614 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 120. 



world, had anything happened to interfere 

 in any way with the work that the Blue 

 Hill Observatory has been doing so admi- 

 rably since its foundation. The present 

 volume of observations contains the usual 

 data for the year and, in addition, sum- 

 maries for the lustrum and decade, with a 

 discussion of the annual and diurnal peri- 

 ods, by Clayton. A number of interesting 

 points are brought out, among them the 

 grouping of thunderstorms around certain 

 dates ; the occurrence of maxima in the 

 frequency and amount of snowfall at in- 

 tervals of twenty or thirty days ; of the 

 greatest snowfall in February, and of a 

 minimum of rainfall in June, with a maxi- 

 mum in October. 



E. DeC. Ward. 

 Haevaed University. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 



THE SO-CALLED ' BOW-PtTLLEES ' of AN- 

 TIQUITY. 



This is the title of a carefully prepared 

 essay by Professor Edward S. Morse, in the 

 Essex Institute Bulletin, Vol. XXVI., the 

 essential facts of which have been copied 

 in Globus, Bd. LXXI., No. 10, and other 

 foreign journals. The subject discussed is 

 the purpose of certain objects of bronze or 

 iron found in Greek, Roman and Etruscan 

 tombs. These objects are two connected 

 rings of the metal about seven centimeters 

 in full length, the space between them be- 

 ing about two centimeters, from which space 

 three or four knobs, projections or spines, 

 of irregular height, arise. 



Professor Morse proves that these objects 

 can be neither bow-pullers, spear throwers, 

 curbs, bits, caltrops, nor anything else 

 which has been proposed by classical 

 archseologists ; but what they are, he says, 

 after seven years' study, he cannot suggest, 

 nor do the European editors who have re- 

 published his article offer an explanation. 



I take, therefore, some special pleasure 

 in solving this enigma, and in identifying 

 this curious and puzzling object. It is 

 without doubt the Greek myrmex (!J.up/j.rjS) 

 which, in pugilistic encounters, was strapped 

 or chained on the hand over the leathern 

 cestus. This identification answers every 

 condition of form, material, decoration and 

 use mentioned by Professor Morse. I shall 

 shortly publish an article giving the Greek 

 and Latin authorities at length, confirming 

 this opinion. 



fairyland. 



In his presidential address, published in 

 Folk-lore for March, Mr. Alfred Nutt dis- 

 cusses the origin of the fairy-lore which 

 has been such a prominent feature in Eng- 

 lish literature and rustic narrative. He 

 brings together many reasons for attributing 

 it to a Celtic source. It is, in fact, a 

 survival of the belief in the pre-Christian, 

 pagan gods of the Celtic tribes. These have 

 been best remembered in Ireland, where 

 they are still spoken of as the tuatha de 

 Danann — the folk of the goddess Danu ; 

 and they are to this day considered the 

 occupants of the fairy hillocks. 



Mr. Nutt does not explain why the fairies 

 were considered very little beings, as this 

 is not mentioned in the earliest Irish myths. 

 I may suggest that there are reasons for 

 believing that the goddess Danu was the 

 moon (from the O. I. verb, daon, to arise, 

 to ascend ; and compare Harley, Moon-lore, 

 p. 121), and her followers, or folk, the little 

 twinkling stars ; whence by an easy step of 

 personification they were transformed into 

 the tiny fairj^ folk. 



BECENT ETRUSCOLOGY. 



The ' Etruscan problem ' is one of peren- 

 nial interest, and now that the Metropoli- 

 tan Museum of New York and that of the 

 University of Pennsylvania have acquired 

 large and valuable collections from ancient 

 Etruria, the afiBniti^s of its mysterious in- 



