722 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVlll. Xu. 4Uli. 



must marry a woman of his own division 

 but not of his own elan. The orthodox 

 marriage is that of cousins. The institu- 

 tion of polyandry still exists. When a girl 

 marries a boy it is usually understood that 

 she becomes also the wife of his brothers. 

 "For. all social and legal purposes, the 

 father of a child is the man who performs 

 a cei-tain ceremony about the seventh month 

 of pregnancy, in which an imitation bow 

 and arrow is given to the woman." 

 "Fatherhood is determined so absolutely 

 by this ceremony that a man who has been 

 dead for several years is regarded as the 

 father of any children borne by his widow, 

 if no other man has given the bow and 

 arrow." The author considers it possible 

 that the Todas are moving from polyandry 

 toward monogamy through an intermediate 

 stage of combined polyandry and polygeny. 



In 'The Ethnology of Early Italy and 

 its Linguistic Relations to that of Britain,' 

 Professor R. S. Conway discussed the vari- 

 ous suffixes used by the various tribes to 

 form names of communities derived from 

 names of places. There are only six or 

 seven suffixes used for this pui-pose in an- 

 cient Italy and, of these, only three are 

 significant for ethnology, viz., -co, -no and 

 -ti (generally -ati). 



The remaining paper, 'The Progress of 

 Islam in India,' by Mr. William Crooke, 

 admitted the increase of Islam and endeav- 

 ored to ascertain the cause or causes of it. 

 One of these is physical, tending to make 

 the Mohammedans more fertile and more 

 long-lived than the Hindus. The former 

 are recruited from a more vigorous race, 

 discourage infant marriage and the celibacy 

 of widows, and permit a more varied and 

 invigorating diet. 



In addition to the above program, a mem- 

 ber of Section H, Dr. Robert Munro, was 

 invited to deliver one of the evening lec- 

 tures arranged for by the association. Dr. 



Munro 's subject was 'Man as Artist and 

 Sportsman in the Paleolithic Period.' 



Mention should also be made of a num- 

 ber not on the published program, a special 

 treat provided for the anthropologists by 

 Mr. James Hesketh, of Southport. The 

 city is built upon blown sand. Some years 

 ago, Avhile engaged in street or sewerage 

 construction, workmen came upon a rather 

 large wooden structure buried some ten or 

 twelve feet beneath the surface of the 

 ground. Mr. Hesketh, on whose property 

 the find occurred, had extensive excavations 

 made prior to the meeting, in order that 

 visiting scientists might see to best advan- 

 tage what proved to be a pile dwelling or 

 pei'haps a landing for boats. A large frag- 

 ment of a willow mat or basket was found 

 by the piles. It resembles the bird-cage 

 weave of the Clallam Indians. The site 

 is now between one and two miles from the 

 sea. George Grant MacCurdy. 



Yale University Museum. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 376th meeting was held on Saturday, 

 November 14. 



W. H. Dall called attention to the doubt 

 expressed by Dr. True, in a recent number of 

 the Proceedings of the Biological Society, as 

 to the existence of dorsal and ventral keels 

 on the posterior part of the body of Phoccena 

 dalli. Without offering any comments as to 

 the presence or absence of this character in 

 other porpoises, Mr. Dall showed by the orig- 

 inal notes and drawings made at the time of 

 the capture of the type of Phoccena dalli that 

 such keels were certainly present in this 

 species. 



Lester F. Ward noted a curious case of 

 scientific prediction in which ten species were 

 named and described before they were dis- 

 covered. This was done by Ebrenberg, who 

 in working on the diatoms, classed by him as 

 infusoria, described a number of species of 

 Actinocyclus based on the number of rays. 

 For most of these he had specimens, but for 



