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See SOCIETY.

FOUNDED 1881.

—-_-

TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS.*

An Address delivered to the Scottish Natural History Society
at the Opening of the Session 1898-99.

By Mr GoopcuiLp, of the Geological Survey, F.G.S., F.Z.5.,
Curator of the Collections of Scottish Geology and
Mineralogy in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and
Art, President.

WHat we commonly understand by corals are organic
structures consisting mainly of carbonate of lime, which
the animals that form those structures have extracted
during their lifetime from sea-water. The primary source
of that carbonate of lime lies where many people would
little think of looking for it, for it occurs as one of the
original constituents of eruptive rocks. Some of these
rocks, when they rise in a fluid state from the inner zones
of the earth’s crust, carry upward large quantities of lime in
a state of solution, and when the aqueous solvents escape
and the temperature falls, these solutions consolidate, and

* This Address was illustrated by many large water-colour diagrams of
living corals and their allies, by numerous specimens illustrating the form
and the mode of growth of corals, and by a series of lantern slides taken
from photographic views of living corals and coral reefs, chiefly from views
taken in the New Hebrides by the Rev J. S, Laurie.

VOM: 1: I

2 MR GOODCHILD ON

then usually pass into the crystalline form.* The lime is
left under these new conditions in chemical combination
with some of the other constituents of the newly-formed
rock, generally in combination with silica. The proportion
of lime to the other constituents varies within wide limits,
being small in rocks allied to granites, and ranging up to
nearly 9 per cent. by weight in such rocks as those, for
instance, which form Edinburgh Castle Rock, Salisbury Crags,
the Corstorphine Hills, or the main mass of Arthur Seat.
We may speak of these rocks as basalts. The percentage
may be more than that in some rocks of exceptional character.

When such rocks are exposed at the earth’s surface, they
begin at once to be attacked by atmospheric agencies, and, in
course of time, are almost entirely decomposed by them. A
small quantity of Carbonic Acid (from +22 per cent. to ‘45 per
cent. by volume) is carried down in solution by rain, and
this quantity is considerably augmented when the rain-water
reaches the surface, by acids of similar character (the humus
acids), which arise through the action of bacteria upon dead
plants and animals. Water charged with weak solutions of
these acids possesses, amongst other properties, that of being
able to decompose eruptive rocks. They effect this by
forming bicarbonates of some of the constituents of these
rocks, amongst which bicarbonates that of lime usually forms
a large part. Any other lime-bearing rock suffers more or
less from the attacks of the same chemical agency. Give it
time enough, in fact, and Carbonic Acid is competent to dis-
solve a large part of such lime-bearing rocks. Running water
than carries the dissolved materials from the land surface
downward, and in course of time transports the solutions to
the sea. Other compounds of lime, of somewhat lesser
importance in the present connection, are also liberated from
rocks by chemical action, and are also transported seawards
by means of rivers. Taking the basin of the Atlantic as an
example, we find that lime-salts equivalent to nearly 54
tons of carbonate of lime, are carried annually into the sea

* The author has long taught in his Geology lectures that many of the
phenomena connected with the so-called ‘‘ igneous” rocks are most satis-

factorily explained by the hypothesis that these rocks are really deposits from
aqueous solutions,

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS, ; 3

from each square mile of the area drained. As the area of
the Atlantic basin amounts to some 26,400,000 square miles,
these figures mean that there is annually being poured into
the Atlantic Ocean lime-salts in solution equivalent to
1,415,600,000 tons of carbonate of lime. It may be of
interest to mention that, if this latter quantity of carbonate
of lime be distributed in a solid form over an area equal to
that of the land surface from which it was derived, it would
accumulate, on the above computation, at such a rate that
one foot of limestone would be formed in about 42,000 years.
If the total quantity transported seawards annually by all
the rivers of the globe were to be deposited uniformly over
the entire ocean floor, it would require 133,000 years for
the accumulation of a single foot of limestone. This, how-
ever, is not what really happens, for there are large areas of
the ocean bottom where almost no carbonate of lime is being
deposited at all, and where, consequently, the material not
so used goes to increase the rate at which the carbonate of
lime may be deposited in other parts. A few other figures
bearing upon this point may advantageously be given here.
The total quantity of calcium present in one cubic mile of
ordinary sea-water is 1,941,000 tons, and that in solution in
the whole ocean 628,340,000,000,000 tons. Of the quantity
of lime-salts present in each cubic mile of sea-water, 171,600
tons consist of carbonate of lime, and the remaining
1,769,400 tons are of sulphate of lime. If we compare
the proportions these two salts in a cubic mile of sea-water
bear to those in the same quantity of river-water, the differ-
ence is very striking and suggestive. Roughly, the propor-
tion referred to may be stated as 1 of carbonate of lime to
17 of sulphate of lime in sea-water, while the average found
in the river-waters of Europe, according to Mr Mellard
Reade, shows that the proportion of carbonate of lime to sul-
phate of lime is as 9°32 to 1:79. Furthermore, river-water
contains 1 of magnesium to 3 of calcium; while in sea-
water this proportion is reversed —3°85 of magnesium in
sea-water being accompanied by 1 of calcium. These
facts and figures are of much importance in the present
connection.

A curious chemical change arises along the zones where

4 MR GOODCHILD ON

the river-waters derived from the land mingle with the
waters of the sea. That this is the case, must be obvious
to any one who has attentively considered the statements
just made. The nature of this chemical change may be
briefly described as the conversion of the soluble bicarbonate
of lime into a solution of the sulphate. In this latter form
lime-salts become widely diffused, and equalised in amount,
throughout the oceanic areas; so that if an excess of either
supply or demand arises at any part, the balance is presently
made good by diffusion from the areas adjoining. One
result of the chemical conversion just referred to is that
much of the Carbonic Acid which formed the solvent of the
bicarbonate of lime must be liberated at the zone where the
conversion of the bicarbonate of lime into the sulphate takes
place. Part of this newly-liberated gas must be carried by
diffusion to other areas where rocks are undergoing much
weathering, or where the drain upon the atmosphere, due to
the growth of vegetation, is heavier than usual. But
perhaps the rank growth of sea-weeds which characterises
the outer part of the estuaries of so many rivers, may
account for the refixation of a large part of the remainder.

It must be obvious that if so large a quantity of lime is
being continually poured into the ocean by the rivers of
the globe, while the actual quantity in solution remains both
small and constant in amount, that there must be some
agency at work using up this lime as fast as it arrives. It
is well known that the agent in question is, in the main,
organic. Vast numbers of both animal- and vegetable-
organisms are continually at work secreting lime-salts from
a state of solution in sea-water, and fixing it in the solid
form as part of their own structures. It is important to
bear in mind that the organisms which are thus engaged in
secreting lime from sea-water include representatives of the
lower orders of plants (Nullipores and Corallines), as well
as Protozoa, Hydrocorallines, Corals, Echinoderms, Polyzoa,
Brachiopoda, Crustacea, and Mollusca. Of these the great
majority live at the bottom of the water; but floating
organisms, which live near the surface, also play a by no
means unimportant part. Referring to these latter, Sir

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. ly,

John Murray says* :——“ An attempt was made [during the
Challenger Expedition] to estimate the quantity of carbonate
of lime in the form of calcareous Alge, Foraminifera, Ptero-
poda, Heteropods, and pelagic Gasteropods, in the surface-
waters. A tow-net, having a mouth 123 inches in diameter,
was dragged for as nearly as possible half a mile through
the water. The shells collected were boiled in caustic
potash, washed, and then weighed. The mean of four
experiments gave 2°545 grammes. If these animals were as
abundant in all the depths down to 100 fathoms as they
were in the track followed by the tow-net, this would give
over 16 tons of carbonate of lime in this form in a mass of
the ocean 1 mile square by 100 fathoms deep.” In a
footnote to Appendix II. of the Third Edition of Darwin’s
Coral Reefs, p. 284, is the following:—“I estimate that
this amount of carbonate of lime is equivalent to a solid
layer of the same area which is approximately ‘00009 of an
inch thick. We may arrive at it thus: taking 2°7 as the
specific gravity of carbonate of lime, we shall find the
volume of 16 tons to be about 212°4 cubic feet, or 7°8 cubic
yards. This has to be spread out over an area of 3,097,600
square yards (the number of square yards in a mile) giving
the above result.” It is the calcareous parts of these
surface organisms which, after the death of the animals,
form a slow, but steady, drizzle of lime, which is rained from
the surface upon the sea floor, and which, in the course of
long ages, gives rise to deposits of very considerable thickness.
These deposits are of importance in relation to one of the
theories of the origin of coral reefs to which further refer-
ence will be presently made.

