i65 

 NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



RELICS OF EARLY MAN. 



Now that the craze for rehcs of early man is at its height 

 we must expect a good deal. In the Geological Magazine for 

 l\Iay, the Rev. O. Fisher, M.A., F.G.S., has a paper on ' Some 

 handiworks of early men of various ages.' The following is 

 one of the ' evidences ' he gives : — ' At one time, when I was 

 digging for bones in the gravel at Barrington, I found two 

 round stones of the same size near one another. One of them 

 was a flint nodule, the other of a different rock. They attracted 

 my attention at the moment, but their possible significance 

 did not occur to me then, and I did not preserve them. I 

 afterwards thought that they might have been bolas, such 

 as are used in South America for catching game. They were 

 of a suitable size for such a purpose.' When we have been 

 digging for bones in the Holderness gravels, we have found 

 round stones, some of which were flint nodules. There were cart 

 loads of them. Their full significance did not occur to us at 

 the time, and we did not preserve them, but we now think they 

 may have been footballs, cricket balls, tennis balls, marbles 

 and pills. They were of suitable sizes for such purposes. But 

 we never previously thought they were relics of early man. 



WEST INDIAN RHIZOPODS AT WHITBY. 



At a recent meeting of the Linnean Society, Dr. J. Mastin 

 made the following report : — •' On the 4th September, 1911, 

 a few days after a stormy sea and heavy wind, on the coast 

 off \\'hitby, Yorkshire, I saw a little patch of beautiful irrides- 

 cent colour floating on the surface of the then calm water. I 

 skimmed this cloud of colour, and on clearing later, found it to 

 be varieties of Polycistina, of the family Rhizopoda, but having 

 siliceous instead of calcareous shells. These shells, which are 

 of magnificent forms, are identical with those usually (and I 

 am informed 07ily) found in the West Indies, and along the 

 coasts of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. I believe they are 

 the first discovered on the English coast to which they will 

 most probably have been brought by the Gulf Stream.' We 

 have not seen drawings nor even the names of these Rhizopods, 

 but we think it very likely that they are either known in many 

 places elsewhere than in the West Indies, or they have reached 

 Whitby by other means than the Gulf Stream. 



CLEANSING GREASY INSECTS. 



Most collectors of Lepidoptera will have been inconvenienced 

 at one time or another by their specimens turning ' greasy.' 

 In The Entomologist's Record for May, Mr. P. A. H. Muschamp 



3912 June I. 



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