668 
NATURE 
[AuGUST 29, 1912 
Tue Royal Statistical Society has just published a 
report of its special committee which was appointed 
to inquire into the system adopted in different countries 
for the registration of births (including stillbirths) 
and deaths with reference to infantile mortality. The 
information collected is both extensive and abundant, 
and the practices of various nations in reference to 
this question appear to be almost as numerous as the 
nations themselves. There is even difference of 
opinion with regard to the exact meaning of the word 
“stillbirth.” It is not, however, possible for us to 
summarise all these details, and those of our readers 
interested in statistical methods in general, and the 
question of infantile mortality in particular, should 
procure the report. The main conclusion arrived at 
by the committee is that stillbirths should be tabulated 
separately. If this is done, the present basis of cal- 
culation for mortality in infants will be altered and 
the tables will be thus rendered much more satis- 
factory and trustworthy. 
In the Victorian Naturalist, vol. xxix., p. 43, Mr. 
J. Mahony records the occurrence of remains of the 
Tasmanian devil on the sandhills near Warrnambool, 
Victoria, in association with bones and teeth of man 
and other mammals. The occurrence of Sarcophilus 
ursinus on the Australian mainland at a very recent 
epoch is thus conclusively proved. 
To the August number of The American Naturalist 
Mr. H. W. Fowler contributes an illustrated article 
on some features of the ornamentation in fresh- 
water fishes, as exemplified by the development of 
tubercles on the head, or head and back, of males of 
the families Cyprinide (minnows) and Catostomatide 
(suckers) during the breeding season. These tubercles 
may develop in young fishes, provided they are sexually 
mature, as well as in adults, but in other instances 
adult fishes may breed without the tubercles 
appearing. 
AccorpInG to an illustrated guide-book by Mr. T. 
Sheppard, Hull has established in the Pickering Park 
an exhibition devoted to the whaling trade formerly 
carried on from that port, as well as to matters con- 
nected with sea-fisheries and shipping in general. It 
is stated that the first whaler from Hull appears to 
have left that port for Arctic whaling in 1598, or 
only four years later than the first English vessel 
which sailed to hunt the Greenland whale. About 
the middle of the nineteenth century the industry 
began to wane; and the famous Hull whaler Truelove, 
which in her time had taken about 500 whales, made 
her last whaling voyage in 1868. The building in 
which the exhibition is contained is the gift of Mr. 
C. Pickering. 
Tue current number of the Archiv fiir Zellforschung 
(Bd. 8, Heft 4) contains a very interesting memoir by 
Dr. Henri Hoven dealing with the structure and 
function of glandular cells. 
of ‘“chondriosomes,”’ filamentous bodies which 
occur in the cytoplasm and exhibit characteristic 
staining reactions. The author considers that these 
bodies are identical with the chondriosomes described 
by Meves in embryonic cells. The latter are believed 
NO. 2235, VOL. 89| 
the 
The paper treats especially | 
to be essentially formative bodies, at the expense ot 
which myofibrilla, neurofibrilla, and other cell struc- 
tures are differentiated. In glandular cells they are the 
active agents in the formation of the secretion, being, 
in some cases at any rate, actually broken up into 
the secretion granules. It seems probable that they 
have the power of multiplying by division. The author 
concludes that the bodies described by various observers 
as existing in glandular cells, under the terms vegeta- 
tive filaments, basal filaments, ergastoplasm, ergas- 
tidions, and chondriosomes, are all one and the same 
thing. 
AmoncG the publications we have recently received 
through the courtesy of the director of Kew Gardens, 
mention may be made of appendix ii. and appendix iii. 
to the Kew Bulletin for 1912; the former contains a 
list of additions to the library at Kew during the 
year 1911, and the latter a list of new garden plants 
introduced last year. Of greater general interest is 
the new edition, just published, of the popular six- 
penny Official Guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens, 
containing above a hundred pages of descriptive 
matter, interesting and plainly worded so as to be of 
value to the general public as well as to botanical 
students, with a small but admirably clear key-plan of 
the gardens. 
Mr. A. G. Tanstey, of Cambridge University, has 
contributed to The Gardeners’ Chronicle (Nos. 1336-8) 
an account of the vegetation of the forests of Provence, 
with seven excellent photographic illustrations. In 
his series of three articles, forming one of the most 
interesting of the purely botanical papers which have 
appeared recently in this journal, the author points 
out that. within a space of about thirty miles all 
transitions may be traced between the typical Mediter- 
ranean coast vegetation and that of the high Alps. 
Since the underlying rock is almost everywhere lime- 
stone, the main factors differentiating the vegetation 
are climatic, and correspond with a decrease of tem- 
perature and an increase of moisture in passing from 
the low hills of the coast to the high mountains of 
the Maritime and Provengal Alps. The influence of 
aspect upon the vegetation is very striking, the cooler 
and moister northern slopes frequently bearing quite 
a different flora from that of the sunny southern 
slopes. The author distinguishes and describes four 
main forest zones: (i) the Mediterranean types of 
Pinus halepensis and P. maritima, with Quercus suber 
locally; (ii) a belt in which Quercus pubescens, a 
deciduous oalx allied to Q. sessiliflora, is 
dominant; (iii) a belt of Scots pine extending into 
the subalpine region; (iv) forest composed of Picea 
excelsa and larch which form the uppermost belt, at 
least on northern slopes. The zonation is exceedingly 
well marked on the whole, though the four zones are, 
of course, much influenced by aspect, and there is a 
good deal of mingling in the transitional zones. 
closely 
WE have recently received the Meteorological Report 
of the Survey Department of Egypt for the year 1909. 
Although somewhat belated, owing presumably to the 
careful discussion of so large an amount of data, a 
few general remarks will probably be of interest. 
The report is divided into two parts, as before: (1) 
