"the baking stones, were not far from the chief collection of bones of "D. elephantopus. Both were covered by drifted sand from "three to seven feet in thickness. Some of the bones have been "scorched by fire."* Again in his interesting "Note on the locality, affording the femur of the D. gracilis," Mr. Cormack says, “At the "same spot there was a kapura maori, or native cooking fireplace, dug into the surface of the substratum, and full of stones that had 66 once been heated (to convey the heat to the food laid upon them), "and left, just as similar cooking-places are left at the present day 'by the natives-about two feet from which lay the bones. Close to "the fireplace, and similarly imbedded, were bones of smaller birds, "and of fishes similar to those found at present in the sea adjacent; all, including those of the Moa, having been evidently the remains "of the food cooked here at a former period and eaten, as my native attendant remarked, by the then native inhabitants." The evidence afforded by these New Zealand kjökkenmöddings certainly appears to establish satisfactorily the co-existence of the Moa and the Maori ; nevertheless the following letter which I have received from M. Lartet will, I am sure, be read with interest.

66

"MON CHER MONSIEUR LUBBOCK,-Je puis aujourd'hui, avec l'assentiment de M. Serres, Professeur d'Anatomie comparée au Jardin des Plantes, vous fournir les renseignements que vous souhaitez sur les ossements de Dinornis et autres accessoires donnés au Museum d'histoire Naturelle, le 29 Oct. 1858, par M. W. Mantell. Ces ossements avaient été trouvés, en 1857, en creusant un lit de sable renfermant de l'augite de fer titanifère, &c. a Te-rangataque, Waingogoro au coté ouest de North Island de la Nouvelle Zélande; une partie des accessoires parait provenir d'une autre localité indiqueé, par M. W. Mantell, sous le nom de Ruamoa.

Le morceau capital donné par M. W. Mantell, est un membre entier qu'il rapporte à une espèce nouvelle (Dinornis elephantopus).

"Parmi les morceaux non classés et sur lesquels M. W. Mantell n'a pas laissé de renseignements écrits, on peut reconnaître des portions de femur, des phalanges et tout la partie supérieure d'un crane de Dinornis dont les cavités sont encore remplies d'une mélange de charbon et de cendres, il y a aussi une phalange unguale offrant un état de carbonisation tel que l'on doit supposer qu'au moment où elle a été soumise à l'action du feu elle retenait encore beaucoup de substance gélatineuse.

"Avec ces ossements d'oiseaux se trouvent quelques restes de mammifères sur les quels je n'ai pas trouvé de renseignements écrits, mais classés comme de même provenance. C'est d'abord une demi-mandibule d'un carnassier du genre Canis que j'ai pu rapprocher de celle attachée à un crâne de Canis australis que possède notre collection, sans y remarquer d'autre diffèrence qu'un peu moins de grandeur.

"Il y a aussi plusieurs dents de phoque et un humerus d'un jeune individu de cette famille qui parait avoir été soumis à l'action du feu. Les dents m'ont paru appartenir au Phoca leptonyx.

"J'avais oublié de mentionner que Mr. W. Mantell a également donné de nombreux fragments de coque d'œuf très minces qu'il attribue au Dinornis.

"Voici maintenant en quoi consistent les accessoires donnés par Mr. W. Mantell comme se rattachant circonstanciellement et synchroniquement, à ces débris de Dinornis.

"1o. Un caillou ovalaire et dont la surface altérée par l'action du feu ne permet

• Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc. Vol. iv. p. 156.

+ Trans. Zool. Soc. Vol. iv. p. 146.

pas de bien déterminer la nature minéralogique-il me parait être de roche plutonique; ce caillou de la forme et de la grosseur d'un petit œuf de poule, ou mieux encore de la forme d'un œuf de Palmipède, avait dû servir, suivant M. Mantell, à faire cuire les oiseaux.

66

"2o. Un grand éclat de silex noirâtre, offrant sur l'une de ses faces presque plâne, le renflement en cassure conchoidale si characteristique des éclats de silex obtenus artificiellement; l'autre face présente deux plans obliques séparés par une arète médiane et longitudinale: l'un des bords est plus tranchant que l'autre. Suivant M. Mantell ce silex taillé a dû servir à couper les chairs.

