EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 45 



hunted for food by the natives they sometimes roost near the native houses 

 or villages for protection. Their roosts seem to be permanently occupied. 

 We found the specimens we procured had been feeding upon the palm-juice 

 which the natives were collecting for saquir (toddy). The bats visit the 

 trees at night and drink the juice from the cups hung on the trees." 



Two new species, Pteropus auri-nuchalis and P. lucifer, are described 

 by Mr. Elliot. 



The rinderpest, which is devastating South Africa, and has been 

 calculated as liable to destroy ninety-nine per cent, of the domesticated 

 oxen, has prompted the suggestion of more than one remedy. Dr. Stroud, 

 of Pretoria, has now advocated a process of inoculation. He argues that 

 prevention can never be brought about by a system of medication, but, in a 

 specific disease of this terrible nature, can only be effected, either by the 

 wholesale slaughter of the healthy along with the smitten, and so getting 

 rid of all possible contingencies by one radical sweep; or else, by increasing 

 in the sound animal its power of resistance to the invasion of the disease. 

 As the rinderpest is reported to have attacked some of the wild fauna, the 

 difficulties of the course proposed are doubtless increased. 



What devastation the rinderpest has created in the Transvaal alone 

 is shown by an extract from the Pretoria * Press,' November, 1896 : — " To 

 quote a single instance, it may be stated that in the ward Boschveld, in 

 the Marico district, there were, before the outbreak, some 30,798 head of 

 oxen. Up to date 4,027 of these have been slaughtered, and 16,808 have 

 died, representing a loss of 20,835 animals; 6,766 are still healthy, 610 

 are sick ; 958 have been salted ; 3,229 have been treated by the ' zucht ' 

 method; there being thus 9,953 head alive, for those at present sick can 

 hardly be counted." 



Locusts are still ravaging South Africa. We learn from Durban, 

 under date of last November, that on one morning during that month 

 immense swarms stretched without intermission from Bellair to the Congella 

 Valley, and young mealie fields and vegetable patches in many places were 

 utterly spoiled. Part of a swarm passed over, but did not settle. Swarms 

 were seen on the back beach, and although they were keeping pretty close 

 to the ground, a westerly breeze which prevailed was driving them to the 

 sea rapidly. Numbers of dead locusts, which had been washed up by the 

 waves, were piled up in a line along the beach, and as the breeze freshened 

 during the day the work of destruction increased. 



At a December meeting of the Croydon Microscopical and Natural 

 History Society, the President, Mr. W. M. Holmes, stated that he had seen 



