AUGUST 22, I912| 
NATURE 
641 
Mr. W. Burton contributes to the Journal of the 
Royal Society of Arts for May a paper on ancient 
Egyptian ceramics, which supplies a new theory of 
the formation of this class of ware. Too much atten- 
tion, he believes, has been devoted to the ordinary 
unglazed pottery prepared for domestic use, which 
differs in no degree from the common domestic 
pottery. The case, however, of the ancient glazed 
ware dating from early dynastic or pre-dynastic times, 
with its brilliant turquoise colours of green or blue, 
is quite different. From an analysis of the material, 
he arrives at the startling conclusion that it corre- 
sponds roughly with the analyses of many ordinary 
sandstone and quartzite rocks. He dismisses the sup- 
position that the glazed objects could be made by 
mixing a small amount of clay with a large per- 
centage of sand. These blue or green glazes first 
appear on objects carved from actual stones, and he 
suggests that the ancient Egyptians used some 
natural sandstone from which they carved these 
glazed vessels. He supports this novel theory by the 
reproduction of photographs of slices from vessels 
and rocks tested by the well-known methods of 
microscopic examination with polarised light, &c. 
Sir C. Read, who presided, had some hesitation in 
accepting what he termed ‘‘a thoroughly revolu- 
tionary theory,’’ such as that advanced by Mr. 
Burton, and suggested the necessity for further tests, 
particularly of medizeval Persian ware. © 
To the third part of The Austral Avian Record, the 
editor, Mr. G. M. Mathews, contributes a note on 
the colouring of the neck of the Australian casso- 
wary, and also descriptions of various new subspecies 
of Australian birds. 
No. 2 of vol. xlviii. of the Proceedings of the 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences is devoted to 
an appreciative biography, by Prof. H. P. Walcott, 
of Alexander Agassiz, in which special attention is 
directed to his pioneer work in oceanography and to 
his labours in connection with the Agassiz Museum. 
In order to save them from the torment of flies, a 
writer in the July number of The Animals’ Friend 
suggests that when horses are ‘“‘summered"’ in 
pastures they should be turned out only at night, and 
kept in their stables during the daytime, or at any | 
rate during the hottest hours. 
Tue New York Zoological Society’s Bulletin for July 
contains an illustrated account, by Major Schomburgh, 
of the living specimens of the pigmy West African 
hippopotamus, to which reference was recently made 
inourcolumns. The author confirms previous accounts 
as to the great difference in habits between the pigmy | 
species and its giant cousin, the former frequenting | 
the depths of the forests or the bush on the margin 
of small streams, and not resorting to the rivers and 
lakes. 
Tue latest addition to the list of birds observed in 
the British Islands is the Terelk sandpiper (Terekia 
cinerea), of which four examples were killed 
Romney Marsh, Kent, last May, as recorded in 
Witherby’s British Birds for August. The species 
breeds in north-eastern Europe and northern Siberia 
from western Finland to the Kolyma Valley, and 
NO. 2234, VOL. 89] 
in 
normally passes through eastern Europe and Asia on 
migration to winter in Australia, Malaya, and other 
parts of Asia, or north-eastern, and even southern, 
Africa. 
Mr. J. H. Orton gives an account (Journ. Marine 
Biol. Assoc., vol. ix., No. 3, June, 1912) of the natural 
history and mode of feeding of the ‘‘slipper limpet" 
(Crepidula fornicata), which was introduced into this 
country, along with American oysters, about 1880, 
and has spread rapidly, especially in certain areas, 
e.g. on the Essex coast, where it is over-running the 
oyster-beds. As it takes the same food—microscopic 
organisms, chiefly diatoms—as oysters, it seriously 
depletes the food-supply of the latter. Each Crepidula 
is at first male, but later becomes female, and pro- 
duces in its later life at least 13,000 eggs per year, 
which are carefully protected beneath the shell of 
the parent until they are hatched. The larve are 
free-swimming for about a fortnight, during which 
period they may be borne, by currents, to consider- 
able distances. 
Mr. G. E. BULLEN contributes to the Journal of 
the Marine Biological Association (June, 1912) notes 
on the feeding habits of mackerel in the English 
Channel, and points out that the fish possesses a 
capability for selective feeding which may be ex- 
tended to comparatively minute organisms, when 
these are present in sufficient numbers. This faculty 
causes the fish to seek in greatest numbers water 
supporting the most suitable type of food. The extent 
of inshore migration, and consequently a profitable 
or unprofitable fishery, is therefore dependent largely 
on the planktonic condition of the coastal waters. 
Mr. G. H. Drew describes several cases of new 
growths in fish; for instance, fibro-sarcomata in skate 
and plaice, and an endothelioma of an eel, which was 
similar in the structure, growth, and arrangement 
of its cells to the endotheliomata occurring in man. 
In the Clare Island Survey, part 16 (Proc. Royal 
Irish Acad., vol. xxxi.), Mr. W. West deals with the 
fresh-water algze and the marine diatoms. The dis- 
trict is extremely rich in alge; of fresh-water alow 
there have been collected 769 species, 230 varieties, 
and 40 forms, and of marine diatoms 118 species, 
24 varieties, and 6 forms. The recent investigation 
has resulted in extending the known distribution of 
a large number of species, in adding 157 species to 
the number already known for Ireland, 19 species to 
those known for the British Isles, and in the dis- 
covery of 6 new species, 27 new varieties, and 7 new 
forms. One of the most remarkable results was the 
discovery of an interesting species of blue-green alge, 
Eucapsis alpina; this monotypic genus was previously 
known only from one locality in Colorado, and affords 
a striking instance of extension of range. Some 
interesting associations of alga are enumerated, the 
most notable feature of which is the fact that ‘‘the 
lists of species vary considerably, though obtained 
from similar pools with similar surrounding in- 
fluences.”’ 
Dr. Marre C. Stopes has published a remarkably 
interesting paper (Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., Series B, 
vol. cciii.) on petrifactions of the earliest European 