"3°. Plusieurs éclats d'obsidienne à bords plus ou moins tranchants mais sans forme definable. M. Mantell n'a donné d'autre renseignement sur ces éclats d'obsidienne que leur provenance de Rangataque.

"4°. Un autre fragment de grès lustré à plans de cassure multiples et une seule facette lisse, simplement indiquè comme provenant de Ruamoa."

*

These additional facts will, I think, be read with interest, and fully justify the conclusion, that in all probability the "Moa was exterminated, like the Irish gigantic Deer and the Dodo, by the 66 agency of man."

66

PARTHENOGENESIS IN THE SILK-WORM MOTH.

In the Philosophical Transactions for 1856 I have endeavoured to record all the species of Articulata in which virgin females have produced fertile eggs. Among the Lepidoptera the genera Psyche and Solenobia multiply generally by Parthenogenesis, while in other genera this only occurs as a rare and exceptional phenomenon. While, however, some cases seem to be satisfactorily established, we have no observations on the conditions of their occurrence. In the Comptes Rendus for the 16th December, M. Jourdan records the results of some experiments on the silk-worm moth. There is a tradition among some of the ancient families of silk-growers in the south of France, that one of the best ways of regenerating their races of silk-worms was to employ what is called "virgin seed," that is to say, unimpregnated eggs.

To test the truth of this statement M. Jourdan made the following experiments. He isolated 300 cocoons of a variety which has four moults, and only gives one yearly silk crop; and from these he obtained 147 female moths and 151 males. Out of these 147 females only six laid fertile eggs-two gave 7, two 4, one 5, and one 2. These 29 eggs were the only ones which were hatched, though many others passed through the early stages of embryonic development. The whole number of eggs laid was about 58,000, so that the proportion of fertile ones was about one in two thousand.

He made a second experiment on a variety which, instead of one generation in a year, has five or six, and undergoes three moults. Out of 50 cocoons he bred 23 females and 26 males. Seventeen out

Rupert Jones, in Mantell's Wonders of Geology, 7th edition, p. 129.

of the twenty-three females laid fertile eggs, though M. Jourdan is convinced that neither in this experiment nor in the former one can any impregnation have taken place. The good eggs were in the proportion of one to seventeen. M. Jourdan does not mention the sex of the young thus produced; he promises, however, to repeat his experiments on a larger scale. I. L.

Botanical Information.-Fruiting specimens have been received by Sir W. J. Hooker, of a very remarkable plant, growing in the Dammar country, West Africa, evidently closely allied to the genus Tumboa, alluded to by Dr. Welwilsch (Linn. Proc. Bot. v. 185), though probably specifically distinct from his plant. A coloured sketch by its discoverer Mr. Baines was forwarded with the specimens. The plant is represented as destitute of the curious tubular stem described by Welwilsch, but the huge riband- like spreading leaves, several feet in length, and the character of the infrutescence correspond very well with his account. Instead, however, of a single pair of leaves, Mr. Baines represents the plant as possessing at least two pairs crossing each other at right angles. The female flowers are arranged in lanceolate, closely-imbricating, squarrose cymes, 2-3 inches in length. Dr. Hooker, who is describing the specimens, considers the Tumboa to be undoubtedly Gnetaceous. The structure of the young fruits agrees very closely with that observed in Gnetum

itself.

Common Ling (Callema vulgaris) in Massachusetts.

That "America has no heaths" is a botanical aphorism. It is understood, however, that an English surveyor, nearly 30 years ago, found Callema vulgaris in the interior of Newfoundland. Also that De la Pylaie, still earlier, enumerates it as an inhabitant of that island. But this summer, Mr. Jackson Dawson, a young gardener, has brought us specimens of living plants (both flowering stocks and young seedlings) from Tewkesbury, Massachusetts, where the plant occurs rather abundantly over about half an acre of rather boggy ground, along with Andromeda calyculata, Azalea viscosa, Kalmia angustifolia, Guatiola aurea, &c., apparently as much at home as any of them. **** It may have been introduced, unlikely as it seems, or we may have to range this heath with Scolopendrium officinarum, Sabularia aquatica, and Marsilea quadrifolia, as species of the old world so sparingly represented in the new, that they are known only at single stations,-perhaps late-lingerers rather than new comers. Asa Gray, in Silliman's Jour. xxxii. (1861.) 290. We have seen a specimen of the American Callema, forwarded to Dr. Hooker. It does not seem to differ in the least from the common Ling of our moorlands.

