August 6, 1896] 



NA rURE 



325 



been used to found a prize of 500 roul)les to be awarded every 

 three years lor a geometrical work, and especially one on non- 

 Euclidian geometry, printed in Russian, French, German, 

 English, Italian, or Latin. The first prize will be awarded on 

 November 3, 1897 (the centenary of Lobatchefsky's birth took 

 place on November 3, 1893), and mathematicians competing for 

 it must send in their works not later than November 3 (October 

 22). The sum remaining after the foundation of this prize has 

 been devoted to the erection of a bust of Lobatchefsky, in front 

 of Kazan University. The bust will be inaugurated on Sep- 

 tember 13 of this year, and it is hoped that as many foreign 

 men of science as are able will be present to witness the 

 ceremony. 



A NOVEL anthropological discovery was made recently 

 three miles from Waynesburg, in the south-western corner of 

 Pennsylvania. A labourer, while ploughing, struck a number 

 of stones, which proved to be graves of a character different 

 from any heretofore discovered. Twenty vaults were found, 

 each twenty-seven inches long, seventeen inches wide, and 

 twelve inches deep, and each covered with a stone forty-two 

 inches long, three inches thick, and twenty-eight inches wide 

 at the head, thirty inches in the widest and twenty-four 

 inches in the narrowest part. The stones were six inches beloiv 

 the surface of the ground. Each vault contained a skeleton 

 of diminutive size, doubled up so as to occupy only eighteen 

 inches of space, with the heads all in an unnatural position, and 

 all facing the south. Under each skull was a turtle, placed as if 

 for a pillow ; and in many of the graves were skeletons of birds. 

 The graves were arranged in the segment of a circle of almost 

 four hundred feet in diameter. Many bone beads were found in 

 the graves, but only one piece of metal, a small crescent-shaped 

 copper ornament. 



Mr. R. W. Scott has sent us a copy of the report 

 of Sir Walter Sendall, High Commissioner for Cyprus, on 

 the succession of earthquake shocks, which we have already 

 noted (p. 229) as occurring there at the end of June and the 

 beginning of July. It appears that the first and most violent 

 shock occurred about 11 p.m. on June 29, and up to the date 

 of the report (July 4) the disturbances had continued without 

 sign of abatement. Though most severe at Limasol, the shocks 

 were felt from one end of the island to the other, and upwards 

 from the sea-coast to the summit of Troodos. Mr. Mitchell, 

 Commissioner at Limasol, reports that a shock of alarming 

 intensity occurred at about 8.25 a.m. on July 3 ; the times of 

 other movements of varying intensity felt on the same day 

 are 12 (noon), 12.38 p.m., 2.52 p.m., 3.22 p.m. From the 

 character of the individual shocks which, though at times very 

 disquieting, did not produce the impression of intense and 

 concentrated activity, it was concluded that the centre of the 

 disturbance was at some distance from Cyprus. 



The last part (No. 12) of the first volume of the Bolieltino of 

 the Italian Seismological Society has reached us. The com- 

 plete volume, of which we have from lime to time noted the 

 contents, includes twenty-seven papers, eight of these dealing 

 with new instruments, four with studies of recent Italian earth- 

 quakes, and eight with the slate of volcanic action in the south 

 of the country. More than half the volume consists of notices 

 of earthquakes registered in Italy in 1895. This section is 

 communicated by the Central Meteorological and Geodynamic 

 Office, and its value will be evident from the fact that it contains 

 more than two thousand records of about 550 earthquakes. The 

 majority of these are merely local shocks, perhaps too slight to 

 be detected except with instrumental aid. In eighteen cases 

 the epicentre lay outside Italy, and in three others the pulsatiiins 

 recorded were probably due to distant, but unknown, shocks. 

