June 13, 1912] 
NATURE 375 
Ancient Types of Man. By Prof. A. Keith. 
Pp. xix+ 151. 
and Bros., 1911.) Price 2s. 6d. net. 
In this little book Prof. Keith gives a most in- 
| 
(London and New York: Harper | 
teresting account of the known fossil remains | 
of man, and enlivens his pages by numerous allu- 
sions to the circumstances in which the various 
discoveries were made. He begins by referring 
to the skeletons of comparatively recent date, 
which differ in no essential respects from those 
of existing men; and he then gradually works 
backwards through the Neanderthal type until he 
reaches the primitive Pithecanthropus. His 
descriptions are not only interesting, but are also 
important as being based in many cases on per- 
sonal observation; and they are illustrated by a 
series of original drawings, in which overlapping 
outlines and tints are ingeniously used to facilitate 
comparisons. 
The limits of space necessarily tend to a some- 
what dogmatic style, especially when referring to 
the geological age of the different specimens; and 
we miss the scientific caution so conspicuous in 
the pioneer writings of Lyell and Boyd Dawkins, 
of which Prof. Keith curiously makes no mention. 
It is clear that the human frame in its present 
form is of immense antiquity, but it is far from 
certain that it arose at a period so remote as a 
casual reader might infer from Prof. Keith’s well- 
written story. ING Sh Wile 
University of London. Francis Galton Labora- 
tory for National Eugenics. Eugenics Labora- 
tory Memoirs, xv., “Treasury of Human 
Inheritance.” Parts vii. and viti., Section xva., 
“ Dwarfism.” By Dr. H. Rischbieth and Amy 
Barrington. Pp. xi+355-573+plates li—Iviii, 
O-Z, AA-WW. (London: 
Ltd, z912:) Price 15s. net. 
Parts vii. and viii. of “The Treasury of Human 
Inheritance” consist of a monograph on 
dwarfism by Dr. H._ Rischbieth 
Amy Barrington. Failure to reach a normal 
stature may be due to Achondroplasia, Ateleiosis, 
to lesions of the thyroid gland, or to rickets. 
Achondroplasic dwarfs have a trunk of approxi- 
mately normal size and very short limbs, while in 
the ateleiotic the proportions are almost normal, 
the condition being one of arrested or retarded 
development. Heredity plays a part in the causa- 
tion of both these conditions, though the actual 
transmission of the defect is uncommon for the 
following reasons. Achondroplasia is much more 
common in women than in men, and in achondro- 
plasic women the malformation of the pelvis 
renders normal childbirth impossible. Delivery of 
a living child must be by Cesarean section, and 
most of the children are either born dead or die 
soon after birth. In the ateleiotic, the sexual 
organs are rarely normally developed, so that 
sterility is the usual condition; exceptions, how- 
in this volume shows the birth of an ateleiotic 
son to a father of a similar character and an 
achondroplasic mother. The grandfather was 
probably also ateleiotic. 
NO. 2224, VOL. 89| 
| imagines. 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 
opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 
can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 
the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 
this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 
taken of anonymous communications. | 
The Distastefulness of Danaida (Anosia) plexippus. 
REFERRING to Mr. A. M. Banta’s letters on the 
above subject (NATURE, December 21, 1911, and May 
9, 1912), it seems strange that a writer who professes 
to prove “ positively that our [viz N. American] 
birds do not eat butterflies to an appreciable extent ” 
should make no reference to the one memoir in 
which all the available evidence on the subject up to 
1909 has been collected together— Birds as a Factor 
in the Production of Mimetic Resemblances among 
Butterflies”’ (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1909, pp. 
329-83). Mr. Banta writes very dogmatically, 
although he has made no attempt, or at least no 
successful attempt, to consult the literature of the 
subject of which he professes to treat. 
In Mr. Guy A. K. Marshall’s paper above referred 
to, records of the attacks of birds upon butter- 
flies in the Nearctic region are to be found on 
pp. 373-9, although it is right to point out that the 
numerous definite statements of one observer, Gentry, 
_ have been severely criticised since the appearance of 
| Mr. Marshall’s paper, and apparently in consequence 
of the publicity they attained in that paper. 
Omitting these, there remains a considerable body 
of positive evidence, from which I will only quote two 
examples. I choose the first (p. 379) because’ it 
bears so obviously upon Mr. R. I. Pocock’s results, 
and indicates that experiments upon birds in confine- 
ment are not so untrustworthy as Mr. A. M. Banta 
The late Mr. C. V. Riley recorded that 
“Mr. Otto Lugger, of Chicago, while on the U.S. 
Lake Survey, once saw a bird dart after an archippus 
| (=plexippus) butterfly, seize it, and immediately drop 
Dulau and Co., | 
and Miss | 
| successful attempts to close upon the insect. 
it without devouring the body” (‘Third Missouri 
Report,” 1871, p. 169, note). 
The second observation (p. 377) bears on Mr. 
Banta’s assumption that birds could quite easily 
catch butterflies if they so desired. Prof. C. B. 
Davenport, of Cold Spring Harbor, states that :— 
‘““On Center Island, in the town of Oyster Bay 
[U.S.A.], in August, 1902, I saw a_ king-bird 
(Tyrannus tyrannus) chase a Colias. I stood still 
and watched it for nearly a minute. It seemed to 
have great difficulty in getting the insect, and I 
could hear the beaks snap in the air in their un- 
The 
| persistence of the bird and the difficulty of the opera- 
tion of catching the butterfly impressed me very 
much at the time.” 
It is certainly true that a complete and perfect 
series of observations upon the preferences of a single 
individual has only very rarely been made upon birds 
in the wild state. One such happy chance occurred 
on January 12 last to Mr. S. A. Neave, travelling 
entomologist in East Africa of the Entomological 
Research Committee of the Colonial Office, and he 
gave an account of it at the meeting of the Entomo- 
logical Society on May 1. Mr. Neave watched, from 
a distance of three or four yards, a wagtail (probably 
Motacilla capensis) catching and eating butterflies 
ever, do occur, and one of the pedigrees recorded | settled on the damp sand in the bed of a forest 
stream at Gabunga’s, about seven miles north-west 
of Entebbe. In twenty-five minutes the bird ate 
eighteen Lyczenide (‘‘blues”) and one Terias (a 
yellow black-margined Pierine). It also seized, but 
immediately rejected, an Acreea (A. pelasgius), which 
