the chief, runs at a distance of from seven to 
twelve miles from the coast of the Malay Peninsula 
in a nearly parallel direction for about thirty miles. 
The only previous visit of naturalists to the archi- 
pelago appears to have been made by the members of 
the Skeat expedition in 1899. During an eighteen 
days’ cruise Mr. Kloss obtained thirteen mammals 
which he regards as representing’ new forms; all these 
were named in the Annals and Magazine of Natural 
History for January, 191i. 
The penultimate number of the Proceedings of the 
Zoological Society for 1911 contains the fourteenth 
report by Mr. Oldfield Thomas on mammals from 
eastern Asia, collected with the aid of funds furnished 
by the Duke of Bedford. This particular fasciculus 
deals with mammals from Shen-si, the most interest- 
ing of these being the golden takin (Budorcas bed- 
fordi), to which reference has been previously made — 
in these columns, but the whole survey, despite the fact 
that no strikingly new forms were discovered, has 
vastly increased our knowledge of the mammal fauna 
of Eastern and Central Asia. It is, therefore, a matter 
for regret that it is not to be continued, at all events 
for the present. 
The fourth paper, ‘“‘ Notes on the Mammals of the 
Lake Maxinkuckee Region,’’ by Messrs. B. W. Ever- 
mann and H. W. Clark (Proc. Washington Acad. 
Sci., vol. xiii., pp. 1-34), is of a totally different type 
from the above, dealing solely with the habits and 
environment of the mammals met with during a 
zoological survey of the region, and is an excellent 
sample of the best class of American work of this 
nature. Particular interest attaches to the reappear- 
ance of the opossum in the district, from which it had 
long been absent. Re We 
AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGES. 
qpBe report of the Advisory Committee on the dis- 
tribution of Exchequer grants to universities 
and university colleges in England, appointed by the 
President of the Board of Education last June, has 
now been published [Cd. 6140]. The committee as 
then appointed consists of seven members :—Sir 
W. S. McCormick (chairman), Prof. J. A. Ewing, 
C.B., F.R.S., Sir William Osler, F.R.S., Miss Emily 
Penrose, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir John Rhys, and 
Sir Arthur Ricker, F.R.S., with Mr. G. M. Young 
as secretary. 
The report states that in framing its recommenda- 
tions for the distribution of the Exchequer grant, the 
committee has chiefly had regard to three factors— 
the needs of the several colleges, the amount of local 
support received by each, and the volume and quality 
of their work. 
For the purpose of the present report the members 
of the committee have visited all the colleges coming 
within their purview except Nottingham, in consider- 
ing which the committee had before it the report of 
the recent inspection conducted by the Board of 
Education. As a result of the visits to the various 
institutions, the committee says that the colleges gener- 
