822 



/W/ TURE 



[December 16, 1922 



Research Items. 



Water-si pply in Central Australia. — Recent 

 investigations in the heart of Australia have given 

 it a more promising aspect than it had of old. In 

 1 for December, Mr. O. H. T. Rishbeth, in 

 discussing the economic possibilities of Central 

 Australia, points out thai a considerable area, about 

 150,000 sq. miles, has an average elevation of some 

 2000 ft. and rises to 5000 ft. 111 the Macdonnell and 

 Musgrove ranges. But even in this more elevate! 

 part of the far interior the rainfall seems to be less 

 than 10 in. a year and very uncertain in its occurrence. 

 The future of Central Australia depends on the 

 possibility of securing a satisfactorv water-suppl 

 A great deal could be done by the conservation of 

 surface waters bv means of dams, etc., but sub- 

 terranean water must be the chief source. Many 

 quite shallow wells seem to run freely with good 

 water, but these can scarcely be looked on as in- 

 exhaustible. Artesian wells are promising and the 

 water, though highly mineralised, is valuable for 

 pastoral purposes. When the water-supply is 

 assured and railway communications established, 

 Mr. Rishbeth thinks this region has a future as a 

 pastoral area. The carrying capacity and suita- 

 bility of different parts for various animals must be 

 tested ; rabbits and dingoes must be systematically 

 attacked, and stock routes with permanent wells 

 opened up. Gold, mica, and wolfram are also known 

 to occur, but difficulties of transport as well as lack 

 of water have delayed mining. 



Water in the Kini Coalfield. — The Kent coal- 

 field was revealed by a borehole near Dover in 1890 ; 

 since then no fewer than forty boreholes, comprising 

 upwards of 90,000 feet of boring, have extended our 

 knowdedge of its area and depth. At present the 

 Coal Measures have been penetrated by shafts at only 

 four points ; at no place have they been proved at a 

 less depth than Soo feet below ordnance datum, yet 

 the only important natural difficulty in their exploita- 

 tion is the presence of large quantities of water in the 

 overlying rocks. In a paper recently submitted to 

 the Institution of Civil Engineers on " Underground 

 Waters in the Kent Coalfield and their Incidence in 

 Mining Development," Mr. E. O. Forster Brown has 

 brought together many interesting facts concerning 

 the quantity, quality, and local pressure of the water 

 met with at different horizons, and has made sugges- 

 tions, based on tin- results of his observations, which 

 should prove of value in the development of mining 

 and underground water supply in Kent. In descend- 

 ing order the water-bearing strata overlying the Coal 

 Measures are, the Eocene, Chalk, Lower Greensand, 

 Hastings beds, and estuarine sands of the Great or 

 Inferior Oolite. During the last nine or ten years, 

 2 to 2-J million gallons of water per day have been 

 pumped from Tilmanstone and Snowdown pits from 

 the water-bearing beds below the Chalk. This water 

 is allowed to run off at the surface. The author 

 points out that the main faulting and Assuring follow 

 the direction of the major tectonic folds, and that 

 the water in the Oolite sands is divided into inde- 

 pendent blocks by post-Jurassic faulting; he indi- 

 cates the importance of a knowdedge of this faulting 

 111 mining development. The water in the Oolite 

 sands and in the Carboniferous Limestone below the 

 1 "d Measures probably comes from the French side 

 of the Channel where these roi ks are exposed in the 

 I ioulonnais. 



Ants in relation ro Plants. — Myrmecophytism 



is dominated by the feeding habits of ants and thei 

 offspring. Until these are fully understood, it 

 scarcely possible to grasp the true ecological signifi- 



1 , and the origin of the extreme cases of apparent 



or true symbiosis, between certain ants and certain 

 spei ies of plants. In a recent and very readable 

 publication (" Ants in their Diverse Relations to the 

 Plant World," Bull. Amer. Mus. Xat. Hist, xlv., 1922, 

 PP- 333-583 : extracted from " Ants of the American 

 Congo Expedition," pt. 4), J. Bequaert has brought 

 together the varied and disconnected links of exist- 

 ing knowledge, and a perusal of this work only 

 emphasises how necessary the close co-operation of 

 entomologists and botanists is for the proper inter- 

 pretation of many of the problems. The dispersal 

 of seeds by ants is evidently an important factor in 

 plant distribution. In Europe a greal man} grasses 

 and herbaceous plants rely almost exclusively, or at 

 1 i1 to a large extent, on certain species of ants for 

 the successful dissemination of their seed. The 

 cultivation of fungi by ants is one of the curiosities 

 of biology, but we know that when the female of 

 ASin sexdens starts a new colony, she carries in her 

 infrabuccal pouch a pellet containing fungal h\ T phae, 

 with which to start fungus cultivation. She manures 

 the mycelium until it attains a sufficiently luxurious 

 growth to feed to the larva?. The fungal parasites 

 of ants, and the intracellular bacteria of these 

 insects, also come in for discussion. A large part of 

 the paper is devoted to a review of the myrmeco- 

 phytes of Africa, and there is also included a biblio- 

 graphy of more than 1100 references dealing with 

 ants in relation to plants. 



Researches on Orthoptera and Dermaptera. — 

 Part 3 of the " Faune de France " has recently come 

 i.. hand and is devoted to a description of the Ortho- 

 ptera and Dermaptera of that country. M. Chopard, 

 the author of this fascicule, is a well-known authority 

 on these insects. In a compass of a little more than 

 200 pages he has provided a useful and profusely 

 illustrated systematic handbook on the rich fauna 

 inhabiting France. Mr. Morgan Hebard (Occasional 

 Papers of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, vol. vh., 

 pp. 305-376, pis. xxvi.-xxvii.) revises the species of the 

 same orders of insects inhabiting Hawaii. It appears 

 that the Gryllidae are the richest in species of any 

 family and number 30 kinds, of which 24 are probably 

 native and 6 " adventive." There are no Phasmidae, 

 no native species of Acrididas, and of 16 species of 

 Blattidae only 2 are native. Of the Dermaptera 

 there are 12 species, one half of which are native. 

 In the Annals of the Transvaal Museum (vol o, 

 1922, pp. 1-99, 4 plates), Mr. J. A. G. Rehn describes 

 the Dermaptera and Blattidae of the Transvaal and 

 Natal. In the first-mentioned group only 9 species 

 ,iie in orded and none are new : among the Blattidas 

 there are 73 species of which 24 are new. In the 

 Bulletin 0] Entomological Research, vol. xiii., part 2, 

 n)22, Mr. B. P. Uvarov contributes a study of the 

 grasshoppers of the genus Hieroglyphus and their 

 near 1 allies. They are well known in India as 

 pests of rice and sugar-cane, but hitherto only one 

 species, II banian, has been considered noxious. It 

 appears, however, that several species are probably 

 injurious, and this article is written with the view 

 of aiding in their discrimination and recognition. 



Some Indian Leeches. — In his notes on some 

 Ire, lie-, in the Indian Museum (Rec. Ind. Mus,, xxii. 

 pp. 689-727, December 1921) T. Kaburaki deals with 

 twenty-seven species and makes three new genera. 

 In the single example of Foraminobdella, a new- 

 genus of the Herpobdellidae, found in a stream 111 the 

 Nilgiri District, Madras, the digestive trad opens to 

 the exterior not only at the mouth and anus but also 



NO. 2772, VOL. I io] 