Before passing on to the subject of the corals themselves,
we must consider how marine organisms in general make
use of the supplies of lime-salts which rivers bring from the
land into the waters in which those organisms live. It used
to be supposed that marine lime-secreting organisms ob-
tained their lime direct from the bicarbonate. For several
years past it has become increasingly-evident that such

* «Structure and Origin of Coral Reefs and Islands,” Proc. Roy. Soc.
Edin., vol. x. p. 508. 1880. :

6 MR GOODCHILD ON

could not be the case. The analyses of river-water and
sea-water above referred to showed that, whatever quantity
of bicarbonate of lime any particular river might transport
to the sea, the water of the sea off the mouth of that river
showed the characteristic difference in the composition of its
salts to which reference has just been made. That is to
say, the percentage of carbonate of lime as compared with
sulphate of lime in river-water is usually about as 9 of
the former to 1 of the latter; while in sea-water this is
reversed, and the proportion of sulpbate of lime to carbonate
is as 17 to 1. As the absolute quantity of lime in the form
of carbonate present in sea-water has long been known to
be so much in defect, it has probably occurred to many
persons who have given any thought to the matter, as it
occurred to me, that, by some means or other, the carbonate
of lime is converted into the sulphate at the zone where
river-waters meet the sea, and that it is from the solutions
of swlphute of lime, and not from those of the carbonate,
that marine lime-secreting organisms first obtain the supply
of lime which they eventually fix in the solid form. In
1887 and 1888 I used to offer this as a suggestion worth con-
sidering, when teaching geology to the students at Toynbee
Hall. In the meantime, and, of course, quite indepen-
dently, Mr Robert Irvine, of Royston, near Granton, had been
thinking over the same facts, and had set to work to find
out whether the conjecture just mentioned could be proved
or not. The results of his experiments were most inter-
esting and instructive, and were given in a communication
to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1889. In these ex-
periments the author and his fellow-workers proved, beyond
the possibility of a doubt, that lime-secreting organisms can
and do obtain their carbonate of lime from almost any lime-
salts that happen to be in solution—the compound of most
importance beimg the sulphate of lime. Some papers I
wrote about the same time, dealing independently with the
same subject in a speculative manner, were printed after
Mr Irvine’s, and were, fortunately, delayed in publication,
so that they came in time for me to acknowledge in print
the great value of the work, from both a geological and a
biological point of view, which the gentleman just named

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. 7

and his fellow-workers had given to the public. In one of
my own papers above referred to, I endeavoured to show
that, indirectly as well as directly, organisms may contribute
to the deposition of carbonate of lime on the sea bottom.
They convert solution of sulphate of lime into solid carbonate
of lime while the animals themselves are living; and, when
they are dead, the decomposition of the organic matter gives
rise to a chemical change, whereby an additional quantity
of the sulphate of lime present in sea-water is thrown
down as a precipitate of carbonate of lime. It is in
this way that much of the “paste” of many limestones is
formed.

An attentive consideration of these facts will make it
clear that carbonate of lime must be in process of deposition
through both organic and inorganic agencies over a large
part of the floor of the ocean. The largest quantity is de-
posited in these regions of the ocean where the surface-
waters are warm, and the smallest quantity where they are
cold. But although carbonate of lime is thus descending,
from so large an area of the surface, in the direction of the
bottom of the sea, the pressure of the ocean water in its
greater depths tends to redissolve the carbonate of lime.
Hence, what the organic agencies have fixed in the solid
form from solution is again dissolved, and is returned to the
general circulation. This result is modified by another
cause: carbonate of lime, when crystallised, as it usually is
in the organic state, assumes two different forms. One of
these is orthorhombic, and the compound then forms the
mineral Aragonite; the other form is rhombohedral, and is
distinguished as Calcite. Organisms consisting of Aragonite
begin to dissolve in sea-water after descending a few hundred
fathoms; and although the dissolution is slow in the lesser
depths, it is completed by the time that the organisms have
descended to a depth of 1500 fathoms. Those of Calcite
withstand the pressure better, and their solution is not
completed until they have descended to a depth of 2900
fathoms. Hence, in water of a greater depth than that last
mentioned, little or no carbonate of lime reaches the bottom
in the solid state; but becomes diffused in solution through
the sea-water, where it is probably reconverted sooner or

8 MR GOODCHILD ON

later into the sulphate. It will presently be shown that
these facts are of considerable importance in relation to
coral reefs. More than one-third of the ocean floor receives
little or no carbonate of lime in the solid form on account
of this solvent action of sea-water at great depths.

Notwithstanding the apparently-large amount of car-
bonate of lime present in the surface-waters of the ocean,
the rate of deposition, even under the most favourable
circumstances, would appear, from certain facts lately made
known, to be extremely slow. Professor Martin Duncan, in
his Presidential Address to the Geological Society of London
(vol. xxxili. p. 74), says :—‘ I have satistied myself from late
researches that the rate of deposition is extremely slow.
Thus, an electric cable was laid down in the Globigerina
Ooze region, and, five years after, a considerable coral growth
had taken place on it. Some of the living calices were
close above the cable, and therefore the deposit had been
infinitesimal in that time.” Mr Mellard Reade estimates
the rate of growth of this chalky mud at less than one foot
in 20,000 years. My own independent estimate, based upon
other data, makes the rate to be one foot in 41,985 years—
say one foot in 40,000 years, to put the statement into
round numbers. To this it may be added that certain facts
connected with the Chalk seem to lend support to the view
that the rate of deposition of this chalky mud must have
been very slow.

Reference to this has been given at some length, because
the view of the origin of coral reefs advocated by Sir John
Murray (which I may as well state here that I accept as,
on the whole, the best that has been put forward) involves a
reference to the rate of growth of these submarine deposits
of carbonate of lime.

It may conduce to a clearer understanding of the subject
if the successive stages in the formation of calcareous de-
posits on the sea bottom are summarised here. These stages
are as follows :—

(1) The uprise of eruptive masses from the interior of the
earth, and their subsequent exposure to atmospheric agencies.

(2) Liberation of bicarbonate of lime through the solvent

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. 9

action of the Humus Acids and Carbonic Acid upon the lime
compounds in these rocks.

(3) Seaward transportal of the dissolved products by
rivers.

(4) Conversion of the bicarbonate of lime into the sul-
phate.

(5) Diffusion of the sulphate through oceanic waters.

(6) Assimilation of these lime-salts by organic agencies,
which reconvert them into carbonate of lime, generally with
the crystalline form of Aragonite, which is subsequently left
upon the sea bottom over the areas where the depth does not
exceed 1500 fathoms.

(7) Concurrent precipitation of carbonate of lime, by the
action of the waste-products of living organisms, and de-
composing organic matter, upon the sulphate of lime in
solution in sea-water.

(8) Subsequent changes, ending in the upheaval of the
sea bottom, the exposure of the newly-formed limestone to
atmospheric agencies, its solution, transportal seawards, and
the commencement of another cycle of change, as before.

We are now in a position to consider corals in their
biological aspect, so far as is needed for the purpose of the
present Address. The animals that give rise to what we
commonly understand by corals, belong to two groups of the
Ceelentera. The structure of the soft parts of one of these
may, for our present purpose, be likened to that of the
common Fresh-Water Hydra; and that of the other group
to the structure of any one of the well-known Sea Anemones.
The chief point of difference that concerns us now between
these familiar types of animal life and the animals that give
rise to the coral structures, lies in the fact that little or no
carbonate of lime accumulates in any part of the bodies of
those typified by the Hydra and the Anemone. In the case
of the coral animals, the solutions of sulphate of lime are
converted, as Mr Irvine has shown us in the paper referred
to above, into lime-soaps, and it is from the further action
of organic agencies upon these emulsions that a deposit of
minute granules of carbonate of lime takes place within the
tissues of the lower part of the animal’s body.- These

10 MR GOODCHILD ON

granules accumulate and gradually become more compact,
being moulded, as they do so, after the form of those parts of
the body from whose tissues they are deposited. Little by
little the growth of the calcareous particles excludes more
and more of the animal matter, so that the coral animal
itself grows, or is, as it were, gradually thrust, to an in-
creasingly-greater distance from its original point of attach-
ment. Eventually, it finds itself at the end of a small
column of carbonate of lime, whose form, both externally
and internally, has been determined entirely by the shape
of those parts of the animal from and within which it was
deposited.*

There are some modifications of the mode of deposition
which are characteristic of different groups of corals; but,
in general terms, the process of coral growth goes on in very
much the way just described.

