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en 
APRIL 25, 1912] 
NATURE 
197 
7 if 
savage races little attention seems to be paid to the | 
kidneys, save among some of the Australian tribes,” 
and further evidence on this point from observers of 
savage life is much to be desired. 
In the third part of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore 
Society for the current year Miss E. Lyster gives 
an interesting account of the custom of marriage over 
the broomstick which prevails among some branches 
of the tribe in this country and other parts of Europe. 
The editor suggests that as in many places the besom 
is supposed to be an efficient instrument for scaring | 
ghosts from the house, the stepping over it is prob- 
ably a method of getting rid of their undesirable 
attentions. Others, again, are inclined to believe 
that, being specially used by women, its employ- 
ment at marriage points to a stage of belief when 
mother-right was in force. Others suggest that the 
object of the bride stepping over it at marriage is 
to promote her fertility by associating her with the 
productive spirit of the tree from the branches of 
which it is made. Prof. Frazer in the second part 
of the new edition of ‘‘ The Golden Bough”’ describes 
the belief that harm is done to a person or thing by 
stepping over him or it. This, however, seems to 
depend on a train of thought different from that on 
which the Gypsy custom rests, and the exact ex- 
planation of the latter is still obscure. 
WE have been favoured with a copy of the first part 
of an illustrated account, in Spanish, of the ‘ micro- 
fauna,” that is to say, the fresh-water plankton fauna, 
of the Argentine Republic, by Dr. J. M. de la Rua, 
published under the auspices of the National Uni- 
versity of Buenos Aires by J. H. Kidd and Co. of that 
city. This part is devoted to protozoans. 
One remarkable result of the collecting cruise of 
the Siboga in the Indo-Malay Archipelago was the 
extraordinary number of new forms of free crinoids 
discovered. These were handed over to Mr. A. H. 
Clark, of the museum at Washington, by whom no 
fewer than twenty new species—one of which is re- 
ferred to a new genus—belonging to the families 
Antedonidz and Atelecrinidz are described in vol. 
xxxiv., No. 2, of Notes from the Leyden Museum. 
ArTICLES on the proposed new library and art 
gallery at Manchester, and the London Museum in 
Kensington Palace, form the leading features of the 
April number of The Museums Journal. From the 
former it appears that the original intention was to 
erect the new building on the site of the old infirmary 
in Piccadilly, Manchester, and the article contains 
reproductions of the designs which have been accepted 
on that understanding. An alternative site has, how- 
ever, been suggested, which would seem to require 
a building of a different type; and until the question 
of site is definitely decided, no further progress in 
the matter can be made. The estimated cost of the 
building approved for the Piccadilly site is 250,000l. 
; BULLETIN No. gt of the U.S. Bureau of Entomology 
(U.S. Department of Agriculture) contains a detailed 
account by Messrs. L. O. Howard and W. F. Fiske 
of the attempts made to check the increase of the 
NG3 2217, VOL. 89] 
| Destructive Earthquakes from A.D. 7 
| trict in which observations were taken. 
gipsy moth (Porthetria dispar) and the brown-tail 
moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea) by importation into 
the United States of their parasites and natural 
enemies from Europe. The task was much more 
arduous than was anticipated at the beginning, and 
a great deal of original research upon the enemies 
of the two moths had to be undertaken in order to 
deal with the problem intelligently. It was found 
that the rapid dispersion of the introduced species 
necessitated the liberation of larger and stronger 
colonies than had been contemplated. It is hoped, 
however, that an efficient and automatic control of 
the gipsy moth in the United States will be obtained 
by 1916. The report is fully illustrated, and is a 
valuable contribution to the bionomics of insects as 
well as an object-lesson in methods of dealing with 
a serious economic problem. 
In 1895 Prof. Milne published his great catalogue 
of 8331 earthquakes recorded in Japan during the 
years 1885-92, the analysis of which has thrown con- 
siderable light on the distribution of earthquakes 
both in space and time. He has now further in- 
creased the debt of seismologists to him by compiling, 
at the cost of several years’ labour, a ‘‘ Catalogue of 
to A.D. 1899,” 
a memoir of nearly a hundred pages issued under the 
| auspices of the Seismological Committee of the 
British Association. Though containing only half as - 
many entries as the earlier volume, its value, it may 
be anticipated, will be even greater. Being con- 
fined to shocks of an intensity sufficient to damage 
buildings, it deals with those movements which are 
of chief consequence in the moulding of the earth’s 
crust. An analysis of the catalogue for different 
| epochs should reveal to us some of the laws which 
govern the distribution of seismic energy within 
extensive regions, such, for instance, as the Pacific 
coast of the American continent. 
Herr Fritz Kiurte contributes to the Berichte der 
_ naturforschender Gesellschaft (Freiberg in Breisgau, 
Band xix., Heft i., rg11) a paper on “ Die Schneereste 
_ der Schwarzwalder im Friihsommer und die Bezieh- 
ungen ihrer Lage zu den Stellen ehemaliger 
Vergletscherung.”’ After the heavy snows which fell 
on the Schwarzwald during the winter of 1906-7, it 
occurred to Prof. L. Neumann to send round inquiries 
| as to the times and places where it lingered longest. 
These brought him 182 forms duly filled up, which 
he placed in Herr Klute’s hands to work out. He 
obtained others for the winter of 1910, which brought 
the number up to 230. In this paper he gives a 
sketch of the geology and physical structure of the 
Schwarzwald, with a separate discussion of each dis- 
The dura- 
tion of the snow depends chiefly on height and 
meteorological conditions (sunshine, warm winds, and 
rain being favourable to removal), and a useful map 
shows the contour lines, stations, and traces of former 
glaciers in the southern Schwarzwald. Here, out, of 
128 places of observation, only 21 have no connection 
with these traces; in the central region as many as 
49 out of 62, and in the northern 14 out of 40. In 
the last the snowfall appears to be heavier than in 
