116 General Notes. [ February. 
’ We could not avoid thinking that there was a meaning in the action 
here described, significant of an established protective habit, especially 
considering the decided changes of plumage assumed by this species at 
different seasons of the year. — HENRY GILLMAN. 
SHELLS OF KERGUELEN Istanp. — The naturalists connected with 
the Transit of Venus Expedition have begun to make their reports. 
“ In the report of Dr. J. H. Kidder, of the Kerguelen station, now in 
press, Mr. W. H. Dall contributes a list of the mollusca collected, de- 
scribing three new genera, One of these was described in a late num- 
ber of the Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist. by Mr. E. A. Smith, of the Brit- 
ish Museum, under the name Eatonia, long since preoccupied by Hall 
for a genus of brachiopoda. For this Mr. Dall substitutes Hatoniella. 
Mr. Dall also describes a genus allied to Ceropsis of the Carditide, but 
smooth and without lateral teeth, and with a semi-internal ligament, 
giving it the name Kidderia, in honor of the naturalist of the expedition. 
Dr. P. P. Carpenter also describes a new genus of chitons, with the 
anterior and posterior valves marginate, but not slit, and the other 
valves without a margin. This genus, intermediate between Hanleia 
and the articulate chitons, he calls Hemiarthrum. 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 
` Jasper WAR-CLUB TEETH. — In the sixth volume of the NATURALIST, 
page 157, fig. 24, I described a large flint implement as a hatchet. Such 
specimens I have since been led to consider as teeth, if I may so call 
them, of war-clubs ; the handles of which were frequently the femora of 
the elk and bison. This form may be briefly described as obtusely 
pointed, short, and broad jasper implements; evenly chipped to a well- 
defined edge. Average-sized specimens measure about three to four 
inches in length, by two and a half to three in breadth. While the 
chipping is not as fine as in arrow and spear points, it is certain that the 
majority, at least, are finished implements, as suggested by the author of 
Flint Chips (p. 439), and not merely “blocked out” masses of jasper; 
to be subsequently worked into spear-heads and similar forms (see Rau 
on Agricultural Implements, Smithsonian Annual Report, 1868, p. 401). 
Besides these finished specimens, I have found that the larger flint im- 
plements, which I have considered to be either “lance - heads” (Prot 
Acad. Nat. Sci. of Philadelphia, 1860, p. 278) or agricultural imple- 
ments when blunt and broad, and weapons when narrower and pointed, 
in vol. vi. of this journal, page 155, fig. 22, — that these, when broken 
in half, were subsequently utilized as I have suggested, just as broken 
arrow-heads were occasionally made available, by conversion into scrap 
ers (see this journal, vii. 500), except that in the latter instance 
the base of the broken implement was used, and in the former, the 
pointed or upper half. My reason for considering them as the teeth 
of war-clubs is that the point, although blunt, is well defined, and the 