 NO. 1397, VOL. 54] 



The Pigmy peoples are a source of perennial interest to 

 anthropologists, as they undoubtedly represent a very ancient 

 variety of the human race. The latest contribution to their 

 osteology is a paper by Dr. R. Verneau, " On the Plurality of 

 Ethnic Types among the Negrillos," in L' Anthropologie (vii. 

 p. 153). The new material consists only of a cranium and a 

 jjelvis of a Babinga (Akka) woman from the left bank of the 

 Middle Sangha River, about 3° S. The estimated capacity of 

 the cranium is 1440 c.c. ; this is very great for a Negrillo, being 

 above the average of European females. Sir W. William 

 Flower's female Akka had a capacity of only 1072, and his 

 female Andamanese averaged 1128 ; 1200 c.c. is the upper limit 

 of nannocephaly as adopted by Virchow and Kollmann. The 

 skull is very dolichocephalic (73'2), very platyrhine (65-3), 

 mesoseme (87 '8), and has a considerable sub-nasal prognathism. 

 These indices agree much more closely with Flower's male 

 Akka (74-4, 63-4, 82-9) than with his female (77'9, 5S-3, 82 '9). 

 The pelvis is very remarkable ; so far as the form and dimensions 

 of the brim are concerned, it is very European, but the height 

 closely approaches that of the negress. Unfortunately there are 

 no data from which the stature could be estimated, but the 

 dimensions of the cranium and pelvis do not indicate pigmy 

 dimensions ; and with all due deference to Dr. Verneau, we 

 prefer to await further evidence before accepting this as a typical 

 dolichocephalic Negrillo. 



We have received volume iii., No. 6, and volume iv.. No. r, 

 of that useful publication, Indian Museum Notes, which bids 

 fair to rival the valuable American publications on economic 

 entomology, upon which it is modelled. It is freely illustrated 

 with both plates and woodcuts of destructive beetles, butterflies, 

 moths, locusts, &c ; but perhaps the most important paper in 

 the parts before us is Mr. E. E. Green's preliminary " Catalogue 

 of C<;cc/a'<r collected in Ceylon," of which he has made a spe'cial 

 study He enumerates 72 species, 44 of which are described as 

 new, while nearly all the remainder either represent new 

 varieties, or species not previously recorded from Ceylon. Wher» 

 Mr. Kirby published his " Catalogue of the described Hemiftcra 

 Heleroptera and Hoiiwptera of Ceylon," in the fournal of the 

 Linnean Society, vol. xxiv. , in 1 89 1, he was only able to 

 enumerate seven species of Ccir/o'if as known to occur inCej'lon. 

 Any entomologist who cares to take up the study of a little- 

 known group of foreign insects (or even some of the less- 

 studied families of the smaller British insects, for that matter), 

 may reasonably expect to be able to increase our entomological 

 knowledge by leaps and bounds. 



G. Breddin has published an interesting article on mimicry 

 in Rhynchota in the Zeitschrift fiir Natiirwissaisckaften, 

 vol. Ixix., parts I and 2 (pp. 17-46, pi. I). Most of the cases of 

 insect mimicry previously recorded have been observed among 

 Lepidoptera, Coleoptcra, and Orthoptcra ; for though' those pre- 

 sented by Rhynchota are equally interesting, that order is at 

 present much neglected by entomologists. Several instances, 

 however, were recorded by Reuter in a paper published, in 1879, 

 in Ofversigt af Finska Vet. Sac. Fiirh, vol. xxi. This jmper 

 being in Swedish, has attracted little notice, though the late 

 Dr. Haase made some use of it in his well-known work on 

 mimicry. Breddin, therefore, gives a compendium of the ob- 

 servations of Reuter and others on mimicry in Rhynchota, 

 including the results of his own investigations. He defines two 

 forms of mimicry — protective and aggressive — the first to avoid 

 attack, and the second to mask it, of each of which he gives 

 numerous examples, drawn mainly, though not exclusively, from 

 the order Rhynchota. The aggressive mimicry of the carnivorous 

 masked h\ig%{Rcduviida:) and their allies is specially noticeable, 

 and attracted the attention of many of the earliest entomo- 

 logists. Those interested in mimicry will find Breddin's article 



