Maech 5, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



393 



A NEW SUBGENEEIC NAME FOR THE WATER 



HARES (hydrolagus gray.) 



Mr. Frederick W. True lias called my 

 attention to the fact that the name Hydro- 

 lagus used subgenerically by me in a recent 

 paper on American Hares* is preoccupied in 

 Ichthyology, the case standing as follows : 



Hydrolagus Gill, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., 

 Phila. for 1862, p. 331. 



Hydrolagus Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. 

 Hist., 3d ser., XX., 1867, p. 221. 



There being no synonj'm of Gray's pre- 

 occupied Hydrolagus to replace it, the name 

 Limnolagus, new subgenus, is therefore pro- 

 posed for the group of Water Hares, of 

 which Lepus [Limnolagus\ aqiiaticus Bach- 

 man will be the type. 



This section of Lepus was originally char- 

 acterized by Baird (Mammals of North 

 America, 1857, page 575), as follows : " F. 

 Skull and incisors very large and mas- 

 sive ; muzzle about as wide as high. Post- 

 orbital process completely fused with the 

 skull for its entire length, leaving neither 

 foramen, notch nor suture, L. aquatieus 

 [and L-l palustris." The above diagnosis, 

 supplemented by additional characters 

 given by Baird in his Key to the North 

 American species of Lepus at the top of 

 page 577, has since been repeated, with 

 some modifications, by Gray (who raised 

 Baird's section ' F.' to generic rank), 

 Allen and myself. 



Edgar A. Mearns. 



U. S. Aemy. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTEROPOLOGY. 

 WOMAN IN CHINA. 



Prof. Gustave Schlegel, of Leyden, 

 contributed to the 10th International Con- 

 gress of Orientalists a charming study (in 

 French) on the position of woman in China, 



* Preliminary description of a new subgenus and 

 six new species and subspecies of Hares from the 

 Mexican border of the United States. Proc. U. S. 

 Nat. Mus.,Vol. XVIII., No. 1081, pp. 551-565, 1896. 



in times past and present. Truly, as he 

 points out, she enjoys there in many re- 

 spects an influence greater than with us. 

 The Emperor of China to-day, in theory at 

 least, does nothing but carry out the orders 

 of his mother ! The conjugal position of 

 the wife is, as a rule, dignified and impor- 

 tant ; and when she is unhappy it is nearly 

 always a case of two much mother-in-law. 

 In the past Chinese women have occu- 

 pied prominent rank in literature and the 

 fine arts. They have been poets and 

 writers of historj'^, and indirectly have 

 directed government. Even in the most 

 ancient monuments of Chinese literature 

 we do not discover any expressions which 

 indicate that women were kept in a servile 

 condition 



DEATH MASKS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. 



Two interesting contributions to the study 

 of death masks have recently appeared. 

 One is by Mr. F. S. Dellenbaugh, in the 

 American Anthropologist for February, on the 

 faces of the dead so accurately reproduced 

 on vases from Arkansas. These, he argues, 

 were, in fact, not hand work, but obtained 

 from moulds actually taken from the visage 

 of the corpse. In no other way, he believes, 

 can we explain their striking accuracy. 



In Folk-Lore for December, 1896, the 

 Hon. J. Abercromby treats of funeral masks 

 in Europe. The custom still prevails in 

 various localities to cover the face of the 

 dead with such a mask during the funeral 

 ceremonies, though sometimes the mask is 

 placed not on the face, but besides the 

 corpse. His explanations of the custom in 

 some of its details are not convincing, and 

 probably we have not yet caught the exact 

 spirit of remote ages on this point. 



ONTARIO archaeological REPORT. 



The annual report (1896-7) of the On- 

 tario Archaeological Museum contains some 

 matters of unusual interest. The first is a 

 careful description of the Otonabee serpent 



