Nov. 27, 1879] 



NATURE 



81 



If it has been staled that the last branches of floating Sargassum 

 are paler, more delicate, and more active in their vitality ; I 

 believe that to be no real observation, but only a supposition, for 

 the more delicate and more branched ends become certainly pale 

 at first, and with the diminution of chlorophyll can never increase 

 their vitality. Does any one know in what time the olive- 

 coloured broken Sargassum gets pale, and if pale Sargassum 

 does really sprout to some extent, which I doubt, how long it 

 continues to sprout? and further, after what time do the dead 

 round air-vesicles of Sargassum break off? I should wish these 

 questions cleared up by personal observations. 



Leipzig-Eutritzsch, Germany Otto Kuntze 



Remarkable Prediction of Cold 



In Nature, vol. xxi. p. 48, in the Meteorological Notes, it 

 is stated, on the authority of Mr. Glaisher, that the present 

 unusually cold weather set in on October 27, 1878. You perhaps 

 are not aware that this was predicted almost to the day by Prof. 

 Piazzi Smyth in Nature, vol. v. p. 317. In an article on Heat 

 Waves he gives the dates of these phenomena as follows : — 

 Years 1834-8, 1846-4, 1857-8, 1868-8, and iSSo-o; the heat 

 wave of 18S0 to be preceded by a cold wave commencing 1878'S, 

 which is, I need scarcely say, the end of October, 1878. 



Dulwich, November 17 B. G. Jenkins 



The Lizard 



Last August, while superintending the' burning of some dry 

 bush in my pasture, I was surprised to see a ground lizard 

 {Lacerta agilis) run up to the flames and stop on a bed of hot 

 ashes. My little son who was with me endeavoured to turn it 

 aside with a stick, but on his trying to do so, it darted into the 

 tire and was soon consumed. This I thought at the time 

 accidental, but later in the day we returned to the same spot, 

 and in a few minutes a larger lizard of the same species delibe- 

 rately ran up to the burning bush ; it paused on the warm ashes 

 wagging its tail to and fro, apparently enjoying the heat, when 

 all of a sudden it darted into the flames, and like the first one 

 was instantly a willing holocaust. I turned to the Negro, who 

 was burning the bush, for explanation, but like most of his race 

 he accepted the fact as a matter of course, remarking "lizard 

 seem to love fire." My ideas went back to the legends of the 

 salamander. The story of the French consul at Rhodes (M. 

 Pothonier), who one day found his cook in a terrible fright 

 thinking the "devil was in the fire," and when he looked into 

 the bright flames, saw there a little animal with open mouth and 

 palpitating throat, and on trying to secure it with the tongs, it 

 ran into a heap of hot ashes. He secured it and gave it to 

 Buffon, who found it to be a small lizard, whose feet and a 

 portion of the body were half roasted. M. Pothonier first 

 thought it was incombustible, having remained in the fire three 

 minutes, but imagined that it might have been brought in with 

 the fuel. Nicander, Dioscorides and Pliny, all allude to the 

 fire-proof qualities of the " salamandra." Aristotle speaks of 

 the salamandra's power of extinguishing fire with the copious 

 secretion of saliva which it has the power of ejecting into the 

 flames. As far as my own observation goes all lizards have the 

 power of ejecting saliva. The Negroes have a dread of the 

 croaking lizard's (Gecko) "spitting" at them. I do not believe 

 that any Jamaica lizard has poisonous saliva, but that the saliva 

 is deleterious, I am quite sure. That cats get " fits " from eating 

 lizards is a well accepted fact, their hair falls out, and they 

 become sick and droop, confirming the belief in the depilatory 

 properties of the salamander's saliva. As Martial puts it (Lib. ii. 

 Ep. lxi.): — 



" Desine jam, Lalage, tristes omare capillos, 

 Tangat et insanum nulla puella caput. 

 Hoc salamandra notct, vet saeva novacula nudet, 

 Ut digna speculo fiat imago tuo." 



Before closing these jottings, I should like to correct an error 

 in a recent work on Natural History, in which it is stated that 

 "the Iguana is extinct in Jamaica." This is not the case. 

