4o: 



NA TURE 



[September 30, 1909 



temperature of 70° or above. Our weather over the British 

 Islands has been chiefly under the influence of cyclonic 

 disturbances, which have arrived with considerable fre- 

 quency from off the Atlantic. 



In the September number of the Xmencan Naturalist 

 Dr. R. F. Scharff reviews the evidence in favour of an 

 early Tertiary land-connection between North and South 

 America. He believes in the e.Kistence during early Tertiary 

 times of a strip of land connecting western North America 

 with Chile, when Central America and northern South 

 America were submerged. Such a connection, it is urged, 

 is supported by many lines of evidence, and would serve 

 to explain the occurrence of Eocene armadillos in North 

 America and the affinity between the Canadian porcupine 

 <Erethizon) and the Santa Crucian Stiromys. 



In addition to their great abundance, the star-fishes of 

 Alaska and British Columbia are remarkable, according 

 to a paper by Prof. A. E. Verrill in the September issue 

 of the American Naturalist, for the redundancy in the 

 number of their rays, this being specially noticeable in the 

 family Asteriid^e, the members of which, despite many 

 ■exceptions, are generally five-rayed in other parts of the 

 world. " Besides the species that normally have an in- 

 creased number of rays, or vary indefinitely, there are 

 others which have, more or less rarely, a smaller or larger 

 number as monstrosities. . . . Various other monstrous 

 variations occur somewhat frequently, such as forked rays, 

 supernumerary rays arising from the dorsal surface, &c." 



The second part of the first volume of the Records of 

 the Canterbury Museum (New Zealand) contains an 

 account of the scientific results of a trawling e.^pedition 

 undertaken by the New Zealand Government in 1907. 

 The expedition seems to have been organised entirely from 

 the commercial point of view, and the facilities afforded 

 for scientific investigation were by no means so great as 

 they might have been. It is therefore not surprising that 

 the scientific results are somewhat meagre. This is the 

 more unfortunate, as we still know comparatively little 

 about the marine biology of the waters around the New 

 Zealand coast. The investigations, chiefly of local 

 naturalists, have made us very fully acquainted with the 

 terrestrial fauna of the Dominion, and much has been 

 done in the way of shore-collecting ; but systematic marine 

 biological research is, as a rule, beyond the reach of 

 private individuals, and it is here that an enlightened 

 Government might be fairly expected to take an oppor- 

 tunity for encouraging the advancement of science. 



Protozoology is very much in evidence in vol. liii., 

 part iv., of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical 

 Science, which contains no fewer than five papers 

 on this subject. Miss Muriel Robertson describes the life- 

 cycle of a new trypanosome from Ceylon, of which the 

 principal host is the soft tortoise, Emyda vittata, and the 

 intermediate host a leech of the genus Glossiphonia. Mr. 

 C. Clifford Dobell describes the processes of physiological 

 degeneration and death in Entamoeba ranarum. Dr. 

 McCarrison places on record his observations on the 

 Amoeba in the intestines of persons suffering from goitre in 

 Gilgit ; Dr. Row describes the development of the parasite 

 of oriental sore in cultures ; and Prof. Minchin discusses 

 the structure of Trypanosoma lewisi in relation to micro- 

 scopical technique. Several of these papers are remark- 

 able for the beauty of the coloured plates which accompany 

 them, and the same is true of a short paper by Messrs. 

 Muir and Kershaw describing, under the name Peripatus 

 teramensis, a new species of Peripatus from Ceram, the 

 ^rst to be recorded from the Moluccas. In the same 

 NO. 2CS3, VC. 81] 



number Mr. Joseph Mangan describes the entry of 

 zooxanthellae into the ovum of Millepora, and gives some 

 particulars concerning the medusae. 



The report on forest administration in Southern Nigeria 

 for 1907 contains an account of a tour through the west 

 provinces, described by Mr. H. N. Thompson, the con- 

 servator of forests. Two fine forest tracts were explored 

 at Ijaye and Ilesha, both of which are situated in the 

 dry-zone vegetation. The first-named is called after an 

 ancient town which was destroyed about sixty years ago, 

 and since that time part of the forest has grown up. 

 Here there were found to be mahogany trees with a girth 

 measurement exceeding 10 feet, which implies a much 

 more rapid rate of growth than is betokened by ring counts. 

 The same conclusion is derived from the dimensions of 

 trees planted in the botanical gardens, wherefore Mr. 

 Thompson advances the opinion that probably the 

 mahogany trees show three or four well-marked zones of 

 growth each year, corresponding to the four definite 

 seasons. 



The reasons for deterioration that follow upon self- 

 fertilisation or inbreeding of the maize plant have been 

 investigated by Dr. G. H. Shull, who puts forward in the 

 publication of the American Breeders' Association (vols, 

 iv. and v.) certain conclusions based on the results of ex- 

 perimental cultivation. Plants selected according to the 

 number of rows of grain in the ear were allowed to self- 

 fertilise, when two strains became evident. For reasons 

 which are given, it is considered that the individuals in 

 a maize field are generally very complex hybrids, and 

 that these strains are elementary species or biotypes, so 

 that, according to the author's premises, self-fertilisation 

 tends to isolate elementary forms, producing a homozygous 

 condition, i.e. pure forms. Crosses between the two 

 strains led to a distinct increase in the yield, whence the 

 following method of propagation is suggested. Pure races 

 of maize are to be obtained by self-fertilisation, and the 

 crosses made between these pure races provide seed corn 

 for the field crop. 



BoT.ANicAL teachers making use of lantern-slides may be 

 glad to know of a new series of slides produced by Messrs. 

 F. E. Becker and Co., Hatton Wall, London, from original 

 photomicrographic negatives prepared by Mr. C. W. 

 Greaves. ."V first series of fifty slides is announced, of 

 which several relate to sections of anomalous dicoty- 

 ledonous stems, others to the anatomy of stem, leaf, and 

 root of angiosperms and the pine ; a few represent crypto- 

 gamic and fossil sections. The phanerogamic specimens 

 examined are clear and well defined, being taken from 

 good microscopic sections, and the section of a Fucus con- 

 ceptacle is excellent in general contour and detail. 



.'Vn abstract of the report of the director of the Bombay 

 Bacteriological Laboratory for 1908 appears in the British 

 Medical Journal, from which we learn that the issue of 

 anti-plague vaccine was little short of that of the pre- 

 ceding year, when the disease was severely and widely 

 prevalent, the number of doses dispatched being 533,315 

 against 620,923. Experiments were carried out regarding 

 the efficiency of rat and rat-flea destroyers, but they were 

 not satisfactory or conclusive. The general bacteriological 

 work was of a varied description. Special inquiry was 

 made regarding an outbreak of malaria in the fort and 

 dock area of Bombay ; the investigation is still in progress, 

 .^n outbreak of relapsing fever in the Kolaka district was 

 also made the subject of special study. The laboratory 

 rendered assistance and advice regarding questions relating 

 to plague and other infective diseases, ani courses of in- 



