July 30, 1908J 



NA TURE 



503 



best essay on " galvanism " (i.e. animal electricity) by 

 the Bologna Academy, the last date of entry being May 

 26, 1909 ; and one of 20!. for the best work on the 

 mineralogy of Vesuvius, offered by the Naples Academy, 

 for which essays have to be sent in not later than June 

 30, 1909. In either case the essays may be in Latin, 

 French, or Italian, and must be sent in under a nom de 

 plume, the author's name being- enclosed in a sealed 

 envelope. 



The Italian Geographical Society (Rome, 102 Via del 

 Plebiscito) offers a prize of 200/. for the best original work 

 by an Italian author on economic geography, i.e. geo- 

 graphy studied in its relations with commerce, emigration, 

 and colonisation, with special reference to Italian economic 

 requirements. 



Mr. W. T. Lynn has kindly sent us the following answer 

 to the inquiry of a correspondent as to why June 24 is 

 called Midsummer Day : — " Our ancestors decided that the 

 quarter-days should be the sacred or holy days nearest 

 to the four astronomical quarters, that is, .the two solstices 

 and the two equinoxes. So the four quarter-days are 

 March 25 (Lady Day), June 24 (St. John the Baptist's Day), 

 September 29 (St. Michael and All Angels' Day), and 

 December 25 (Christmas Day). As the June quarter (St. 

 John the Baptist's Day) was so near Midsummer, it 

 acquired the name of Midsummer Day. If it be further 

 asked why June 24 was St. John the Baptist's Day, it is 

 that it means the day of his birth, and it would appear 

 from Luke i. 26 that this was a little more than six 

 months before that of Christ, so it is taken as six months 

 and one day before Christmas day." 



Mr. C. Kenrick Gibbons has presented to the Zoological 

 Gardens a large number of the small fresh-water fish from 

 Barbados known as " millions " {Girardinus poecilloides). 

 These little fish, which have been placed in a tank in the 

 tortoise house, are of special interest because of their 

 supposed action in preventing malaria. Malaria is very 

 much less common in Barbados than in other West Indian 

 Islands, and it has been suggested that this freedom is 

 due to the presence of enormous quantities of the 

 " millions " in the fresh-water pools. The little fish are 

 very voracious, and destroy large numbers of the larvae 

 of mosquitoes that spread malaria. The males are about 

 half an inch long, with brilliant iridescent colours, and 

 large black spots on the sides. The females are consider- 

 ably larger and less highly coloured. It is understood 

 that experiments are going to be made with the introduc- 

 tion of these fish into tropical countries where malaria is 

 prevalent. 



At a meeting of the British Academy, held on July 22, 

 Prof. R. S. Conway reported the results of his tour in 

 .\ustria and the north of Italy, undertaken with the aid of 

 the academy in order to collect inscriptional and other 

 material for the study of the ethnological questions which 

 he indicated at a meeting of the academy in May, 1907. 

 From the report in the Times, we learn that Prof. Conway 

 said he has revised and made many corrections in the 

 text of nearly all the inscriptions previously known (about 

 eighty-eight in number), leaving only six or seven which 

 proved inaccessible within the limits of time at his dis- 

 posal. Of the eighty-eight, three are Etruscan, and ten 

 belong to a problematic group which it is convenient to call 

 Rhfetic, found mostly in the region of the Brenner Pass, 

 both north and south of it. To this group are added eight 

 hitherto unpublished ; but nothing definite can at present 

 be said as to their language or languages. On the ethno- 

 logical questions, Prof. Conway reported that none of the 



KG. 2022, VOL. 78] 



Venetic inscriptions is older than 500 B.C., and that they 

 were certainly written by a community which shared the 

 Villanova culture, which first appeared in Este, as in 

 Bologna, according to the accepted dating, in the eleventh 

 or tenth century B.C. It remains, therefore, still to be 

 determined whether, as Strabo thought, they were identical 

 with the Veneti of Gaul, and so brought the language with 

 them into Italy, or whether they merely learned the 

 language from the people on the soil when they arrived. 



.According to the report for 1907, the Rhodesian Museum 

 at Bulawayo continues to make satisfactory progress, 

 although its expansion is somewhat hindered by lack of 

 sufficient funds. The curator contributes a list of the local 

 mammals in the collection. 



The ticks (Ixodoidea) of the United States are reviewed 

 and re-arranged by N. Banks in Bulletin No. 15 of the 

 technical series published by the Entomological Bureau 

 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a work which, 

 according to the author, was urgently needed. Africa is 

 the true home of ticks, all the genera being represented 

 on that continent, where species are likewise most 

 numerous. 



Some time ago the Field Columbian Museum received 

 an application from the President of Guatemala for advice 

 concerning the possibility of introducing food-fishes from 

 the United States into lakes Amatitlan and Atitlan. Mr. 

 S. E. Meek was accordingly dispatched to Guatemala, and 

 his report is now published by the museum as No. 6 of 

 vol. vii. of the zoological series. It deals with the general 

 zoology of the lakes, although devoting special attention 

 to the fishes, and as our information with regard to the 

 natural history of tropical lakes is very meagre, its interest 

 is considerable. 



According to the report for 1907, the working of the 

 Field Columbian Museum at Chicago has been rendered 

 simpler and easier by the introduction of new regulations, 

 which have now been in force for a twelvemonth. An 

 important event of the year was the receipt of a sum of 

 money to defray the expenses of an expedition about to be 

 dispatched, where it is to remain for a period of three 

 years. The report also includes an account of the results 

 of a collecting expedition sent by the museum to British 

 East Africa, the account being illustrated by photographs 

 of a recently killed rhinoceros and giraffe. The latter 

 evidently belongs to the race known as Giraffa camelo- 

 pardalis tippelskirchi, athough this is not mentioned on 

 the plate. 



The mode of origin of new colonies of the South 

 American sauba-ant (.4 (/a sexdens) forms the subject of 

 an article by Dr. J. Huber in vol. v., No. i, of the Boletim 

 do Museu Goeldi at Par^. As the result of recent observa- 

 tions, the statements of the older naturalists to the effect 

 that a single fertilised female is capable of founding a- 

 colony by herself are proved to be true. The first batch 

 of workers in the new colony appears to be developed 

 within a minimum period of forty days. When these 

 workers (the mode of alimentation of which is referred to 

 in the paper) are fully developed, they forthwith commence 

 the cultivation of the Rozites mycelium on leaves, the larvas 

 of the later broods being nourished on the "kohlrabi," 

 or growths produced in the leaves by the presence of the 

 fungus. 



To the July number of the Century Magazine Mr. C. R. 

 Stockyard contributes an interesting account of the fishery 

 for spoon-beaked sturgeon (_Polyodon spatula) in the lakes 

 of the Mississippi region, together with notes on the 

 habits of these huge fishes. The fishery is principally 



