qo 



NA TURE 



[July 



1922 



Research Items. 



English Gypsy Christian Names. — In the second 

 part of vol. i. of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore 

 Society, which has been revived under promising 

 auspices, is a contribution by Mr. E. O. Winstedt on 

 English Gypsy Christian names. This question has 

 hitherto been inadequately treated, and in this 

 branch of Gypsy lore, as in others, there has been a 

 tendency to confine attention too exclusively to 

 and to regard them as more peculiar than 

 they really are. But recent research tends to show 

 that many of their customs, superstitions, folk-tales, 

 and peculiarities of dress are borrowed from the 

 Gorgios among whom they have lived. It is only by 

 foraging among parish registers and similar docu- 

 ments that the remarkable examples collected l'\ 

 Mr. Winstedt can be discovered. Many are certainly 

 of foreign origin, having been brought with them by 

 gj psies as a relic of their travels, and the frequency of 

 Greek names indicates a survival of their sojourn in 

 Greek-speaking countries. Others, again, seem to 

 be English names extensively modified by settlers in 

 this country. These have been traced with much 

 research and ingenuity, and the interest of Mr. 

 Winstedt's paper to philologists and ethnologists is 

 obvious. 



Social Economics in the Philippine Islands. — 

 The relation of religious beliefs and economics to the 

 environment is well illustrated by an important 

 memoir on the Ifugao, who inhabit one of the most 

 isolated districts in the Philippines. They have 

 practically no foreign market for their products, and 

 for their imports they must pay middlemen's profits 

 three or four times over as well as high transport 

 charges. They live in a series of mountain valleys, 

 and this isolation leads to hostility between the 

 groups. The country is fertile, but the climate most 

 uncertain, the latter directly affecting crops and 

 health, and indirei tlv, it has been a factor which the 

 writer (Mr. R. F. Barton, University of California 

 Publications on Archa-ology and Ethnology, vol. xv. 

 No. 5) calls " one of the richest religions in the world," 

 for in order to obtain the favour of good weather and 

 consequent good crops, the Ifugao performs a round 

 of religious feasts, the provision of animals for which 

 is the principal economic motive in his life. The un- 

 certainty of the climate causes much disease, and 

 expensive religious feasts must be given to relieve 

 sickness. " The wealth of the religion has arisen 

 from the variation of climate and the rough and 

 dangerous nature of the mountains, and the perils 

 of the torrents and the landslides. Religion is a great 

 factor, the greatest by far in the commercial activities 

 of the tribe and in the economic activities of the male 

 Ifugao." This survey of an isolated tribe living under 

 special conditions which promote isolation and super- 

 stition, is most instructive. 



Parasitology in S. Africa. — In the South African 

 Joui nil of Si ience, vol. xviii., 1921, among the reports 

 of papers read at the South African Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, we note Dr. A. Porter's 

 abstract on the lite-histories of some trematodes, 

 including the two African species of Bilharzia infect- 

 ing in. mi ami the liver fluke of sheep, the intermediate 

 hosts of which in S. Africa have been ascertained. 

 Prof. H. B. Fantham records observations on parasitic 

 protozoa in S. Africa, including an Entamoeba — 

 believed to be new — from the hoi 



Myriapoda. — The attention of workers on this 

 class may be directed to two recently published 

 papers — one by Mr. H. W. Brolemann in Proc. R. 



NO. 2750, VOL. I IO] 



Soc. Edinburgh, vol. 42, 1922, on material collected 

 by Capt. W. E. Evans during the Mesopotamia 

 campaign, comprising 17 species, and by Mr. R. V. 

 Chamberlin, in Proc. I'.S. Xat. Mus., vol. 60, art. 7, 

 1921, on the centipedes of Central America. 



Cretaceous Fossil Reptiles ix India. — Dr. C. A. 

 Matley, whose services were lent to the Military 

 Accounts Department in India during the later 

 stages of the war, took the opportunity of mapping 

 in detail around the cantonment of Jubbulpore the 

 cretaceous formations locally known as the Lameta 

 beds, winch are found underlying the great spread 

 of trap-tlows in the Central Provinces. In a paper 

 published in the Records of tin' Geological Survey 

 of India (vol. lhi.. Part 2), Dr. Matley shows that in 

 this area the Lametas and trap-flows follow in 

 conformable succession above the so-called J ubbul- 

 pore group of the Gondwana system of freshwater 

 beds. Accepting for the Lametas an age of albian 

 to cenomanian, based on correlation with the marine 

 cretaceous beds of western India, the lowest trap- 

 flows are probably not younger than middle 

 cretaceous, while the Jubbulpore group, which was 

 regarded by Feistmantel on palreo-botanical evidence 

 as middle Jurassic, should now be included in the 

 cretaceous system. Dr. Matley's work thus tends 

 to restrict the stratigraphical range previously 

 accepted for these associated formations, and his 

 observations, which were necessarily hurried in 

 places through official duties of an entirely different 

 sort, indicate the desirability of making a detailed 

 re-examination of the strata immediately below and 

 intercalated with the Deccan trap-flows in the 

 Central Provinces of India. The Lameta beds are 

 famous as having yielded the fossil bones on which 

 Lydekker founded the dinosaurian genus Titano- 

 saurus. Dr. Matley, in the course of his work, 

 collected further vertebrate remains from previously- 

 known localities and discovered some new occurrences. 

 The locality from which General Sleeman, the famous 

 suppressor of " thuggy," first obtained fossil bones 

 in 1828 has been explored systematically with the 

 help of officers lent by the Geological Survey of 

 India, and a large quantity of fresh material has 

 now been obtained, including about 5000 scutes as 

 well as some hundreds of bones, winch will certainly 

 yield results on critical examination of the greatest 

 palaeontological interest. 



The Structure of Rockall. — In June last year 

 Dr. J. B. Charcot, cruising in the Pourquoi Pas-', 

 visited the little-known island of Rockall, which lies 

 some joo miles west of the Hebrides. One of his 

 chief aims was to obtain rock samples in the hope 

 of throwing further light on the origin of this 

 curious rock. In this Dr. Charcot was successful, and 

 to an account of his experiences in La Geograplne for 

 May id--, is added M. A. Lacroix's report on the 

 geological collections. The prevailing rock of the 

 island is a coarse-grained aegirine granite of a some- 

 what unusual but not unique type. The so-called 

 rockallite which was described by I 'rot. J. W. Judd 

 some twenty-five years ago, turns out to be relatively 

 rare. It is a fine grained rock with more aegirine 

 than the normal granite, and 11 0( t urs only in patches. 

 Previous to Dr. Charcot's visit the only rock specimens 

 from the island were rockallite. All the rocks contain 

 elpidite, which is known also in certain beds in Green- 

 land. Dredgings in the vicinity of Rockall brought 

 to light basaltic rocks, probably the remains of a 

 submerged plateau o\ basalt, as wa suggested some 



