xxiv Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 



to each other that they are mostly considered to be mere 

 varieties. 



Most botanists look upon S. cereale as a descendant of S. mon- 

 tanum modified by cultivation, for the former is not known to grow 

 wild anywhere. As long as the wild rye of the Eoggeveld was 

 thought to be merely a form of the cultivated species, it was possible 

 to presume that it had been introduced and escaped from cultivation. 

 Since Stapf, however, has shown that it differs considerably from 

 the cultivated rye and that it must be considered to be a distinct 

 species, another puzzle has been added to the many already in 

 existence for the student of the distribution and the origin of the 

 plants of South Africa. 



Mr. Lounsbuky exhibited specimens of Bhipicephalus appmidi- 

 culatus — a species of tick which has been found to transmit African 

 Coast fever and which may be the only species concerned. The 

 tick occurs in the coastal districts of the Colony from Cape Town 

 eastward as well as in Ehodesia, Transvaal, Natal, and along the 

 east coast in German and Portuguese territory. The disease has 

 spread down the east coast and inland into Ehodesia, Transvaal, and 

 Zululand, and since the tick is here to transmit it, there is danger of 

 its ultimately extending over the coast districts of the Colony. The 

 demonstration that the particular tick was the means for spreading 

 the disease was made by the Agricultural Department at the Animal 

 Diseases Experimental Station, Eosebank, near Cape Town. The 

 ticks used were the progeny of specimens collected in the Colony 

 and were all fed once, that is as larvae, on cattle in Cape Town to 

 make certain that they were innocuous at the start. Then as 

 nymphs they were taken to Bulawayo and there fed on an animal 

 dying with the disease ; afterwards they were returned to the Cape, 

 and since they have transformed to the adult stage some have been 

 used to infect six cattle. All the animals have become infected with 

 the disease and five have died with it. One of the cases followed 

 the attack of a single tick and another the attack of two ticks. The 

 incubation period, that is the time from the application of the ticks 

 to the appearance of the fever, was about fifteen days in all. Similar 

 tests in which other species of ticks were used have given negative 

 results. 



Mr. L. Pekinguey exhibited a lion skull said to have been dis- 

 covered in a bushman's cave near Van der Byl's kraal in the Prince 

 Albert division. On examination it is .seen that the triangular iron 

 tip of a long bushman's arrow is so deeply imbedded in the pre- 

 m axillary bone as to have actually split the large canine at the base 

 of the socket. The shot was delivered most probably at close 



