May 2 1,1 908] 



NATURE 



63 



Ihe fourth part of vol. i%'. of the quarterly issue of Smith- 

 sonian Miscellaneous Collections contains an illustrated 

 account, by Mr. R. Arnold, of the shells from the Tertiary 

 oil-bearing- strata of Santa Barbara, California. 



Students of Coleoptera should be interested in a re- 

 vision, by Mr. T. L. Casey, of the tenebrionid beetles of 

 the subfamily Coniontinse, published in the Proceedings of 

 the Washington Academy of Sciences (vol. x., pp. 51-166), 

 where several new generic groups are suggested and 

 named, and also in descriptions, by Mr. W. D. Price, of 

 new weevil-like species of the group Anthonomini, forming 

 No. 1604 of the Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum. 



A LARGE portion of part iii. of vol. Ixxxix. of the Zeii- 

 schrift fur unssenschaftliche Zoologie is occupied by a 

 contribution from Mr. Valentin Dogiel, of St. Petersburg 

 University, entitled " Catenata, eine neue Mesozoen- 

 gruppe." The new group is established for the parasites 

 of the genus Haplozoon, one of which was discovered by 

 the author (as narrated in the Zoologischer Anzeiger for 

 1906) in the intestine of the polychsete worm Travisia 

 forbesi, and the other in that of Clymene lumhricalis, a 

 second member of the same group. The paper is illus- 

 trated by three plates (one partly in colour) showing the 

 structure and development of these remarkable organisms. 



In the course of a paper on the nest of the ringed plover, 

 published in the May number of British Birds, Mr. W. P. 

 Pycraft argues that the commonly accepted theory as to 

 the nesting of the earliest birds does not accord with the 

 structure of Archa3opteryx. Such birds, according to this 

 theory, are believed to have nested in holes in trees, where 

 they laid white eggs. But, urges the author, such a habit 

 would be unsuited to a bird with a long body tail, which, 

 in his opinion, is more likely to have made its nest in 

 some such site as the crown of a tree-fern or a cycad. 

 Is, however, it may be asked, the tail of Archsopteryx 

 likely to have been much more in the way in a nesting- 

 hole than are the tail-feathers of a hornbill? 



Now that Lamarck has received the recognition due to 

 a pioneer of the evolution-doctrine, it is interesting to 

 learn of the existence in Harvard University of a holo- 

 graph manuscript from his pen. This MS., as we gather 

 from a notice contributed by Prof. Bashford Dean to the 

 American Naturalist for March, was written some time 

 previous to 1820, and forms a series of essays and drafts 

 of later work, comprising about ninety folios, of which 

 fifty have writing on both sides. It was presented to 

 Harvard by Prof. A. Agassiz, who appears to have obtained 

 it in Paris in 1906. Prof. Dean gives a summary of its 

 chief contents, together with reproductions of pen-and-ink 

 sketches of micro-organisms and of a holothurian by 

 Lamarck himself. 



The urgency of legislation for the protection of whales 

 and turtles forms the subject of a forcible article by Dr. 

 G. R. Wieland in the May issue of the Popular Science 

 Monthly. The destruction, and in some cases practical 

 extermination, which have resulted from the pursuit of 

 the more valuable species of whales are familiar to all, 

 but it is less well known how serious is the diminution 

 in the number of turtles — edible and otherwise. It is, 

 urges the author in conclusion, " neither Utopian nor 

 impractical to attempt and speedily carry out the measures 

 required for the preservation, not only of land animals, but 

 of all our great animals of the sea. The only element of 

 doubt is whether the volume of sentiment can soon enough 

 make itself felt — in short, whether the race has reached 

 the required culture stage in time." 



NO. 2012, VOL. 78] 



In the Philippine Journal of Science (iii., No. i), Mr. 

 V. K. Ohno gives formulae which express the laws govern- 

 ing agglutination phenomena as regards bacteria and 

 agglutinating sera. The union of agglutinin and agglutin- 

 able substance he regards as a chemical reaction, and not 

 as an absorption phenomenon. 



In the Scientific Memoirs of the Government of India 

 (No. 31), Capt. Patton, I. M.S., details further observations 

 on the tropical disease, kala azar, and its parasite, the 

 Leishman-Donovan body, which, he finds, undergoes a cycle 

 of development in a bed-bug (rotmtdatiis), by the bite of 

 which the disease is presumably communicated. 



Opinion has of late been divided as to whether spiro- 

 chetes belong to the bacteria or to the protozoa. In a 

 paper on the Spirochaeta pallida of syphilis, Krzysztalowicz 

 and Siedlecki definitely class these organisms as protozoa 

 belonging to the Mastigophora, and propose to include them 

 in a new family, the Spirilloflagellata (Bull. Internat. de 

 r.icad. des Sciences de Cracovie, No. 3, 1908). 



To meet the requirements of students and others with 

 small incomes, Mr. C. Baker, of High Holborn, maintains 

 a department for second-hand scientific instruments. The 

 quarterly list recently issued contains as many as ten 

 different sections. All kinds of microscopes and micro- 

 scopic requisites, surveying and drawing instruments, also 

 various pieces of optical and physical apparatus can be 

 inspected and purchased under guarantee as to adjustment. 



The account of floral development and embryogeny in 

 the wheat plant communicated by Mr. A. H. Dudley to 

 the Liverpool Microscopical Society, and published in its 

 thirty-ninth annual report, presents one or two special 

 points of interest. The author obtains similar results to 

 those recorded by Cannon for the megasporangium of 

 Avena in so far that no parietal cell is cut off from the 

 archesporium, and that numerous antipodal cells are pro- 

 duced in the embryo-sac ; the limitation of the suspensor to 

 the primary basal cell and the first divisions in the embryo 

 appear to be similar. 



Two circulars referring to the International Botanical 

 Congress that will be held in Brussels two years hence 

 have been received. The first announces that, in place of 

 the late Prof. Errera, Baron de Moreau, formerly Minister 

 of Agriculture, has consented to become a president of the 

 organising committee, sharing that position with Mr. Th. 

 Durand, and that Dr. E. Wildeman will act as general 

 secretary. The constitution of various local subcommittees 

 is also indicated. The second circular gives the names of 

 the two committees appointed for dealing with crypto- 

 gamic and palaeobotanical nomenclature, and invites ex- 

 pressions of opinion with regard to rules additional to those 

 formulated for phanerogamic plants and generic names 

 that should be maintained in spite of priority rules. 



An editorial in the Indian Forester (March) referring to 

 education and research in India cites the opinions ex- 

 pressed in Nature of January 2 as to the wisdom of 

 appointing professors and teachers who have shown their 

 ability for prosecuting original research ; in this connec- 

 tion, it is urged that the training of Indian foresters should 

 be entrusted to men who have made a special study of 

 forest problems in India. An instructive article on the 

 private and communal forests in Japan is contributed by 

 Sir Frederick Nicholson to contrast conditions with those 

 found in the presidency of Madras. It is estimated that 

 private forests cover 14 million acres, and the communal 

 forests exceed 4 million acres, providing about an acre 