The early stages of the life-history of these animals
present several points of interest and importance in the
present connection. The adult animals are fixed to some
solid object below the surface; but the fry, in the earlier
stages of their existence, are minute, free-swimming animals,
which live in great swarms at or near the surface of the
ocean. In this state they are drifted far and wide by the
surface currents, and in so doing are exposed to so many
dangers that myriads of the fry must perish for every one
that survives to reach the adult condition. They become
the prey of innumerable fellow-creatures; they quickly
perish with a fall of the surface temperature of the ocean
water, such as must happen when they are drifted from a
warmer current into a colder, as when they are transported
by the Gulf Stream northward from the West Indies. If
the current that transports them happens to meet an out-
flowing current off the mouth of a river, the influx of fresh-
water kills them off; and even if the water be more or less
salt, the presence of the mud in suspension is inimical to
their well-being. So they die by the million, and only a
few out of the many survive. Those which do escape

* One of the very best simply-worded descriptions of coral animals and
corals is given by the late Professor Martin Duncan in his edition of Cassell’s
Natural History, pp. 292-311.

: CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. 11

eventually assume the form of the adult and subside to the
sea bottom, where they take up their stand on some solid
object. Another process of natural selection now comes into
play. Corals have very different habits in regard to the
temperature of the water in which they can thrive. Some
few can flourish in water whose temperature is not much
above the freezing point; while others, to do at all well,
require to be surrounded by water whose temperature never
falls below 68° Fahr. This matter of temperature is a
factor of the very first importance in connection with coral
reefs ; for while certain corals appear indifferent in regard
to what the temperature of the water may be—and, therefore,
are able to live on the sea bottom at all depths from a few
fathoms down to five miles—there are others, including the
corals associated with coral reefs, that cease to thrive when-
ever the temperature of the water falls much, and are killed
if at any time of the year they are surrounded by water
whose temperature happens to be below 68° Fahr. It is a
well-known fact that the warmer currents of the sea are
limited to within a few fathoms of the surface—the depth
to which a given temperature (say 68° Fahr.) extends vary-
ing considerably in different parts of the world, but being in
no case very great. Even in those oceanic areas where the
surface temperature rises to between 70° and 80° Fahr., the
water at this temperature forms what may be described asa
mere surface-film, which floats above deep currents of sea-
water, whose temperature is considerably lower, and much
too cold to permit warmth-loving animals like reef-building
corals to flourish.

To appreciate the influence of these submarine currents of
cold water, we have but to turn to a good physical atlas and
study the relation of the cold Arctic Labrador Current to the
east of Georgia and Florida in relation to the Gulf Stream.
Or, again, the influence of the cold Antarctic stream of water
known as the Benguela Current, which rises to the surface
off the west coast of South Africa, and which flows at first
northward close to the coast and then westward, until it
gradually merges into the South Equatorial Current. A
similar current (uot, however, of so low a temperature
initially) sets in along the coast of North-Western Africa.

12 MR GOODCHILD ON ,

Whether it is from the fact that these are both com-
paratively cold currents, or that the courses of the currents
in question are towards and not away from any centres
where the ova of reef-building corals are set free, the fact
remains that there are no coral reefs at all on the west
coast of Africa. Equally marked is the effect, so far as
coral reefs are concerned, produced by the California
Current off the west coast of North America and by the
Peru Current off the south. In these cases also it results
that not a single coral reef is to be found on the whole
west coast of America. It must not, however, be supposed
from this that corals of no kinds exist; on the contrary,
many genera, and a large number of species, not of the reef-
building kinds, exist in more or less abundance and at
almost all depths. Off the east coast of North America the
influence of the cold Labrador Current produces similar
effects upon the reef corals even as far south as Florida.

The courses of these cold currents are determined by at
least four factors:—(1) The difference in specific gravity
between cold water and warm ; (2) the lowering of the sea
level within the Tropics, arising from the quantity of sea-
water evaporated being in excess of the rainfall; (3) the
influence of the earth’s rotation, which carries the land east-
ward faster than it does the waters of the sea; (4) the influence
of the prevailing winds, which blow off-shore on the west and
on-shore on the east, and therefore cause the warm surface-
waters to drift to leeward, and also permit of the uprise of
the colder substrata of the sea-water to the surface.

There are, however, as might be expected, and as the
recent deep-sea investigations have proved, some oceanic
areas where the warmth suitable for the growth of coral
reefs extends to a considerable depth below the surface.
The following are two cases of the kind which specially
concern the student of coral reefs, In the chief coral tract
of the Pacific, the Challenger results have shown that a
mean temperature of 60° Fahr. exists, to a depth of a hundred
fathoms, over an area nearly equal in extent to the whole of
Europe. The same temperature at that depth is found also
in the south-west of the Indian Ocean, over an area nearly
equal to that of Australia. If we are correct in supposing

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. ihs3

that temperature is the chief element in determining the
depth to which the living portion of a coral reef may
extend, there is no reason why true reef-building corals
should not have commenced to build over the whole of these
areas, on the summits of submarine elevations which were as
much as 600 feet below the level of the sea. If this could be
proved to be really the case, a vertical thickness of 600 feet
of coral reef could no longer be accepted as proof of
subsidence. These are well-known and most important
factors in the distribution of ocean-surface temperatures, and
are therefore of vital importance in connection with the
distribution of these corals which need a temperature above
68° Fahr. If the reader will take the trouble to compare a
map showing the distribution of coral reefs with any good
maps showing the ocean-surface isotherms, ocean currents,
and prevalent winds (such as the maps in Mill’s Realm of
Nature), it will soon become apparent how closely dependent
the distribution of coral reefs is upon these factors, acting
separately or in combination.

A study of the distribution of the coral reefs in the Gulf
of Mexico reveals the influence of another factor of import-
ance in relation to the welfare and distribution of corals.
Off the mouths of great rivers vast bodies of fresh-water
enter the sea. Numerous marine animals are very sensitive
to the influence of even brackish water, and some are killed
immediately by even a small reduction of salinity of the
water in which they are accustomed to live. Again, with
the outflow of river-water, vast quantities of liquid mud are
transported seawards, giving rise to turbid water even far
from the land. Both of these factors are inimical to the
well-being of reef-building corals. Accordingly we find that
it is only where the sea-water is pure and unmixed with
sediment that reef-building corals can thrive. Consequently,
although coral reefs are abundant around the West Indies,
they are absent from the greater part of the Gulf of Mexico,
because of the muddy water poured into the Gulf from the
Mississippi and other rivers.

Lastly, we have to consider the important question of the
influence of abundance, or otherwise, of food-supply, in
determining the distribution of corals. It must be remem-

14 MR GOODCHILD ON

bered that in the adult state the coral animal is fixed, and
can no more roam abroad in search of food than can an
oyster. What food it gets has to be brought to it by the
waves of the sea. On the seaward side of a coral reef there
are myriads of tiny mouths waiting to be filled by whatever ”
suitable food may come along. To enable the coral animal
to secure some of this food, it is provided with special organs
which enable it to shoot out stinging threads at any animal
desirable for food which may be brought within reach by the
waves. By this means the prey is paralysed, and is then
transferred by means of the tentacles to the mouth. Sea-
water on the outer margin of a reef is usually full of minute
creatures suitable for the food of the coral animal; but a
reef is often very wide, and is, moreover, tenanted not only by
corals of very many kinds—reef-building corals, and various
other corals, both simple and compound—but also by great
mumbers of species of worms, echinoderms, crustacea,
molluses, ete., all of whom are more or less dependent upon
their food-supplies being brought to them by the waves. It
follows from this that millions of hungry beings are waiting
to be fed over every superficial yard of the coral reef, and
are ready to intercept anything good that the waves may
bring their way. It thus becomes a case of “ first come, first
served.” The animals on the seaward margin of the reef get
the best and the most of the food-supply, and by the time
the waves have traversed the reef for even a short distance,
most of the food has been intercepted, and there is often not
enough left for those farther from the sea to enable them to
thrive. Thus those inland die, and those on the seaward
margin increase and multiply apace. The increase takes
place by a process of repeated bedding and branching, by
which the more vigorous corals push their way out to sea;
while the. multiplication, which goes on concurrently with the
extension of the coral branches, arises from the vast numbers
of ova which go forth from the parent stocks into the sea.
Reef-building corals cannot live above high-water mark ;
they are limited in their downward extension by the depth to
which the required temperature happens to exist; they die and
their hard parts are dissolved away from the surface downward
in the central and older-formed parts of the reef; and they both

