August i, 1907J 



NA TURE 



t -» -2 



is 2-42 inches, in the norlh-west of England, wliilst tlie 

 greatest deficiency is 117 inches, in the east of England, 

 the measurements being respectively 7-21 inches and 

 2-S8 inches, and the rainy days respectively forty-one and 

 twenty-six. Both the temperature and the sunshine for 

 the summer have, so far, been below the average. 



The e.xperiments which have been in progress in the 

 Congo State for some time past in training the African 

 elephant for domestic work are progressing satisfactorily. 

 During the first three months of the present year, eight 

 young elephants were captured, bringing the stud up to a 

 total of thirty. At first the wild elephants suffer in health 

 on confinement, but this depression soon passes off. 

 Similar experiments arc being made in the British terri- 

 tory of Uganda, but so far the results there are uncertain. 



.^s illustrating further the want of sympathy with 

 scientific research shown by the Indian administrative 

 authorities, to which Prof. Ronald Ross, F.R.S., directed 

 attention in an exhaustive article contributed to our issue 

 of June 13, an Indian correspondent writes concerning the 

 rules of the India Office regulating the supply of apparatus 

 to Government colleges. .According to these rules, our 

 correspondent states, any piece of apparatus of European 

 manufacture — costing more than 3Z. 75. — can only be 

 obtained by requisitioning through the Secretary of State. 

 Requisitions are prepared once a year, and, as a rule, 

 eighteen months elapse between writing a demand and the 

 arrival of the apparatus. It is nearly impossible to foresee 

 everything that may be required during the prosecution 

 of a research, and it happens sometimes that a man of 

 science must wait three years for necessary material. The 

 reasonable contention is made that professors in India 

 should be permitted to spend their laboratory funds them- 

 selves and to deal with manufacturers direct. It is surely 

 not taking too much for granted to suppose that men in 

 responsible positions, who presumably have been selected 

 for their posts with great care, may be trusted to administer 

 their funds honestly and to the best advantage of the 

 institutions with which they are connected. The system of 

 having to requisition scientific instruments and materials 

 a year or more in advance is not confined to India, and it 

 is both discouraging to scientific work and wasteful in 

 practice. 



It is interesting to find that the traditional date 

 assigned to one of the great cycles of national legend is 

 confirmed by independent evidence, and this in the case 

 of the oldest existing literature of any of the peoples who 

 dwelt to the north of the Alps. According to the native 

 annals of Ireland, the Celtic heroes, Conchobar and 

 Cuchulainn, flourished about the beginning of the Christian 

 era, and though some authorities have supposed 

 Cuchulainn to be a degraded Celtic god, there can be no 

 reasonable doubt that he and his uncle lived and fought on 

 earth. This traditional date is supported by the fact, 

 already well recognised by scholars, that, though the 

 poems were at a later date modified by their ecclesiastical 

 transcribers, their spirit is essentially pagan. Prof. 

 Ridgeway, in a paper recently submitted to the British 

 Academy, has approached the problem from the point of 

 view of the archaeologist. From an elaborate investigation 

 of the ethnology of this heroic race, their methods of fight- 

 ing, their use of chariots — unknown to the later Ossianic 

 poems — their arms and armour, and their dress and 

 jewellery, as described in the Cuchulainn Epic, he is able 

 by a comparison of remains of the La T^ne period dis- 

 covered in Ireland to decide that this cycle of culture is 

 here represented ; that, as is asserted in the Irish traditions, 



NO. 1970, VOL. ■; 6] 



a tall, fair-haired, grey-eyed race of Celrs, like those of 

 Britain and the Continent, invaded Ireland in the centuries 

 immediately before the birth of Christ, and that the poems 

 themselves took shape when the La T^ne form of culture 

 was still flourishing in the country, which can hardly 

 have been much later than 100 .^.D. The evidence of 

 tradition and archaeology thus happilv combines to establish 

 the date of this important Saga literature. 



According to the report of the Northumberland Sea- 

 fisheries Committee for the past year, the prospects of the 

 fisheries under its supervision are very satisfactory, the 

 marked falling-off in the products of trawling, which has 

 been so noticeable for many years, having at length given 

 place to a distinct upward tendency. It was discovered 

 some time ago that an extensive migration from the south 

 of female crabs takes place during winter, and it is now 

 ascertained that a similar state of affairs exists in the 

 case of flounders, which travel when fully adult into Scotch 

 waters. Means for extending the mussel-beds of the dis- 

 trict have been carefully sought, but at present with no 

 great success. The main reasons for the unsatisfactory 

 state of the mussel-supply appear to be the crowded con- 

 dition of some of the. beds, the action of storms on others, 

 and the destruction caused by whell<s and starfishes. 



Judging from the report for 190b, the Zoological Gardens 

 at Gi?a, near Cairo, enjoy great popularity among native 

 Egyptians, the number of visitors showing an increase of 

 twenty-five per cent, on the previous year, which was 

 itself a record season. .At the close of last year the 

 gardens contained a remarkably fine collection of .African 

 big game animals, inclusive of six Sudani elephants, nine 

 beisa oryx, three addax, and three kudu. 



The skeleton of a wonderful new horned rodent, 

 ■Epigaulus hatcheri, from the Miocene of Kansas, is de- 

 scribed by Mr. J. W. Gidley in the Proceedings of the 

 U.S. National Museum, No. 1554 (pp. 627-636). The 

 total length of the mounted skeleton in a straight line 

 is about 14 inches. From the allied Ceratcgaulus, the genus 

 differs by the larger and more backwardly directed horns, 

 the reduced molars, and larger premolars. Although pre- 

 senting some resemblances to the beavers and squirrels, 

 it appears to be most nearly related to the sewellels 

 (Haplodontidae). The paper concludes with speculations as 

 to what possible use horns can be to a burrowing animal. 



The porcupines of the Malay Peninsula and .\rchipelago 

 form the subject of a paper by Mr. M. \\'. Lyon in the 

 Proceedings of the L'.S. National Museum, No. 1552 (vol. 

 xxxii., pp. S75~594). '" which the generic grouping is 

 revised and several new forms are described. For the 

 large Malay and Java porcupines, commonly known as 

 Hystrix brachyura and H. javanica, V. Cuvier's genus 

 Acanthion is reinstated. These porcupines differ from the 

 typical Hystrjx by the absence of a nuchal crest, the 

 shorter quills, and much shorter nasal bones in the skull, 

 which extend backwards only so far as the line of the 

 lachrymals, instead of to the hind root of the zygomatic 

 arch. A new species from Sumatra is made the type of 

 a separate genus, as Thecurus sumatrae, differing from 

 Acanthion by the smaller capsule-like extremities of the 

 tail-bristles, often closed at the end, and the smaller 

 quills, which are replaced on the lower part of the rump 

 by grooved spines like those on the back. The remaining 

 species are referred, as before, to the genera Atherura (or 

 .Atherurus) and Trichys. 



From Prof. H. F. Osborn we have received copies of a 

 number of papers published in the Bulletin of the 

 .American Museum of Natural Historv, Science, Sec, from 



