News from the Magazines. 35 



un described for more or less time, no one but an ambitious 

 author will be the loser, whereas entomology as a science will 

 certainly be the gainer, relieved of so many confusing — and 

 unnecessary — names of " new " lepidoptera. The more we 

 complicate the laws for " valable " descriptions, and restrict 

 the sport of namegiving, the more we shall simplify serious 

 systematic work.' 



A NEW (?) ox. 

 'In describing [Archaeologia Mliana, ser. 3, Vol. VII.), the 

 animal remains obtained during the excavations on the site of 

 the Roman city of Corstopitum, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 

 1910, Messrs. A. Meek and R. A. H. Gray state that the bones 

 and skulls of many of the oxen agree very closely with those of 

 the white cattle of Chillingham and other British parks. A 

 peculiarity said to characterise both is the absence of early 

 shedding of the antepenultimate lower premolar. On this 

 ground both the Chillingham and the Roman cattle are declared 

 to represent a new wild species, for which the name Bos syl-. 

 vestris is proposed ; but whether this is typified by the former 

 or the latter the reader is left to decide for himself. They 

 ignore the fact that park-cattle already possess a scientific 

 name — Urus scoticns of Hamilton Smith — and likewise that 

 the colour of these cattle is decisive as to their domesticated 

 origin. Most naturalists would likewise regard the alleged 

 absence of the anterior premolar as a feature due to domestica- 

 tion.' — [Nature, No. 2198). 



Mr. W. H. Pearson records Lophozia bantrieHsis in South Lancashire 

 {Lancashire Naturalist, No. 44). 



The fiitieth report of the Yorkshire Naturahsts' Union, reprinted from 

 The Naturalist, ,can be obtained from the Editor, the Museum, Hull, 

 price 6d. each. 



Mr. F. A. Day records the rare beetle Oxypoda soror, which he found 

 amongst the short grass at the summit of Saddleback, Cumberland. — [The 

 Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, January 1912). 



Part VII. of The Micrologist (Flatters, Melborne & McKecknie, Man- 

 chester, 1/6) contains papers on Anthozoa, Echinoderma, etc. ; and 

 ' Water Plants ' by Abraham Flatters. They are illustrated by fi\e 

 excellent figures on a plate. 



Dr. F. A. Bather has a paper on ' The Holotypes of the Fossil Scorpions 

 Palesoniachus anglicus and PalcBophomis caledonicits,' in The Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History for November 191 1. The former is from 

 the Coal Measures near Mansfield. 



The Journal of Conchology (Vol. XIII., No. 9) contains a paper by 

 Mr. J. W. Taylor on ' Biology of the Mollusca, based chiefly upon a study 

 of one of our cominonest species. Helix aspersa ' ; and also a record of a 

 dextral form of Clausilia bidentata from Skipton. 



In The Records of the Past (Vol. X., Part VI.), Dr. George Grant 

 MacCurdy has an illustrated article on ' Somatology and Man's Antiquity ' ; 

 Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie writes on Roman Portraits, and Mr. H. J. Cook 

 gives illustrations of a human skull with an embedded flint arrow-head, 

 from Vancouver. 

 1912 Feb. I. 