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. 15

thrive and push their growth seawards on the outer margin
of the mass. Hence, while in the earlier stages of growth of
a coral reef, its form tends to become more or less that of
an inverted cone, in its later stages of growth the tendency
is to grow into a comparatively-thin sheet-——its thickness, in
each case, being determined by the depth to which the
temperature of 68° Fahr. extends—and in the stages of its
growth later still, one may almost say that there is a tendency
for the sheet of coral to sever itself from its original place
of attachment, due to the fact that the older-formed portions
of the reef have ceased to live, and are undergoing both slow
solution and mechanical disintegration. It is this cause which
gives rise to the channel between certain marginal reefs and
the adjoining land, and also to the saucer-shaped medial de-
pression in the case of atolls.

The solvent action just mentioned is most potent at the
surface, probably on account of the solvent, which is carbonic
acid, being due to the decomposition of the abundant animal
matter. The older and especially the deeper-seated portions
of a reef, however, have often become converted by contact
with the solutions of magnesia present in sea-water, into that
double carbonate of lime and magnesia known as dolomite.
Dolomite is very much less easily dissolved by water holding
carbonic acid than is the pure carbonate of lime. Conse-
quently, from the combined action of these two causes, there
is much less solution of the lower parts of the reef than of
those immediately below the surface. Even, however, if a
certain amount of solution, as well as some disintegration, by
the mechanical action of the sea, does take place, there are
compensating causes at work in connection with the lower
portions of a reef which quite make up for any loss that the
reef may sustain in other ways. The compensating causes re-
ferred to arise partly from what may be termed the accessory
portions of the reef. Numberless animals of many kinds,
and many lime-secreting plants, such as nullipores, harbour
in the spaces between the branches of the corals, and their
dead remains, together with broken portions of the corals which
have been thrown on to the reef by the waves, tend to gravitate
sooner or later to the lower parts of the reef, and seem to
more than compensate by their aggregate bulk for the

16 MR GOODCHILD ON

quantity of the reef removed in solution. Moreover, it seems
almost certain that part at least of the dissolved carbonate of
lime from the surface finds its way downwards in solution
and is redeposited in the solid form. Furthermore, a certain
amount of chemical precipitation must arise from the action
of the waste products of the corals, living and dead, upon
the sulphate of lime in the sea-water. These causes unite
to consolidate the lower portion of the reef into one compact
and nearly homogeneous mass, in which it has long been
known that little difference of structure can be made out.
The other compensating cause referred to is that due to
the action of the breakers, which beat, in many cases,
almost incessantly, and usually with more or less violence,
upon the outer margins of the reefs. As a result, large
quantities of the outer portions of the reef are, from time
to time, broken off by the waves, and eventually fall imto
the depths below the outer edge of the reef. There is some
reason for believing that a steep talus, mainly formed of
such blocks of broken coral, gives rise to a submarine slope
below the seaward margin of all coral reefs. As this
material is considerably augmented by finer coral-detritus,
and also by the remains of the numerous animals and plants
living on the reef, by the chemical precipitation just referred
to, and by the percolation of waters from the surface holding
lime in solution, the talus is eventually compacted into a
mass which forms a strong foundation whereon the higher and
living portions of the reef are enabled to advance seaward.
Hitherto, and to simplify the case, we have been con-
fining attention to cases in which the coral reef has grown
upon a sea bottom which we have supposed to be stationary.
It may, however, be well doubted whether any portion of
the earth’s crust is ever really stationary for any length of
time, geologically speaking. It is almost certain, on the
contrary, that it is always, more or less, on the move,
although the rate of movement may be very slow if we
measure it by the ordinary standards of time. The late
Charles Darwin thought that nearly all the areas where
coral reefs occur are areas of subsidence, and in that belief
the great naturalist has had a very large number of fol-
lowers. Subsequent investigations, however, especially those

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. ily §

with which Sir John Murray’s name is now always asso-
ciated, have led to a partial abandonment of the views put
forward by Darwin, and to the belief that coral reefs occur
chiefly in areas undergoing upheaval. Some few people,
indeed, deny that it is possible for coral reefs to occur at all
in any area undergoing subsidence. But it does not follow
that because some coral reefs, and perhaps the majority,
occur in areas of upheaval, that none can possibly occur in
areas undergoing subsidence, or that are stationary. The
vertical growth of coral reefs is limited upward by high-
water mark, and downward by the depth to which the
temperature suitable for the growth of the coral extends.
It is difficult to see why, in a subsiding area, coral growth
should not spread from the periphery inward over the old
coral, whose surface was limited by the former high-water
mark, and why it should not continue to do so if the other
circumstances are favourable—the growth of the coral
keeping pace with the subsidence.

I certainly doubt whether coral reefs can go on growing to
an indefinite extent on land that is stationary in level, for
the peripheral growth must soon be checked or even stopped
by deep-water conditions. Moreover, in the case of a very
old reef, it is difficult to see what is to prevent the severance
by solution of the older portion from the zone of original
attachment. The process of severance, one would think,
must be somewhat like that of the melting of the ice-foot
in the Arctic regions. If this really does take place, the
severance would be followed by the subsidence of the ring
of coral itself.

In the majority of cases it will be evident to any one
who is willing to admit that, for once, our great master in
Natural Science might be mistaken, that coral-reef areas are
not necessarily areas undergoing subsidence. The evidence
upon this is in some cases quite clear, and it is simply a
matter of time before the view advocated by Murray, or
some modification of that view, shall meet with general
acceptance.

Murray’s view is now well known, but its chief features
may be again presented in a brief form here as they ap-
peared in the Scotsman of the 5th of April 1898, after

VOL. I. 2

18 - MR GOODCHILD ON

Sir John gave an address on “Coral Reefs and Islands” to
the Royal Society of Edinburgh :—“ The problem for which
the various hypotheses had been put forward was to account
for the narrow rim of coral reefs and coral islets enclosing
a shallow water lagoon, while the water to the outside, not
far from the edge of the reef, was frequently one or two
miles in depth. Chamisso, in 1820, said the form of reefs
was due to the natural growth of the corals and the action
of the waves. Other naturalists held that these reefs were
built up on the rims of volcanic craters. During the voyage
of the Beagle, Darwin published his celebrated theory, which
accounted for the appearances by the slow sinking of the
coasts, and the equally slow building upwards of the coral
organisms. This theory was universally accepted for nearly
half a century, although Le Conte pointed out that it did
not apply in the case of the West Indian reefs. Rein said
the same with respect to the Bermudas, and Semper said it
was in no way applicable to the Pelew Islands. Darwin
stated that his whole theory was thought out on the west
coast of South America before he had seen a true coral reef,
and that he had therefore only to verify and extend his
views by a careful examination of living reefs. Dr Murray
held that the views which he published after the return of
the Challenger expedition were arrived at by the true in-
ductive method. To a large extent they were a return to
the views of Chamisso. The lecturer pointed out how banks
were formed in the great oceans by the degradation of
voleanic and other islands down to the lower limit of wave
action, and further, that volcanic cones, which did not reach
to the level of the sea, were continually being built up to
the lower limit of wave action by an accumulation on their
summits of marine deposits. They had an example of the
first method now in progress in the case of Falcon Island,
near the Friendly Islands, which, after being thrown up
several hundred feet above the sea, was now almost com-
pletely washed away, and on the spot a bank had been
formed at the lower limit of wave action. Thus was formed
a bank on which future coral reefs might be built up. In
the same ocean the Admiralty surveyors had found a large
number of banks at from 30 to 40 feet below the level of

