August 5, 1909] 



NA TURE 



167 



Idics, Mr. \'. Cnnictz, who bases his opinion on observa- 

 tions made on niitives of the Tunisian Sahara between 

 the years iSgi and 1894, denies that the power of orienta- 

 tion is due to the possession of a sixth "sense." We 

 have to deal rather, it would seem, with an instinct, if it 

 may be so called, acting as an intermediate innate agent 

 between the external medium and the sense of vision, of 

 which it forms a kind of offshoot. It cannot act without 

 vision, but the la'tter alone is insufficient for the purpose 

 of finding the direction. 



In the summer number (vol. iii.. No. 6) of Bird Notes 

 and News, attention is directed to the transference of the 

 ofifices of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds from 

 Nn. 3, Hanover Square, to 23, Queen Anne's Gate, West- 

 minster, this transference having become necessary owing 

 to the impending removal of the Zoological Society's offices 

 from the former address. The summer number is accom- 

 panied by a pamphlet giving a summary of the arguments 

 in favour of bird-protection and of the efforts which the 

 society has made in this direction, together with an appeal 

 for further assistance in carrying out and developing the 

 society's work. 



The July number of the Zoologist contains an article 

 by Dr. E. Menegaux, of the Paris Museum, translated 

 by the author from La Nature, on American egrets as 

 victims of fashion. According to statements made by the 

 well-known traveller and naturalist, Mr. Geay, large 

 quantities of " ospreys " are collected as shed feathers by 

 the natives of Venezuela and Colombia, and also that 

 when the plume-hunters kill the birds themselves, they 

 always spare the young birds, which yield no ornamental 

 feathers ; while it is further stated that when the parents 

 of nestling egrets have been slain, the latter are fed by 

 other birds, so that deaths from starvation do not take 

 place. As an appendix the editor reprints a document 

 published by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 

 as a kind of counterblast to Mr. Geay's assertions. 



The degeneration of armour in animals forms the sub- 

 ject of an article by Dr. Felix Oswald in the July number 

 of Science Progress. As instances of this disappearance 

 the author refers, among many other examples, to laby- 

 rinthodonts as contrasted with modern amphibians, 

 to the disappearance of the solidly armoured glypto- 

 donts and the survival of the less immovably 

 shielded armadillos, the disappearance of the Palaeozoic 

 ostracoderms and placoderms and the emancipation from 

 armour of modern fishes, and very specially to the 

 numerous independent instances where the shell has been 

 more or less completely discarded by gastropod molluscs. 

 He might also have referred to whales and dolphins as 

 contrasted with the zeuglodonts, and to the evidence 

 recently quoted in Nature as to the presence of vestiges 

 of a dermal armour in the fox. 



To Naturwissenschaftliche Wochensclirift for July 18, Prof. 

 H. Kolbe communicates an interesting article on the theory 

 of a former extension of the Antarctic continent, with 

 remarl<s on the distribution of animal life in the southern 

 hemisphere. Commencing with a reference to the hypothesis 

 that the Arctic region formerly enjoyed a mild climate and 

 a large continental area which served to a great extent 

 as a centre of dispersal and radiation for animals in the 

 northern liomisphere, the author proceeds to adduce evidence 

 in favour of the former existence of very similar conditions 

 at the opposite pole. Reference is made to recent dis- 

 coveries indicating the large area still occupied by the 

 Antarctic continent, and to the occurrence of a fossil flora 

 NO. 2075, VOL. Si] 



in high southern latitudes which must have required a 

 comparatively warm climate for its development. Ort- 

 mann's work on the Lower Miocene marine deposits of 

 Patagonia, New Zealand, and Australia, which are cer- 

 tainly of littoral origin, is next cited as evidence of an 

 inter-continental connection in later Tertiary times in high 

 southern latitudes. Further testimony to the same effect 

 is adduced from the present faunas of the great southern 

 continents, more especially from beetles and other insects. 

 The idea that such resemblances as exist between the 

 different southern faunas may be explained by " con- 

 vergence " is shown to be untenable, as convergence 

 consists in resemblances between different groups, not 

 the likeness of allied forms. A South Polar union of the 

 southern continents in later Tertiary times is considered by 

 the author to be now demonstrated. 



The anatomical structure of the Holothurians is 

 described and discussed in an elaborate manner by Dr. 

 Siegfried Becker in the third part of vol. i. of Dr. Spengel's 

 " Ergebnisse und Fortschritte der Zoologie " from the 

 point of view of the phylogenetic relationships of the 

 various members of the class. In the opinion of the 

 author, considerable modification of the generally accepted 

 phylogeny of the group, as given, for instance, in the 

 " Cambridge Natural History," is necessary. The Synap- 

 tida, for example, are regarded as a very ancient group, 

 which, with certain other forms, are widely distinct from 

 the modern types. The Dendrochirota and the Molpadiida, 

 again, in place of being, in common with the Synapta, 

 derived from a hypothetical common stock, are regarded 

 as of independent development. The remainder of the part 

 last quoted is devoted to a memoir, by Dr. Max Rauther, 

 on the morphology and mutual relationships of the nema- 

 tode worms. 



The Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology 

 for June (vol. xix., No. 3) contains an interesting paper 

 by Mr. R. E. Sheldon on the sensitiveness of the general 

 body surface of the smooth dogfish to those chemical 

 stimuli which in man provoke sensations of taste and 

 smell. Both normal and " spinal " dogfish were under 

 observation ; in other dogfish the spinal cord had been 

 destro3'ed, in others, again, the olfactory crura or the 

 four branches of the trigeminal nerve had been divided. 

 The author finds that the dogfish reacts to chemical 

 stimuli applied to any spot on the body surface or to the 

 mouth or nostrils, that acids and alkalis, even when very 

 dilute, are potent stimuli, that salt and bitter substances 

 are less powerful, and that no reaction occurs towards 

 sugars. The results of experimental interference indicate 

 that the extreme sensitiveness of the nostrils of the fish 

 is due to the trigeminal rather than to the olfactory 

 nerve. The nerves of the lateral line appear not to be 

 concerned in these " chemical " sensations, as no reactions 

 occur after destruction of the spinal cord, the fish being 

 viable for some weeks in this state. Cocaine is found to 

 abolish tactile sensibility before response to chemical 

 stimulation is affected. The author concludes that the 

 sensitiveness to chemical stimuli is due almost exclusively 

 to the nerves of general sensation, not at all to the 

 olfactory and very little to the gustatory nerves, and that 

 a special nervous mechanism, distinct from that for touch, 

 constituting the apparatus of a distinct " chemical " sense, 

 exists alike in the vertebrate and in the invertebrate world. 



An essay by Miss B. Freire-Marreco on the hair- and 

 eye-colour of school children in Surrey appears in the July 

 number of Man. The essay was prepared for the diploma 

 examination at the Oxford School of Anthropology^a 