 They are still to be found in numbers on the Cashew trees in the 

 lowlands, especially St. : Catherine's. I once had a long fight 

 in trying to pull a large one out of a hole in a tree, by the tail. 

 He won the battle " by the skin of his tail." 

 Monattrie, St. Andrew, Jamaica, W.I., Jasper Cargill 

 October 14 



The " Hexameter," nSoo Uais iyaH . . . k.t.a. 

 It is surely no argument against Prof. Clerk Maxwell's notion, 

 that in the epistle (James i. 17) the enclitic particle re is omitted. 

 Read, of course, 



Tlaaa SoVis t' AyaBfi Ka\ ttcik Supri/ta riXetov, 

 and the verse is perfect. The practice of omitting a word (or 

 part of a word) necessary to the scansion of a verse is all too 

 common with prosists quoting poetry. I give one example from 

 an English writer. Robert Greene, the earliest to allude to 

 Shakespeare, in his " Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million 

 of Repentance " (1692), quotes, just as if they were prose, six 

 lines from a contemporary poet ; and in so doing omits two 

 whole words, and part of another ! He writes, as prose, omitting 

 all that I here give in italics — 



" Then onely Tyrants should possesse the earth, 

 Who striving to exceede in Tyranny, 

 Should each to other be a slaughter-man ; 

 Un\\\\ the mightiest outliving all, 

 One stroke were left for Death, that in one age 

 Man's life should end." 



I am pleased to learn from the obituary notice in Nature of 

 that great man, that Clerk Maxwell's thoughts during his illness 

 reverted to Shakespeare ; but had he less profitahly thought of 

 Greene's assault on Shakespeare, and had it struck him that the 

 foregoing must be in heroic verse, what would be thought of the 

 critic who should object to this, that the first, second, and fourth 

 of these so-called verses are, by one syllable each, too short ? 



Athenjeum Club, November 22 C. M. Ingleby 



It cannot be supposed that our translators meant to compose 

 a verse when they wrote the line which Longfellow transfers 

 bodily into his " Evangeline" : — 



" Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them." 

 So the metrical cadence here may be quite accidental. Still I 

 cannot think that the defect of quantity in the final syllable of 

 SdVts is fatal to the idea that it may be a line from an early 

 Christian doxolo^y : especially when we suppose it written in 

 Alexandrian or Hellenistic Greek. The arsis, or natural stress 

 of the voice, would cover up the defect, especially in chanting ; 

 and it would scarcely be a defect at all to non-classical ears. 

 The process which rapidly from the Christian era sub-tituted 

 stress or accent, as we now understand it, for quantity, seems to 

 have been greatly accelerated by the hymns of the Church. In 

 any case every trace of such quotations is of great interest to 

 every student of the New Testament. Henry Cecil 



Bregner, Bournemouth, November 22 



Unconscious Cerebration 



I have delayed noticing a communication, headed Unconscious 

 Impressions, by Mr. C. J. Monro, in Nature, vol. xx. p. 426. 

 This refers to what Dr. Carpenter calls Unconscious Cerebra- 

 tion, but which when I discovered it likewise, I called Un- 

 conscious Thought. 



With Mr. Monro's conclusion that an unconscious impression 

 is stronger than a conscious one, his statement does not impress 

 me, nor is it supported by my own experience. 



My attention had been recalled to the subject by observing 

 children, and in their actions it appears to me we may find the 

 beginning of the process of unconscious cerebration. So far it 

 appears that conscious cerebration precedes and lays the foundation 

 for the unconscious process. When a baby is practising, as for 

 instance in handling an object, its attention is closely given in 

 the early stages and in its various experiments, and it is only 

 after a time that the performance becomes purely mechanical. 



The same is to be noted of young animals. 



Hence I conclude that as various practices become habitual, 

 and, as some style them, instinctive, conscious cerebration ceases 

 to be employed. Thus is formed the habit of only regarding 

 some objects consciously, and necessarily that of regarding 

 others without cerebration. Thus I treat unconscious cerebra- 

 tions as becoming habitual. Hyde Clarke 



32, St. George's Square, S.W., November 20 



Mr. Thomas Bolton's Natural History Discoveries 

 I ONLY became aware on Saturday evening last, the 15th inst., 

 of the paragraph kindly inserted by Prof. E. Ray Lankester, 