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. 19

the sea, and others at greater depths, covered with marine
deposits, These had been specially described by Admiral
Wharton. It thus happened that, as time went on, the
marine surveyor was continually discovering numbers of
those possible foundations for coral reefs, and in this way
his theory was corroborated. The greatest objection had
been taken to his views as to the solution of dead coral
debris within the lagoons, but these, he believed, would also
be corroborated by further investigations. A careful exam-
ination of the surveys of Diego Garcia in 1837 and in 1885
seemed to show that the lagoon had widened in area to
the extent of two or three square miles, and that it had
also deepened slightly. With reference to the boring at
Funafuti, he held that the evidence, so far as published,
supported his views, for the true reef appeared to be only
about 40 or 50 feet in thickness, that then a talus composed
of blocks from the outer edge of the reef had been pene-
trated, and, finally, the drill had entered a deep-sea’deposit.
The reef would thus appear to have grown out on a talus
of blocks, torn from its outer edge. Those who had described
the island admitted that it had been elevated about four feet,
and that it had grown seawards; while in his latest account
of the bore, Professor David said :—‘ While the advocates of
the Darwinian theory were inclined to congratulate them-
selves upon the result, Dr Murray’s supporters say that the
evidence substantiates their views. Professor David con-
sidered that the last portion of the core obtained weakened
the subsidence theory.’ Mr Andrews had been for the last
nine months examining the structure of Christmas Island,
in the Indian ocean, and he reported that it was an upraised
atoll, a plateau forming the summit at 1000 feet being the
bed of the old lagoon ; and he had found that the coral rocks
rested upon beds of foraminiferal limestone, and these again
on solid volcanic rocks. During the past year Alexander
Agassiz had made a most extensive examination of the Fiji
Islands, and he had come to the following conclusion :—‘ In
the Fiji Islands, the atolls and islands or islets, surrounded
in part or wholly by barrier reefs, have not been formed by
the subsidence and disappearance of this central island, as
is claimed by Dana and Darwin. ‘The Fiji Islands are not

20 MR GOODCHILD ON

situated, as was supposed, in an area of subsidence, but, on
the contrary, they are in an area of elevation, so that the
theory of Darwin and of Dana is not applicable to the
islands and atolls of the Fiji group.’”

It may be mentioned here that Murray’s views were most
admirably presented by Sir Archibald Geikie in his Presi-
dential Address to the Royal Physical Society on Nov. 21st,
1883. (Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc., vol. viii. p. 1.)

It will be evident from the foregoing statements that it
is an essential feature of Murray’s theory that any submarine
ridge whose summit lies above the zone where calcareous
matter is dissolved may, in course of time, receive a
sufficiently-thick deposit of organic carbonate of lime to
build the sea bottom at that point up to the level where
reef-building corals can commence their work. Beyond that
stage all the facts are easily enough accounted for. Some
few of these submarine eminences may represent the summits
of volcanoes. In this case it is as well to note that the very
existence of a volcano implies that the area where it occurs
is situated either on a zone of upheaval, or else on the
margin of an area of subsidence.

Perhaps it may not be out of place to remark again here
that the rate of growth of the submarine calcareous deposits
is almost certainly very slow. Various estimates give that
rate at from one foot in 10,000 to one foot in 50,000 years.

Many persons who have treated of the subject of the
origin of coral reefs seem to have purposely left out of sight
another possible explanation which would enable us to adopt
Murray’s view without having to invoke so long a time for
the elevation of the submarine ridges by organic agency.
There is a curious reluctance to admit that terrestrial move-
ments play any important part in the shaping of the earth’s
surface features either below the sea or on the land. Perhaps
this reluctance is the logical outcome of the desire to main-
tain a belief in the permanence of the continental areas and
oceanic basins. In its day, this reaction against the older
view that rapid interchanges of ocean and continent have
repeatedly taken place, has done much good service, if only
by compelling geologists to look better to their facts before
speaking too rashly about such matters. But with the

CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. 21

evidence all over the world of the upheaval, many thousands
of feet above the sea, and the depression to equal depths
below, of marine deposits of quite recent age; and, further,
with the evidence in so many parts of radiolarian oozes and
other oceanic deposits belonging to widely separated geologi-
cal periods, and now far away inland and at considerable
elevations above the sea, this doctrine of the permanence of
the oceanic basins can no longer be held.

Believing, as many other geologists do, that continual,
‘though extremely-slow modifications of the earth’s surface
are arising from terrestrial movements as much now as in
the past, I should regard all the major inequalities of the
continental areas, all the broader features of the coast lines,
and all the larger ocean depths and shallows, as the outward
expression of undulatory movements of the earth’s crust still
or lately in progress. It may enable students to understand
what is meant by this if they will carefully consider the
form of the sea bottom in the chief coral reef area of the
world—that of the Pacific. Any really good physical map
will show that the sea bottom of the Pacific Ocean consists
of a group of nearly parallel ridges and furrows of low
gradient, trending, in the main, in a general north-westerly
direction. These extend from the coasts of Australia to
those of America, and conform more or less in direction, as
they are traced eastward, to the great mountain tracts of the
western side of the last-named continent. Beginning at the
south-west, beyond the deeps off the north-east of Australia,
we have first the series of ridges upon which lie Sumatra,
Java, South New Guinea, New Caledonia, and New Zealand ;
next, a parallel zone of depression; then the zone of elevations
forming North New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the
New Hebrides; another zone of depression follows; then
we find the Admiralty and Santa Cruz elevation ; beyond
that a third line of depression ; to the north-east of these are
the ridges upon which are situated the Caroline Islands,
Vaitapu, Samoa, Hervey and Rarutu Islands, and so on.
Ridges followed by depressions, all having the same general
trend, occur one after the other, including the great Hawaiian
ridge, and the two or three lines of deep depression which
lie parallel to this latter and to the mountain wrinkles of

De MR GOODCHILD ON CORALS AND CORAL REEFS.

Western North America. The positions of these mountains
are known to coincide with areas of quite recent uplift,
geologically speaking. I regard these inequalities of the
Pacific area as great terrestrial waves, due to earth move-
ments which are even yet in progress. Slowly sinking
along one set of zones and rising with equal slowness along
others, these great terrestrial uplifts, slowly ridging the floor
of the ocean, present along the crests of their waves all the
conditions necessary for the formation of volcanoes, and at
the same time gradually bring up the sea bottom to those
elevations beneath the surface which are suitable for the
commencement of the growth of coral reefs. While, there-
fore, the foundations of some of these islands may well be
old volcanoes whose summits are crowned by reefs of
coral; others, and probably the majority, I should regard as
submarine ridges brought up by earth movements still
in progress ; while yet another set of coral reefs in the areas
of downward movement may still be regarded, as they were
by Darwin, as situated in areas undergoing depression.

At a meeting held on Thursday, 28th April, Mr W. S.
Bruce, Naturalist to the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition,
delivered a lecture on the Fauna of Franz Joseph Land.
The lecture was illustrated by many lime-light views; while
numerous types of the animal life of that peninsula were
also exhibited.

MRS MARY ROSS COOPER ON NATAL AND ITS FLORA. 228

NATAL AND ITS FLORA.

By Mrs Mary Ross Cooper, L.L.A.
(Read 2nd June 1898.)

Iy the following paper the writer does not, by any means,
profess to give an elaborate or exhaustive account of the
flora of Natal. On the contrary, she only desires to describe
the most characteristic plants which she observed during
her residence in that colony.

Natal is a comparatively young English colony, for,
although it was first sighted and discovered by Vasco da
Gama so long ago as Christmas day 1497—hence the
name Natal—it was not finally proclaimed an English
colony till 1843, fifty-five years ago. For about two
hundred years after its discovery, almost nothing seems
to have been heard of it, but in 1690 the Dutch, the then
masters of the Cape, which is a much older colony, pur-
chased the Bay of Natal from the natives for trading
purposes. They soon relinquished it, possibly owing to
the difficulty of finding an entrance over the sand-bar in
the beautiful, land-locked harbour. [This bar has, un-
fortunately, ever since been a formidable impediment to
the entrance of ships; and, although distinguished engineers
have been consulted, and able men have succeeded each
other as resident harbour engineers, the problem of success-
fully dealing with it has not yet been solved.]

