56 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol.. II., No. 23. 



fishes from the middle valley of the Snake River in 

 Idaho and eastern Oregon, stated that bones collected 

 from sections now dry, but which had formerly been 

 portions of lake-basins in the Oregon district, in- 

 dicated a close relationship with the fishes now found 

 in the remaining lakes and rivers. The number 

 of species of fishes collected from the Idaho beds 

 amounts to twenty-two. They are all distinct from 

 those found in the Oregon basin, and cannot be iden- 

 tified with existing forms, although, with two excep- 

 tions, they belong to existing genera. Four of the 

 families of fishes obtained from these beds are not 

 now found west of the Rocky Mountains, except a 

 single species of one of them (Percidae) in California. 

 Of even greater interest was the fact that this 

 fauna includes representatives of the Cobitidae, — a 

 family of fishes entitely absent in the living fauna 

 of North America.. The presence of their remains 

 In the Idaho beds indicates a probable former con- 

 nection between North America and Asia. The 

 names ' Idaho Lake ' and ' Idaho deposits ' were 

 proposed for the lake and deposits now first described. 

 The formation is distinct from any previously known, 

 and is older than the Oregon lake-deposit. With the 

 exception of fishes, the remains of but few vertebrates 

 were found in the Idaho beds, although the Oregon 

 deposits are full of the bones of mammals and birds. 

 The means of indicating the exact geological position 

 of these pliocene beds, as compared with those of 

 Europe, was as yet wanting. — [Acad. nat. sc. 

 Philad. ; meeting June 19. ) [66 



Beptiles and batrachians. 



spermatozoon of ne^wt. — Dowdeswell describes 

 a very minute barb at the tip of the head of the 

 spermatozoon of the newt : it measures 1.5 ,« in breadth 

 by 2," in length. He looked for it in other animals, 

 but did not find it. — (Quart, journ. micr. sc, 1883, 

 336.) c. s. M. [67 



Nerves of the frog's palate. — Stirling and Mac- 

 donald describe fully the palatine nerves of the frog, 

 their origin, and their general and minute distribu- 

 tion. There is a coarse plexus of meduUated fibres 

 and a finer plexus of naked fibres, which last inner- 

 vate the blood-vessels and the glands, besides forming 

 the ultimate ramifications of the nerves. In the 

 course of the former plexus are scattered unipolar 

 cells, each with a straight and a spiral fibre. There 

 are, besides, many details given. This well illus- 

 trated and admirably written paper may be specially 

 commended to histologists engaged in laboratory prac- 

 tice. — {Journ. anat. p/iJ/sioZ., xvii. 293.) c. s. M. 



[68 



ANTHEOPOLOGT. 



Australian class systems. — In the Australian 

 division of the tribe the communes are represented 

 by two primary classes, each of which has a group 

 of totem names, which are chiefly names of things 

 animate or inanimate. The two primary inter- 

 marrying classes are over a large part of south-eastern 

 Australia called Eaglehawk and Crow. Each group of 

 totem names is a representation of its primary; and. 



as a general rule, any one of the group may marry 

 with any other of the complementary group. If the 

 primaries are A and B, and the groups, 1, 2, 3, etc., 

 and i, ii, iii, etc., in certain localities, A 1 must 

 marry B 1 only, and so on. The next change is the 

 subdivision of A and B as in the Kamilaroi, thus : — 



i 1, 2, 3, . 



i, ii, ill, etc. 



The effect of this is to remove the woman of the 

 second generation from the possibility of marrying 

 her father. Were this not so, the law ' A (male) 

 marries B (female) ' would permit A to take his 

 daughter to wife, the simpler law forbidding the 

 marriage of brothers and sisters only. 



Under the form a + a = A and 6 -)- /3 = B, each 

 half of an original class has marital rights over the 

 women of one particular half of the other class, 

 whose children do not take the class name of the 

 mother, but of the sister class. For example : a + 13 

 = 6, who must marry o; and the children of the 

 third generation, by mother right, will be again a and 

 /3. Mr. Howitt, who has worked out these systems 

 with great patience, is of the opinion that this subdi- 

 vision into classes was designed to render impossible 

 those unions which were considered, and are now 

 considered, as deep pollution. He has certainly given 

 the most rational explanation of aversion to mothers- 

 in-law. Under the old regime a daughter was of the 

 clan of her mother, and B could marry any A. The 

 law against looking at a mother-in-law, therefore, 

 was to prevent the possibility of marrying her. 



Mr. Howitt sums up his labors in the following 

 conclusions : 1. The primary division prevented 

 brother and sister marriage; 2. The secondary, in- 

 termarriage between parents and children ; 3. The 

 prohibition of intercourse between a woman and her 

 son-in-law prevented connections not to be reached 

 by class rules ; 4. These changes were all reformatory 

 in the community. — {Journ. anthrop. inst., xii. 490.) 

 J. w. p. [69 



Region of man's evolution. — Mr. W. S. Duncan 

 is the author of a paper upon the probable region of 

 man's evolution, in which the following points are 

 made. Man formed one of a set of families of man- 

 like animals, somewhat similar to the present apes. 

 Since only the lowest members of the Primates have 

 been distributed to the eastern and the western con- 

 tinent, it is probable that the Primates originated 

 within the arctic circle, while the higher groups 

 sprang from the eastern continent : man, therefore, 

 did not originate within the arctic circle, nor in the 

 new world. The Cynopithecidae, since tertiary time, 

 have been spread over nearly the entire eastern con- 

 tinent. The Semnopithecidae have been dispersed 

 over central and western Europe to southern Europe 

 and south-eastern Asia, as far south as Ethiopia. The 

 anthropoid apes have been more circumscribed, but 

 all the genera of living apes are derived from south- 

 ern Europe and subtropical Asia. As apes existed 