THE

NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW:

A

QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE.

Reviews.

ХХХІІІ.

1. BERICHT ÜBER DIE ZUSAMMENKUNFT EINIGER ANTHROPOLOGEN, in September 1861, in Göttingen. Leipzig, 1861.

2. ZUR MORPHOLOGIE DER RASSEN-SCHÄDEL.

Luce. Frankfurt, 1861.

Von Dr. J. C. G.

3. THE MENSURATION OF THE HUMAN SKULL. By J. Aitkin Meigs, M.D. Philadelphia, 1861.

4. LE KEPHALOGRAPHE. Nouvel Instrument destiné à déterminer la Figure et les Dimensions du Crane ou de la Tête Humaine. Par P. Harting. Utrecht, 1861.

5. ESSAI SUR LES DÉFORMATIONS ARTIFICIELLES DU CRANE. Par L. A. Gosse. Paris, 1855.

6. CRANIOMETRIE OF ONDERZOEK VAN DEN MENSCHELIJKEN SCHEDEL BIJ VERSCHILLENDE VOLKEN, IN VERGELIJKING MET DIEN VAN DEN ORANG OETAN. Door J. A. Kool. Amsterdam, 1852. 7. UNTERSUCHUNGEN ÜBER SCHÄDELFORMEN. Von Dr. Joseph Engel. Prague, 1851.

8. OBSERVATIONS ON THE HUMAN CRANIA contained in the Museum of the Army Medical Department, Fort Pitt, Chatham. Crania Britannica. By J. Thurnam and J. B. Davis, 1858-62. [With Plate VIII.]

THE above long list of comparatively recent works, chiefly on the subject of Craniometry, or on the various modes in which the dimensions, proportions, and form of the Human Cranium may be estimated and defined, and to which numerous additions of prior date might be made, will alone suffice to show, how much importance is now deservedly attached to this branch of COMPARATIVE ANTHROPOLOGY. A term, first proposed, we believe, by the illus

N. H. R.-1862.

2 B

trious v. Baer, and under which is comprehended that department of the great science of General Anthropology which embraces more particularly the study of the physical characters of the different varieties of the Human Race, and which has of late assumed more and more the features of a definite branch of Science.

Long confined in great measure to Ethnologists, and not very sedulously, and by no means very successfully cultivated even by them, it has in more recent times begun to claim its due importance in the eyes of the Zoologist and Comparative Anatomist. It has also become one of the most useful aids to the Archeologist, and even, it may be said, to the Geologist, whose pursuits seem at length to be converging to a common point.

The great questions embraced by Comparative Anthropology, concern not only the true nature and value of the diversities so manifestly exhibited in the different varieties of the existing races of mankind, but also those relating to the connection between them and the priscan populations whose remains have of late years more especially occupied the attention of philosophical enquirers.

Much has been done and great labour has been expended on this branch of science, but, nevertheless, some of the most important problems connected with it still await solution. Its hitherto limited progress may be assigned to several circumstances, amongst which it may chiefly perhaps be noticed that the purely physical enquirywith which, regarding Comparative Anthropology as a part of Zoology, we alone have to do,-has been in great measure postponed as it were to the philological; a course which a little consideration will, we think, show to be unlikely to lead to any satisfactory result. But it is also attended with inherent difficulties of its own, regarded simply as a physical enquiry. The difficulties attending the investigation of the diversities of human beings, it is scarcely necessary to observe are far greater than are met with in other branches of Zoology. In the case of animals and plants, copious collections can be made and stored up in museums for accurate and leisurely examination and comparison, but it would be impossible to make similar collections of the different forms of the human race. At best but few perfect specimens of pure or unmixed races (to use an indefinite term) can be obtained, and the Anthropologist at home is compelled to rely for the materials of his studies upon the incomplete descriptions and imperfect figures of travellers, or upon such fragmentary portions of the body as can be easily obtained and transported.

A Gorilla or a Chimpanzee can be caught and sent alive to the Zoological Gardens, or killed and forwarded in a cask of rum to the British Museum, but loud would be the outcry were similar attempts made to promote the study of Anthropology.

It follows that the principal part of our materials for this study can consist only of the more permanent and portable portions of the frame. Amongst these it is manifest, for many reasons, that the cranium taken singly is by far the most important, and it is to this