Until after 1820, the natives—Kafirs—may be said to
have had the country all to themselves. In 1824, however,
a little band of Englishmen, under Lieutenant Farewell, came
from the Cape—which was by this time an English colony—
and they came to stay. But although they may be re-
garded as the precursors and pioneers of the ultimate
masters of the soil, it must be said that the colonisation
of not only Natal, but the Orange Free State, and the
Transvaal as well, was mainly owing to the exodus from the
Cape Colony of the Dutch Boers in 1834-1837. This

24 MRS MARY ROSS COOPER ON

exodus, or emigration, was chiefly the result of dis-
satisfaction on the part of the Dutch with English rule at
the Cape. The discontentment had been steadily growing
for years, and it culminated in the resolution to leave their
homesteads and seek pastures new in some other part of the
then still dark and unknown continent, and what is known
as the great Northward Trek began in 1834. The Dutch
approached Natal from the north and west, and met with
great resistance from the natives.

The few English settlers had remained in the south, at
the bay. They were at first friendly to the Boers, but on
the latter asserting their right to the land in which they
had gained a footing, the English Governor of the Cape
sent troops to occupy it in 1858. From that time till 1843
the Dutch and English fought for the mastery, and it was
only after much strife and bloodshed that the English took
ultimate possession.

Natal was annexed to the Cape in 1845, constituted a
separate colony in 1856, and has had responsible govern-
ment since 1893.

Natal is mainly a pastoral and inland trading colony
(although its mineral resources, especially the coal-beds, are
being rapidly developed), and it is consequently but thinly
populated. It has 585,000 inhabitants (about 4th of the
population of London). The natives number 503 ,000, the
whites 46,000, and Indians 36,000. The white population
is European, and chiefly consists of English, Dutch, and
German. The Americans, nevertheless, have been instru-
mental in establishing and carrying on many of the most
successful mission stations in the colony.

Coming to the flora of the country, it will be necessary,
first of all, to consider its geographical position, its physical
features, and its climate, for by these conditions the char-
acter of the vegetation is always in a large measure in-
fluenced. Natal, as may be seen from the map, lies outside
the tropics, and is in the south temperate zone. Its
latitude is between 274 and 31 degrees south, and its
longitude between 29 and 314 degrees east (in round
numbers, about 2000 miles south of the equator and east
from Greenwich). It is bounded on the west and north-

NATAL AND ITS FLORA., 25

west by Basutoland, the Free State, and the Transvaal; on
the north-east by the Transvaal and Zululand (now annexed) ;
on the east by the Indian Ocean; and on the south and
south-west by Pondoland and Griqualand East—provinces
of the Cape Colony.

The country is mountainous, and is interesting to the
geologist, since table-mountains are characteristic of the
formation. It is also well watered, and although the rivers
are too small and too rapid and shallow for navigation, they
do much to fertilise the soil. The soil varies according to
the locality. It is light and sandy on the coast, with a
more or less rich loam in the midlands, while it is shallow
and thin on the hills. Great tracts of the country consist
of “ veldt”—-grassy plains corresponding to the prairies and
pampas of other countries. From the sea to the Drakens-
berg — the mighty mountain rampart that guards the
northern and western frontiers—the land rises gradually in
a series of terraces. The climate is warm and sub-tropical,
but owing to the gradual elevation from the sea-board to the
Berg, it follows that there are several distinct varieties of
climate. On the coast the air is humid and warm; in the
midlands it is dry and warm; while in the uplands it is
cool and comparatively bracing. The average temperature
on the coast at Durban is 694 degrees, and the extremes
are 42 and 98. At Pietermaritzburg, 70 miles from the
coast, at an elevation of 2218 feet, it is 64, and the ex-
tremes are 28’and 98. On an average the thermometer
varies about 20 degrees during the 24 hours, sometimes even
as much as 35. Snow-storms only occur in the high-lands,
but there is always frost in winter in the midlands, and
occasionally also on the coast.

According to the latest botanical computations, there
are represented in Natal 129 natural orders, 828 genera,
and 2607 species, of which 391 are still unnamed. Of
Dicotyledons there are 105 orders, the two most compre-
hensive being Composite, which has 78 genera (the genus
Senecio, to which our own groundsel belongs, having about
70 species), and Leguminose, which has 52 genera. Of
Gymnosperms there are the two orders, Conifer and
Cycadacez, each having only two genera.

26 MRS MARY ROSS COOPER ON

Monocotyledons are represented by 19 orders, the
largest being Gramine, with 55 genera, and Liliacese and
Orchidez, having respectively 29 and 25 genera.

Of Vascular Cryptogams there are five or six orders, the
most comprehensive of which is Filices, the fern family.
It contains 35 genera, but many of them have very few
species. The largest genera are Asplenium and Polypodium.
Cellular Cryptogams, Fungi, Algze, etc., have not yet, so far
as I know, been classified.

Although Natal cannot be said to be well-wooded, and
tree-planting is very desirable, there are what may be
called natural forests, or, at least, the remains of them, on
the coast, in the midlands, and in the uplands, each having,
characteristic trees. The coast is fringed with a belt of
evergreens, reaching about twelve miles inland, and having,
apparently, in the distance the appearance of shrubs, although
they range from 30 to 60 feet high. Many of them are
leguminous trees, bearing gay, bright-coloured flowers—such
as the Erythrina Caffra (Kafir-boom), covered in winter
with gorgeous scarlet blossoms, arranged in thick clusters
of papilionaceous fiowers: the Albizzia fastigiata, or Flat-
crown, a kind of wild Acacia, whose branches, with their
soft, trembling green leaves spread out horizontally at the
top of the stem, afford a delicious shade from the oppres-
sive heat: the Strelitzia: different species of aloes; leaf-
less, succulent Euphorbia trees, and several species of
Ficus (figs). I may specially mention the Ficus Natalensis
—the Um-Tombi of the natives—which has a somewhat
singular life-history. In early life it is a true parasite.
After germinating on the tree on which it has been de-
posited, it grows upwards and downwards, enveloping in
its folds the tree on which it grows, until it entirely
destroys it, and, rooting itself in the ground, takes the
place of its unfortunate host. There are only two in-
digenous genera of the order Palmee—Phcenix and Hyphene,
each having only one species. The Amatungula is also
common on the coast—an evergreen shrub, with dark green
glossy leaves, beautiful white star-like blossoms, and lovely
crimson fruit.

Higher up country, in the midlands, the natural trees

NATAL AND ITS FLORA. pa.

are mostly what are called thornbush, a kind of stunted,
flat-topped mimosa, with strong thorns or spikes. In the
high-lands, chiefly in the kloofs (clefts of the rocks) the
best-known trees are the yellowwood, sneezewood, stink-
wood, and essenwood. Several of these yield good timber,
but the trees are not found in sufficient numbers to be of
practical utility. Most of the timber used in Natal is
imported from Australia and Norway.

With regard to herbaceous plants, their name is legion,
and to have any adequate idea of the herbaceous flora, one
must visit the colony and see the flowers as they grow and
bloom on the veldt, and in the woods and on the hills. In
the early days of spring, after the first rains fall, the wild
flowers are seen in great perfection and profusion. Bulbous
plants are very numerous, and their flowers are specially
delicate and beautiful. Lilies, orchids, amaryllids (irises),
ixias (flowering grasses), gladioli, vying with each other in
grace and beauty of form and brilliance of colour. The
arum lily, commonly called in England the “ Lily of the
Nile,” and in South Africa the “Pig lily,” grows wild in
very great abundance, but I am not sure that the species
is indigenous to the country. In the bush there are
climbing and trailing plants innumerable—epiphytic and
terrestrial orchids, begonias and ferns, lycopodia and mosses,
in wild profusion. It may give some idea of the beauty of
the wild flowers if I quote from a letter which I received
in January from my sister, who was, at the time she wrote,
living on a farm, the highest part of which is about 5000
feet above sea-level. She says:—“I wish you could see
some of the lovely wild flowers we are discovering every
day, and that are quite new to us. Bunches of heather
grow beside the beautiful little spruits, beds of sweetest
purple clover, and quite overhanging the stream are lovely
lilies—star-shaped and of a bright rose-colour. Yesterday
we climbed one of the highest hills here, and found pretty,
small, white heath, and quantities of lobelia, and little
flowers like eye-bright and milkwort.. On the way up the
green hillocks were covered with magenta-pink gladioli, and
on the top, brilliant flame-coloured. flowers and blue
agapanthus lilies were growing luxuriantly. We traversed

28 MRS MARY ROSS COOPER ON

a little bit of beautiful natural bush on our way; it was
much overgrown, and we had to make a path through the
underwood, ruthlessly walking over beds of the loveliest
maiden-hair fern.” [On this farm there also grows a very
lovely, large yellow-hearted anemone—Anemone Fauninee—
specially prized, as there are only two species of anemone
in Natal.]

