May 28, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



835 



the unsettled state of the weather in the 

 latter part of the past year. 



The number of animals in the Society's 

 Gardens on the Slst of December last was 

 2,473, of which 902 were mammals, 1,132 

 birds and 439 reptiles and batrachians. 

 Amongst the additions made during the 

 past year 18 were specially commented 

 upon as of remarkable interest, and inmost 

 cases new to the Society's collections. 

 Amongst these were a young male Manatee 

 from the Upper Amazons, a young male 

 Klipspinger from northeast Africa, a young 

 female Gorilla from French Congoland, a 

 pair of lettered Aracaris from Para, a young 

 Brazza's Monkey from French Congoland, 

 a Loder's Gazelle from the "Western Desert 

 of Egypt, three Ivory Gulls from Spitz- 

 bergen and three Franklin's Gulls from 

 America. A serious loss was occasioned to 

 the Society's menagerie by the sudden 

 death, in March last, of the male Indian 

 Elephant (Jung Pasha), deposited in the 

 Gardens by H. E. H. The Prince of Wales 

 on his return from India in 1876, and for 

 the past twenty years well known to all 

 visitors to the Gardens. 



A vote of thanks to the Council for their 

 report was then moved by Dr. Henry Wood- 

 ward, F.E.S, seconded by Lord Medway, 

 and carried unanimously. 



The report having been adopted, the meet- 

 ing proceeded to elect the new members of 

 Council and the officers for the ensuing year.. 

 The usual ballot having been taken, it 

 was announced that William Bateson,Esq., 

 F.E.S., Col. John Biddulph, Dr. Albert Giin- 

 ther, F.E.S., Osbert Salvin, Esq., F.E.S., 

 and Joseph Travers Smith, Esq., 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 Drummond, Esq., Treas- 

 urer, and Philip Lutley Sclater, M.A., 

 Ph.D., F.E.S., Secretary to the Society, for 

 the ensuing year. 



CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 PRIMITIVE SYMBOLIC DECOEATION. 



Two articles have lately appeared which 

 are worth a comparison. The one is by 

 Mr. C. C. Willoughby, of the Peabody 

 Museum, Cambridge, in the Journal of Ameri- 

 can Folk-lore for March, on the decorations 

 upon pottery from the Mississippi valley. 

 It is a recasting of that read by himself and 

 Professor Putnam before the American 

 Association in 1895. He points out a va- 

 riety of simple designs which he identifies 

 as ' cosmic symbols,' ' sun symbols,' others 

 for the winds, the clouds, the bird, the 

 band, etc. Of course, the svastika, the 

 triskeles and the cross come in as other 

 ' symbols.' 



This is one view to take of the aim of 

 primitive decoration, and it is now in the 

 ascendant in the United States. But in 

 France they think otherwise. In the Bulle- 

 tin of the Paris Anthropological Society (1896, 

 Ease. 6) M. Eegnault has an article on the 

 beginnings of ornamental art among primi- 

 tive peoples, in which he explains such 

 figures as the natural result of crossing 

 lines, joining angles, repeating designs, con- 

 necting curves, etc., all this in the most 

 simple manner and without any occult or 

 mystic intent whatever. They were mere 

 decorative sketches, ' only this and nothing 

 more.' 



It is easy to read into barbaric scratches 

 the thoughts of later times, and Ave must 

 acknowledge that something more besides 

 the figure itself is needed to prove its sym- 

 bolic sense. 



man's speech to bkdtes. 

 A PRIMITIVE myth asserts that in the good 

 old times men and brutes conversed together 

 understandingly. How limited their inter- 

 course by speech now is may be learned from 

 Dr. H. Carrington Bolton's paper in the 

 American Anthropologist, 'The language used 

 in talking to Domestic Animals.' 



