742 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. YII. No. 178. 



made to the general meeting on the 19th of 

 May last the Council had already recorded 

 their deep sense of the services rendered to 

 the Society by the late Mr. Bartlett during 

 the long period for which he had held his 

 post, and of their full appreciation of the 

 skill, energy and faithfulness with which 

 he had discharged the multifarious and dif- 

 ficult duties of his oflflce. On the present 

 occasion the Council could do no more than 

 repeat the sentiments expressed at that 

 meeting, which they were sure would be 

 fully concurred in by all the Fellows of the 

 Society. The vacancy thus caused had 

 been filled by the appointment, as Su- 

 perintendent, of Mr. Bartlett's second son, 

 Mr. Clarence Bartlett, who had been in the 

 Society's service for 36 years as his father's 

 assistant. 



The number of visitors to the Gardens in 

 1897 had been 717,755, being 52,751 more 

 than the corresponding number in 1896. 



The number of animals on the 81st of 

 December last had been 2,585, of which 

 792 were mammals, 1,362 birds, 431 reptiles 

 and batrachians. 



Amongst the additions made during the 

 past year, 17 were specially commented 

 upon as being of remarkable interest and in 

 most cases new to the Society's collection. 



The report concluded with a long list of 

 donations to the Menagerie received in 

 1897. 



A vote of thanks to the Council for their 

 report was then moved by Sir John Lub- 

 bock, Bt., F.E..S., seconded by Mr. E. Ly- 

 dekker, F.E.S. , and carried unanimously. 



The meeting then proceeded to elect the 

 new members of the Council and the ofiQcers 

 for the ensuing year. The usual ballot hav- 

 ing been taken, it was announced that 

 Frank E. Beddard, Esq., F.E.S.; William 

 T. Blanford, Esq., L.L.D.,F.E. S.; Eichard 

 Lydekker, Esq., F.E.S.; Howard Saunders, 

 Esq., and Charles S. Tomes, Esq., F.E.S., 

 had been elected into the Council in the 



place of the retiring members, and that Sir 

 William H. Flower, K.C.B., F.E.S., had 

 been re-elected President; Charles Drum- 

 mond, Esq., Treasurer, and Philip Lutley 

 Sclater, Esq., M.A., Ph.D., F.E.S., as Sec- 

 retary to the Society for the ensuing year. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 PRIMITIVE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



The studjf of musical instruments begins 

 with two sticks which are rubbed together, 

 or hit one against the other, to make a 

 noise. Such are found among the Austra- 

 lians and the Pueblo Indians. In Louisiana 

 the jawbone of a mule is scratched rapidly 

 with a stick to elicit folk-lore music. The 

 study of this art in early conditions is the 

 theme of an excellent article by Dr. Wal- 

 laschek in the Proceedings of the Anthro- 

 pological Society of Vienna for February. 

 He inserts a number of illustrations from 

 specimens- in the Ethnographic Museum of 

 Vienna. 



In this connection, I would suggest that 

 the human bones, with incisions crosswise, 

 which are described by Drs. Lumholtz and 

 Hrdlicka in Vol. 10 of The Bulletin of th& 

 American Museum of Natural History, and 

 which they are at a loss to explain, were in- 

 tended for just such primitive musical in- 

 struments. Several similar specimens were 

 exhibited in the Mexican department of the- 

 Columbian Exposition at Madrid. (See my 

 'Eeport,'p. 27.) 



PRE-COLUMBIAN LEPROSY IN AMERICA. 



The question of the existence of leprosy 

 in America before Columbus occupied the 

 Berlin Society of Anthropology at several of 

 its meetings last year. The inquiry was 

 started by the investigations of Dr. A. 8. 

 Ashmead, of New York City. He had 

 noted on old Peruvian pottery deforma- 

 tions of the face and extremities, resem- 

 bling those produced by that disease. 



The discussion in Berlin was shared by 