From the above description some idea may be formed of
the luxuriance of the flora at that elevation, and on the coast
zone it is surpassed in respect of profusion and brilliance.

I have so far confined myself to the indigenous plants of
Natal, but this gives only a partial idea of the flora as one
sees it in the colony, for numerous European and other
foreign plants flourish and become naturalised — from
“buttercups and daisies” and the oak of Old England to
the eucalyptus and wattle of Australia, the gorgeous flame-
flowered flamboyant of Madagascar, and the stately palms of
India. Such are the varieties of climate and diversity of
soil of Natal, that nearly all countries are represented in
its cosmopolitan flora. Many fruits—not indigenous—
abound, such as bananas, pine-apples, mangoes, oranges,
peaches, apples, and plums. Bananas sell at 1s. 6d. a
hundred, and medium-sized pine-apples at 1s. 6d. a dozen.
I may say that the flavour of many of the fruits is poor
in comparison with what it ought to be. The reason of
this is that the sun is expected to do everything, and it
does its part so well that the soil is often quite neglected.
It is no uncommon sight to see peach-trees growing in
timber-yards, and bearing fruit plentifully. The flavour,
however, as may be easily imagined, is very different from
that of the home peach, grown under glass, or trained against
a sunny wall, with its roots dipping in rich loam.

With regard to the culture of the vine, 1 may mention
an interesting fact. As is well known, the vine flourishes
and is very successfully cultivated in the Cape Colony,
while in Natal it is almost a complete failure. The cause
of that is that at the Cape the rainfall is in winter, in
Natal it is in summer; and the few varieties that can be

cultivated at all are of no economic value whatever as
wine-producers,

NATAL AND ITS FLORA. 29

Sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, arrowroot, cayenne, and nearly
all kinds of tropical and sub-tropical plants can be grown
on the coast, but, with the exception of sugar, they are little
cultivated. Sugar and tea—especially the latter—at pre-
sent support flourishing industries.

Among cereals, maize (mealies, the staple food of the
Kafirs) thrives from the sea to the berg. Kafir-corn (amabele),
from which Kafir-beer (vtywala) is made, is also widely
distributed ; wheat, oats, barley, and sweet potatoes, as well
as our own potatoes and turnips, are grown in the midlands
and uplands—indeed, nearly all the European flowers,
fruits, and vegetables are found in such parts of the colony
as are suited to their cultivation.

NOTES ON A KITCHEN-MIDDEN ON
INCHKEITH.

By T. B. Spracus, M.A., LL.D., F.RS.E.

(Read 2nd June 1898.)

Ir is a good many years ago since I first made acquaintance
with the kitchen-midden upon Inchkeith. At that time
there was no restriction upon landing on the island, and
the Edinburgh Field Naturalists’ Society chartered a steamer
and made an excursion to it; but since Government has
fortified the island, it can only be visited by special per-
mission of the authorities. I was fortunate enough lately
to get permission from Col. Mackay, of the Edinburgh City
Volunteer Artillery, and this has enabled me to refresh my
memory of the locality.

In the course of the excavations for the F. Battery, the
kitchen-midden was cut through, and a section of it
exposed upon the top of a wall some ten or twelve feet in
height, which forms one side of the trench round the

30 DR T. B. SPRAGUE ON

battery. On my first visit, the section was, to the best
of my recollection, of small extent; and I formed the
opinion that the kitchen-midden was the accumulation of
only a few years. The soil forming the top of the wall has
now, however, weathered some three or four feet back from
the trench, and in the section at present exposed the
kitchen-midden extends to a length of fifteen yards. It
is also seen to be composed of several layers, which are
thickest in the middle, and gradually thin off to the
extremities; these layers being separated by others of
black soil, which are very thin in the centre of the
kitchen-midden, but become thicker as the layers of the
kitchen-midden become thinner. There is a thickness of from
one to two feet of black soil above the kitchen-midden.
The midden is composed principally of shells of the limpet
and periwinkle, together with those of the Purpura Lapillus.
In order to determine the relative frequency with which
the different shells occur, I brought away a few handfuls
which I picked up, as a fair sample of the whole; and,
on counting, I found these contained

18 limpets, some very small ;
10 Purpura Lapillus ;
75 periwinkles.

Scattered throughout the heap are a number of bones, but
these are very few in comparison with the above-mentioned
shells. There are also a few fragments of crab shells, the
red colour of which showed that the crabs had been cooked.
In the section ‘originally exposed, there was an arrangement
of stones,—fragments of igneous rock,—which had evidently
formed a fire-place, the floor of which was not horizontal,
but concave, and had probably been excavated in the soil.
This has now disappeared through the weathering of the
soil, but there is a long series of similar stones, flattish in
shape, extending along the cliff. This must, I think, be
artificial, but the object of it is not easy to conjecture.
Possibly, when the soil was wet, these fragments may have
been laid down in order to facilitate walking across it. The
bones in the kitchen-midden include a great number of
those of different kinds of birds, which have not been

NOTES ON A KITCHEN-MIDDEN ON INCHKEITH. 31

identified as yet. Excluding these, the most numerous
bones are those of young seals, some or all of which belong
to the grey seal, Halicherus gryphus, a species which is not
now found in the Firth of Forth. I have the bones belong-
ing to at least seven or eight individual seals, of which one
only seems to have been mature, as is evidenced by the
epiphyses being firmly united to the vertebre. From this
it seems probable that the natives of the country visited
the island at the time when the seals were breeding, for
the purpose of killing the young ones for food. My collec-
tion of bones includes also a jaw and other bones, which, I
am told, belonged to a young red deer, of larger size than
the present race; also bones of a sheep and small ox, and
a few that are doubtfully identified as belonging to a rabbit.
The most interesting part of my find consists of some
very rude but unmistakable bone implements. One of these
has been worked to a sharp point and smoothed, probably
for the purpose of being used as a pin to extract the
periwinkle, or dapillus, from its shell. Other implements
are of exactly the same kind as those which were found a
year or two ago in the caves discovered then in Oban, and of
which there is a large number in the Scottish National
Museum of Antiquities. It has been suggested that these
may possibly have been used to dislodge limpets from the
rock to which they were adhering. I have many pointed
fragments of marrow bones of mammals which cannot be
identified. They have been split—perhaps simply for the
purpose of extracting the marrow,—with the intention of
being worked up into implements, in which case .the
fragments may have been thrown aside as failures, I
have one fragment of a particularly white and close-grained
bone which must have belonged to a very large animal,
which, however, none of the friends I have consulted has
been able to identify. Many of the implements seem to
be made of similar bones. It seems very improbable that
these fragments of marrow bones belong to animals found
and killed on the island, and I conjecture that some or all
of them were carried about by the natives and brought with
them to the island on their periodical visits to it, for the
purpose of being worked into implements at their leisure.

32 DRT. B. SPRAGUE ON A KITCHEN-MIDDEN ON INCHKEITH.

A bone, which I believe to be that of a seal, shows the
marks of a fracture, caused, apparently, by a missile. The
appearance seems to indicate that the missile entered the
bone and remained there, while the bone, which had been
broken by the impact, reunited.

I collected among the shells and bones a few rounded
stones, which had evidently received their form by rolling
upon the sea-shore, and which had probably been carried to
the kitchen-midden for the purpose of being used in some
rough process of cooking.

I am told that there are two other kitchen-middens on the
island, of smaller extent, but these I have not seen. In
one of them, described in the Zransactions of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland, oyster shells were found; but I
found no shells of this kind in the kitchen-midden I have
visited. It seems fair to infer that the kitchen-midden con-
taining the oyster shells is of later date, and was formed by
persons who had learned the art of obtaining oysters by
dredging or otherwise. Kitchen-middens are found in many
parts of Scotland. There was a large one on Corstorphine
Hill, which was removed in the process of quarrying, the
contents being mixed up with a large quantity of soil
removed at the same time. This is about three miles from
the sea, but shells of limpets and periwinkles are still to be
frequently found there, and worked stones have also been
found. Dr Anderson, of the Scottish Museum of Antiquities,
informs me that there was a large kitchen-midden on
Dunsappie, which is now covered by a great quantity of
soil. From what I have heard of the kitchen-middens on
Dunsappie and Corstorphine Hill, I infer that these localities
were permanent stations of the natives, while Inchkeith was
only a place of temporary sojourn; also that elevated
positions were chosen, because the country generally was
swampy.

