622 



NA TURE 



[October 17, 1907 



exhibition, and more effective representation of this country 

 at any exhibition in which the Government may decide to 

 take part. 



In the September issue of the Annals and Magazine of 

 Satiiral History, Mr. G. E. Mason describes the remains 

 of a supposed new fruit-bat from Round Island, near 

 Mauritius. The remains, which occur in a guano-deposit, 

 appear, to be very recent, and in the October issue of the 

 same journal they are referred by Dr. K. .Andersen to an 

 existing species. 



Articles on spermatogenesis in the water-beetle 

 (Dyiiscus marginalis), with remarks on the nucleolus, by 

 Mr. W. D. Henderson, Carnegie research fellow at Aber- 

 deen, and on the embryonic development of Taenia serrata, 

 by C. von Janicki, of Basle, appear in Zeitschrift fiir 

 -d'issenschaftliche Zoologie, vol. Ixxxvii., part iv. 



Nos. 1558, 1559, and 1561 of the Proceedings of the 

 V.S. National Museum are devoted to new echinoderms 

 from the North Pacific, Mr. C. L. Edwards describing 

 holothurians in the first of these issues, while free crinoids 

 are discussed by Mr. H. H. Clark in the second and third. 

 .\ttention is directed to the brilliant and varied colouring 

 of the feather-stars of the multicolour group of Antedon, 

 which exceeds that of all other crinoids. For classificatory 

 purposes this colouring is, however, useless. 



The colouring of the interior of the mouths of nestling 

 perching-birds offers, according to Mr. W. P. Pycraft in 

 British Birds, No. 5, an almost unknown field of investi- 

 gation. It is suggested that the bright-coloured mem- 

 branous margins of the gape are intended as a guide to 

 the parents in feeding their offspring; In addition to this, 

 the interior of the mouth in most nestlings is bright 

 yellow, occasionally marked with black (hedge-sparrow) 

 or white (bearded titmouse) spots on the tongue and palate, 

 and it seems that this bright colouring attains its highest 

 development m nestlings reared in deep shade. If this be 

 confirmed, it seems obviously connected with the feeding 

 process. 



The greater part of vol. viii.. No. i, of the Journal of 

 the Marine Biological Association is taken up with de- 

 scriptions of various organisms collected in .August, 1906, 

 by the Huxley during a cruise on the north side of the 

 Bay of Biicay. Among these, the most interesting is a 

 second specimen of Corallium madcrense, this genus of 

 alcyonarians being previously unknown from the area in 

 question. The axis, or " coral," is white, hard, and semi- 

 translucent ; and, although not likely to command a high 

 price, in the opinion of Prof. Hickson, this coral might 

 prove, if found in sufficient quantities, to have a market- 

 able value. 



In an article on the harm caused to the vision of school 

 children by their studies, published in the Popular Science 

 Monthly for July, Prof. W. D. Scott remarks that " the 

 hunfan eye which had been evolved for distant vision is 

 being forced to perform a new part, one for which it 

 had not been evolved, and for which it is poorly developed. 

 The difficulty is being daily augmented. The invention of 

 printing presses has been followed by an increasing number 

 of books, magazines, and daily papers. ... All things 

 seem to be conspiring to make us use our eyes more and 

 more for the very thing for which they arc the most poorly 

 adapted. It requires no prophet to foresee th.at such per- 

 version in the use of an' organ will surely result in a 

 great sacrifice of energy, if not of health and of general 

 efficiency." Certain mitigations of the evil are suggested 

 in the case of young school children. ' 



NO. 1 08 I. VOL. 7b] 



To the October number of the Century Magazine Prof. 

 H. F. Osborn contributes an illustrated article on his 

 experiences in the Fayum district of Egypt while in search 

 of fossil vertebrate remains, with remarks on the nature 

 and origin of the fauna and its bearing on the geographical 

 distribution of mammals. .Among the illustrations, special 

 reference may be made to Mr. C. B. Knight's restorations 

 of Arsinoitherium, Hyaenodon, and Zeuglodon. In Eocene 

 times the Fayum, in the author's opinion, was a savanna 

 country, partly open, partly covered with scrub, and partly 

 with forest, the temperature being much the same as at 

 the present day. That Africa (when much less extended 

 to the north than at present) was the home of the ancestral 

 proboscideans, sea-cows, hyraxes, and probably hyEeno- 

 donts. Prof. Osborn is fully convinced ; but the absence in 

 the Eocene deposits of remains of ancestral hippo- 

 potamuses, ruminants, horses, and rhinoceroses leads to 

 the inference that " none of these quadrupeds had as yet 

 reached .Africa ; that they were evolving elsewhere, either 

 in Europe, .Asia, or North America, and preparing for the 

 great interchange of life which would occur when Africa 

 should again be connected with the other continents." 

 In referring on p. 824 to the emus of New Zealand, the 

 author doubtless intended to write moas. 



In vol. XX., part i., of the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society of Victoria, Prof. R. J. A. Berry reproduces a 

 photograph of an aged half-caste Tasmanian woman, now 

 living on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. She is the 

 daughter. of a pure-bred Tasmanian woman by a European 

 husband, and was born on the island about seventy-five 

 years ago. In colour, as well as in her wide nostrils and 

 mouth, weak chin, and dark eyes, she retains strong 

 evidence of her Tasmanian ancestry, but her hair, although 

 distinctly woolly, has departed somewhat from the 

 aboriginal type. The latter is, however, better displayed 

 in one of her daughters, who is, of course, a quarter-caste. 

 The author believes " Mrs. S." to be the oldest surviving 

 half-caste Tasmanian. Prof. Berry accepts the view that 

 the Tasmanians were a branch of the Papuans, and that 

 they reached Tasmania at an early period across Australia, 

 when the continent had a direct land connection with 

 Tasmania. Various cases have been known along the 

 coasts of southern Australia of hybrids between Australian 

 and Tasmanian aborigines, doubtless due to Tasmanians 

 having been carried across Bass Strait by the sealers. 

 The same number of the Proceedings contains a paper by 

 Messrs. Chapman and Pritchard on fossil fish remains 

 from the -Australian Tertiaries ; it describes seven new 

 species, which are referred to genera which range in time 

 from the Jurassic to the present. There is also the sixth 

 of Prof. Ewart's contributions to the flora of Australia, 

 and a paper by the same author on the movement of the 

 soluble constituents in fine alluvial soils. 



The theoretical articles in the fourth part of vol. v. 

 of Biometrika, issued in September, include a note 

 by Mr. Francis Galton on "grades and deviates," with 

 a table giving the deviations in the normal curve 

 corresponding to assigned percentiles ; this table is due 

 to Mr. W. F. Sheppard, who also contributes a 

 memoir on the calculation of moments. Mr. .A. P. 

 di Cesnola gives an account of an investigation as to 

 the action of natural selection in Helix arbustoruni, by 

 the method of the late Prof. Weldon, shells being ground 

 so as to expose a longitudinal section of the spiral on 

 which measurements can be made, and the frequency dis- 

 tributions compared for the earlier whorls in young and 

 adults. The results show that there is markedly less 



