'74 
NATURE NOTES 
study of brambles in England might practically have been described as non- 
existent. Nowadays, such a polymorphic group is as interesting to the evolu- 
tionist as to one who believes species to be fixed entities ; but it is essential that 
we should be able to discuss British forms in comparison with those of the 
Continent. It was a misfortune that Ilewett Watson seems only to have had a 
defective copy of Babington’s Kubi ; and similarly English botanists of to-day 
have been unable satisfactorily to compare the brambles now known with the 
descriptions of Dr. Focke, the chief Continental authority on the group, until 
Mr. Rogers publi.shed the present excellent monograph. We note that Mr. 
Rogers arranges the species and varieties much as he did in the ninth edition of 
the Lovdon Catalogue five years ago, and that he has only increased the number 
of the former from too to 103. The comital distribution summarised in the 
Appendix is, as no doubt the author would be the first to recognise, necessarily 
detective from the paucity of observers of such critical groups. While, tor 
instance, in South Essex there are twenty-two species, four suh-species, and three 
varieties recorded, in the northern half of the same county there appear but six 
species and one variety. The book is excellently printed ; and while it must be 
clearly recognised that there is no royal road to brambles, it must be admitted 
that by its publication, coupled with the issue of the set of dried specimens in 
conjunction with Messrs. Linton and Murray, Mr. Rogers has done all that can 
be done to make one. 
White Cattle: An hujtiiry into their Origin and History. By R. Hedger 
Wallace. F'rom the Transactions of the Natural History Society of 
Glasgozv, vol. V., n.s., parts 2 and 3, 1897-99. 
As the author of this interesting paper gives a bibliography occupying 21 pp., 
whilst the remainder of his own paper only occupies some 88 pp. , it would be 
rash to say that he has exhausted the subject. He has, however, got together 
and critically discussed an immense amount of matter of a most fascinating 
character from sources many of which are of the most recondite, and has 
illustrated his paper with seven excellent photographic plates and thirty-two 
other cuts, including many reproductions of curious old blocks. His conclusions 
agree with those of Professor McKenny Flughes, viz., that the Urus {Bos pri?ni- 
getiius) appeared in Palteolithic times and became extinct in Britain long before 
the time of Caesar ; that the Celtic Shorthorn (Bos longifrons) appeared, with 
the Urus, in Neolithic times, and is the characteristic ox of the Bronze Age ; that 
the Romans improved it by crossing with an Italian race, of which the Chilling- 
ham cattle are the nearest feral representatives, and that the Longhorns are a 
mediaeval introduction from the Low Countries. A host of subsidiary questions, 
however, are also discussed. 
Received. — Knowledge, Science Gossip, The Naturalist, The Irish Naturalist, 
Humanity, Our Animal Friends, The Agricultural Economist for August, and 
The Animal World for July and August. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Dogs and Thunderstorms. — During a recent thunder and lightning 
storm I noticed a remarkable case of my neighbouring farmer’s collie dog appeal- 
ing, apparently to me, for protection from a coming storm. The dog very rarely 
comes on roy premises, but on this occasion he appeared restless and frightened 
at the approaching storm, and came into the house and lay under my chair up in 
the farthest corner of the room (the safest place it should be noted), from where 
on the abatement he came out and walked off, and has not, to my knowledge, 
been on the premises since, although I frequently meet him in the road or on the 
farmer’s premises. Call it instinct, or what we will, it was very interesting. 
J. Hiam. 
