192 The American Naturalist. [February 
From the tools and other implements which I brought back, Mr. 
Frank Hamilton Cushing of Washington has been able to prove that 
the lacquer art was known to those people; that the goldsmiths art, of 
which it is possible to show all the processes, was very cleverly prac- 
ticed, and lastly he has been able reconstruct for the first time the an- 
cient Peruvian loom and to demonstrate the methods by which all the 
intricate fabrics of that time were woven. It is sincerely to be hoped 
that before long he will be able to present these wonderful and most 
valuable discoveries to the world. 
—SAMUEL MATHEWSON SCOTT. 
Mr. H. A. Pilsbry, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 
delphia, has kindly identified the shell specimens collected by Mr 
Scott at these shell heaps, as Spondylus princeps (Brod.), Gulf of Cali- 
fornia, etc.; Natica panamensis (Recluz.) ; Trivia radians (Lam.), St. 
Elena, west coast of Columbia , Donax radiatus (Valenc.), Mazatlan to 
Valparaiso ; Terebra fulgurata (Philippi), Mazatlan. The large thorny 
Spondylus would, he says, roast well. The delicate little Donax would 
make excellent soup, and the Natica would be found as edible by the 
Peruvian Indian as its Periwinkle brother has been by the North 
American Red Man, whose shell heaps and village sites are thickly 
strewn with it. The modern Londoner, as Mr. Pilsbry informs me, 
eats tons of the same snail yearly. Minute Terebre and Olive, if not 
boiled for soup, might have done for trinkets. 
H. C. MERCER. 
The Neanderthal Man in Java.—Dr. Eugene DuBois of the 
Army of the Netherlands has recently published in Batavia, Java, in 
a brochure in quarto, an account of some bones of an interesting 
quadrumanous mammal allied to man, which were found in a sedi- 
mentary bed of material of volcanic origin, of probably Plistocene age. 
The remains consist of a calvarium which includes the supraorbital 
ridges and a part of the occiput; a last superior upper molar; and a 
femur. The tooth was found close to the skull and probably belongs 
to the same individual as the latter, while the reference of the femur 
is more uncertain, as it was found some fifty feet distant. 
The characters of the skull are closely similar to those of the men of 
Neanderthal and of Spy, but the walls are not so thick as those of the 
former, and more-nearly resemble those of the latter. The frontal 
region is, therefore, much depressed, and it is also much constricted 
posterior to the postorbital borders. The sutures are obliterated. 
Much interest attaches to the cranial capacity, which Dr. DuBois 
