NA TURE 



[September 2, 1922 



Research Items. 



Child Sacrifice at Carthage. — Historical evi- 

 dence goes to show that the sacrifice of children to the 

 Mother Goddess was not infrequent. Two French 

 archaeologists, M. Pouissote and M. Lautier, engaged 

 in exploring the ruins of ancient Carthage, have un- 

 earthed in front of an altar near a temple of Tanit 

 three vaults containing the charred bones of new-born 

 babies and children from two to three years of age. 

 The archaeologists believe that to the left of the altar 

 was a stone slab with a bronze grill, under which 

 burnt a fierce fire, and here the naked bodies of the 

 first-born were offered in accordance with the ancient 

 rites which were regularly practised from the sixth or 

 seventh centuries before the Christian era until the 

 destruction of Carthage by the Romans. Others, 

 however, believe that it was customary for the 

 parents to reclaim the remains of sacrificed children, 

 and that the bones now found, a gruesome pile 15 

 feet high, are the remains of sacrificed children placed 

 by their parents under the protection of the all- 

 powerful Tanit. 



A Polynesian Museum. — The Bernice Pauahi 

 Bishop Museum at Honolulu, Hawaii, was founded 

 in 1889, by her husband, Charles Reed Bishop, as a 

 memorial of Princess Pauahi, the last of the Kam- 

 chamcha family of the chiefs of Hawaii. It is devoted 

 to the study of Polynesian and kindred antiquities, 

 ethnology, and natural history. Besides the material 

 from Polynesia and other Pacific islands, that from 

 Hawaii is the largest and most important. A large 

 staff of experts is employed in research and the 

 collection of specimens, which are of large and in- 

 creasing value. The Museum has recently published 

 a useful collection of proverbial savings of the Tongans, 

 compiled by Messrs. E. E. V. Collocott and J. Havea. 

 which, in addition to its value to students of proverbs 

 and linguists, contains a number of useful notes on the 

 folk-lore and customs of the people. 



Head-hunting in Assam. — Mr. L. H. Hutton, the 

 author of two important works on the Angami and 

 Sema Nagas, contributes a paper to the August issue 

 (it Man on the method in which the heads of 

 vii tuns are decorated and divided. In addition to 

 complete skulls adorned with mithan or buffalo 

 horns, or with wooden imitations of these, many 

 houses had trophies hung up in which the skull was 

 only partly human, the taker having got only a 

 share of the head. In such cases the rest of the head 

 is made of wood, or the skull of an animal, such as a 

 pig, while in another the missing half was ingeniously 

 fabricated from two skulls of the black gibbon 

 (Hylobate* huluk), making the skull look as if it had 

 three eyes. The object of the horns is said to be ^o 

 prevent the dead man hearing the call of his friends 

 searching for him, as, if his soul were to go to them, 

 it would instigate them to revenge, whereas if it 

 remain with the taker of the head, it lures its late 

 relations to put themselves within reach of the 

 possessor of the head, and lose their own to him as 

 well. Some Ao villages used to attain the same end 

 by stringing the skull of one of their own dogs above 

 the skull of their enemy. The soul of the dog made 

 -ikIi a barking whenever the strange relations of the 

 dead man came within call of him that he never 

 heard them imploring his soul to return. 



Humpback Whale from the Miocene of Cali- 

 fornia. — How often does it happen that what proves 

 to be a valuable fossil becomes irretrievably damaged 

 before its importance is recognised. This appears 



Nl 1. 2757, VOL. I IO] 



to have been the case with a specimen of Megaptera 

 from the Miocene Diatomaceous earth of Lompoc, 

 California. The remaining incomplete skull has been 

 studied by R. Kellogg (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. 

 lxi., art. 14), who points out that the discovery of 

 this Miocene member of the Mystacoceti gives addi- 

 tional force to the views of those who have advocated 

 the great antiquity of the Cetacea, for so highly 

 specialised a form occurring in strata of this age 

 affords further evidence for assuming that the evolu- 

 tion of the Cetacea has taken a longer period than 

 heretofore considered plausible. A careful detailed 

 description, illustrated bv plates and text figures, 

 completes this paper on Megaptera miocesna, n. sp. 



Phylogeny of Ochetoceras. — The Ammonite 

 genus Ochetoceras, belonging to the family Har- 

 poceratidae, is confined to the Lusitanian, Kim- 

 meridgian, and Portlandian divisions of the Upper 

 Jurassic and was derived from the Middle Jurassic 

 Oppelia. The numerous species, according to 

 Marjorie O'Connell (Bull. Amer. Mus. Na.t. Hist., 

 vol. xlvi.), are found to fall into three phyletic series : 

 those of (1) Ochetoceras arolicum, (2) O. liispidum, 

 and (3) O. canicalatum. The relations of the European 

 species of the first series and the Mexican and Cuban 

 of the other two are here set forth for the first time. 

 These relationships are shown in a series of tables 

 and the various species discussed and described. 

 In all three series the same orthogenetic trends in 

 development are traceable and consist in : (a) A 

 progressive diminution in the ratio of width to 

 height of whorl and width of whorl to diameter ; (b) 

 a progressive diminution in the coarseness of the 

 costae ; (c) the branching of the primary costae at 

 their ventral ends, and finally, (d), the branching of the 

 intercalated costae, or striae. 



Eocene Mollusca and Foraminifera from 

 Nigeria. — For some years past scattered informa- 

 tion has been obtained concerning the Tertiary 

 fossils of Nigeria, and some of the Vertebrata have 

 been described, but there yet existed a considerable 

 amount of unpublished material. This through the 

 auspices of the- Geological Survey of Nigeria (estab- 

 lished in 1919) is now being collected for publication, 

 and the Survey's third Bulletin is devoted to the 

 Eocene Mollusca, described bv R. Bullen Newton, 

 with an appendix on the Foraminifera by E. 

 Heron-Allen and A. Earland. It is no slight on 

 the eminent authors of the Appendix to say that it 

 is necessarily mainly a list of species, since the sample 

 submitted to them was small. It is of interest, how- 

 ever, to note the almost complete absence of the 

 characteristic Eocene genus Nummulites. The bulk 

 of the paper is devoted to the description of the 

 Mollusca, and great credit is due to Mr. Bullen Newton 

 for the excellent way in which this is done. In all, 

 seventy-three species are described and of these more 

 than half are definitely new and worthy of better 

 illustration than seemingly could be given them. 

 The results of Mr. Newton's study of these Nigerian 

 Mollusca are exceedingly interesting ; for he is able 

 to show that the fauna is of Middle Eocene or Lutetian 

 origin, and that some of the forms are closelv allied 

 to, if nut identical with, British examples from the 

 same geological horizon ; that others agree with 

 species occurring in the Upper Mokattam Beds of 

 Egypt ; while yet others have affinities with fossils 

 from the Middle Eocenes of Alabama. Among these 

 last is a representative of the genus Bulbifusus, 

 hitherto known only from America. Truly a strange 

 linking together in past ages of remote parts of the 