VESTIGIAL AND RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN PLANTS. ao

VESTIGIAL AND RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN
PLANTS.

By ALEXANDER Morron, B.A., B.Sc.

(Read 7th July 1898.)

SIMPLE unicellular plants like the green alga (Plewrococcus)
exhibit physiological processes which are as complex as those
of higher plants. This alga accomplishes within the minute
limits of its cell-wall all those functions whose summation
is termed life. As a consequence of the absorption of
nutritive substances, the individual cell grows until it
reaches a definite limit, when it divides into two daughter-
cells. These daughter-cells repeat the same processes of
growth and division in their life-cycle. Such unicellular
plants have, in relation to their vital functions, been called
polyergic, a term which implies that all the essential
phenomena of life are compassed by the limits of a single
cell. Multicellular plants in all probability arose from
unicellular forms, and in this aspect it is noteworthy that
all plants at one period of their existence consist of a single
eell. The line which divides unicellular from multicellular
plants is bridged by many intermediate forms which show
by what course the evolution of thallophytes and cormo-
phytic plants may have taken place. The colonies of
Schizomycetes and Cyanophycee, and the plasmodia of the
Myxomycetes, are instances of aggregates of unicellular plants.
These colonial aggregates, however, show no integration of
function; each unit of the colony is an _ independent
organism.

Spirogyra and Hydrodictyon are distinguished by the
possession of a plant-body, which consists of an aggregate of
cells whose walls are in contact with each other. The
opportunity for subdivision of labour and function is now
apparent. Yet the fact that a plant-body is formed in
these two alge, has no influence on the life-history of these

VOl Te 3

34 MR ALEXANDER MORTON ON

plants as far as growth, at any rate, is concerned.
Physiologically, these green alge are unicellular, although
each consists of a thallus of many cells. Structures of
a higher type than that exhibited by Spirogyra and
Hydrodictyon, must necessarily show a differentiation of
function, and, consequently, an integration of the vital
processes, into an organic unity. Living creatures, be they
plants or animals, which have so far risen in the scale of
nature are distinguished by the possession of organs. In
them the necessity for organs has arisen.

Plants descended from a common ancestral form resemble
each other to a greater or less extent. The factor which
brings about this resemblance is known as heredity. But
in addition to this hereditary tendency, all living organisms,
animals as well as plants, have in the gradual course of
evolution become variously adapted to withstand external
conditions and circumstances. This second great factor of
evolution, generally known as the capability of variation or
adaptation to external circumstances, has acted side by side
with heredity in modifying the structure and form of plants ;
and it is only by a clear conception of the tendencies
towards which these two factors lead that the inter-relation-
ships of plants can be understood, and structures, apparently
functionless and degenerate, explained.

The differentiation of function is most complete in the
higher plants—the cormophytic phanerogams ;—and in these
plants the organs by which the life-functions are performed
become more and more complex. On the other hand, if a
plant has dispensed with some function which was fully
performed in its ancestral form, and which was necessary in
the life of that ancestral form, the organ by which such
function was accomplished gradually degenerates until it has
become vestigial. A vestigial organ is thus a member of a
plant-body which has undergone a gradual degradation in
structure, and consequent loss, or, it may be, change of
function. Many vestigial organs are illustrations of the .
capability of variation. They point to a time in the history
of the species when these organs were functional and active.
But with modified external conditions, a responsive internal
and structural modification was also necessary if the species

VESTIGIAL AND RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN PLANTS. 35

were to maintain itself. Rudimentary organs, on the other
hand, are the simplest forms of those organs whose
homologies can be traced from lower to higher types; for
the course of evolution in plants, as in animals, has pro-
ceeded from lower to higher organisms, from simple to
complex structures, from unit polyergic cell to the
differentiation of structure and integration of function
implied in the possession of organs.

All the activities of living plants are directed towards
two great processes, viz., growth and the reproduction of the
species. The organs more immediately concerned with
growth are the roots, leaves, and vascular system. In all
vascular plants there is the closest physiological connection
between these different organs. Where variation occurs in
one set of organs, corresponding modifications are usually
found in the other sets of organs. The most rudimentary
forms of leaves were probably like those of mosses, single
plates of cells. The leaves of mosses, however, belong to
the gametophyte generation, whereas in higher plants the
leaves are organs of the sporophyte generation. Such leaves
belonging to the sporophyte generation are found in the
filmy ferns (Hymenophyllacee), a class which has several
striking analogies in structure and development to the
mosses. The leaves of all higher plants consist of several
cell-layers, which show varying structures and arrangements
on the dorsal and ventral aspect. The leaves of seed-plants
are of a simple form when they first unfold, although they
always consist of more than a single plate of cells. The
interest attaching to the succession of foliar organs consists
in the fact that they reach their maximum of development
at the time when vegetative growth is greatest, and that
thereafter they tend towards simplicity of structure, but
with increasing growth and development of floral organs.
This variation in the development of leaves during the life-
cycle is characteristic of annuals and biennials. Perhaps
_ the most remarkable feature in such a life-history is seen in
the identical structures in its earliest and latest stages,
viz., on the one hand, the embryo-plant in spring, and the
ripe seed cast abroad in autumn; and on the other hand,
the wide variety presented by the fully developed vegetative

36 MR ALEXANDER MORTON ON

and floral structures. Many cultivated species of cruciferous
plants illustrate this feature. The foliage of trees, shrubs,
and perennial plants exhibits a more constant character.
The succession of leaves in our forest-trees is almost mvari-
able from the time they burst forth in spring until they fall
in winter. But when the external conditions do not admit
of the full development of leaves, bud-scales are produced.
The morphological interpretation of these organs is that they
represent leaves or stipules reduced in structure and changed
in function by the external conditions prevailing. They
are well seen in the horse-chestnut.

Stipules are found in pairs at the base of the leaf-stalk
in many plants. They are thus leaf-structures, and are
characteristic of several natural orders, as the Rosacez,
Leguminos, Rubiacew, and Polygonace, while from other
orders (eg., Cruciferee) they are absent. Stipules are
interesting from a comparative point of view, as they
exhibit striking changes in structure and function. In
many of the Papilionacee there is a remarkable relation
between their development and the metamorphosis of the
leaf. In the pea, the stipules are larger than the lateral
leaflets of the compound pinnate leaf. But the leaf of the
pea ends in three tendrils—two lateral and a terminal
unpaired one. These tendrils are the organs by which the
pea-plant climbs, and they are morphologically leaflets.
Now, as all plants practise a strict economy in the expen-
diture of the organic substances they manufacture for the
upbuilding of tissue, the pea-plant has found it an advantage
to change these three terminal leaflets to organs by which
it may climb, and consequently the stipules are more fully
developed as assimilative organs. On comparing the bean-
plant with the pea, the most obvious difference is seen in
the fact that the former is able to grow upright without
support, while the latter is unable to reach light without the
help of its tendrils. This means, histologically, that the bean
has developed a supporting tissue, and that the pea lacks
this tissue. If the leaf of the bean-plant is examined more
closely, however, the lateral leaflets are found to be equally
developed, and the stipules are not so exaggerated as in the
pea-plant. But at the end of the mid-rib a small vestigial

VESTIGIAL AND RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN PLANTS. 237

tendril is invariably present. This is probably explicable by
supposing that both plants sprang from an ancestral type
which possessed tendrils; but as the two species diverged
from the ancestral stock, the pea preserved the climbing
habit and developed it more fully, while the bean abandoned it
and developed a supporting tissue. Vestigial tendrils are
found in many leguminous plants, such as Lathyrus pratensis.
The interchange of structure and function between leaf and
stipule is best seen in Lathyrus Aphaca. In this plant the
stipules are large and leaf-like and function as leaves, while
the pinne of the leaf have been wholly transformed into long
tendrils. In the furze (Ulex ewropeus) true leaves are only
found on the young plant, and on young shoots, and it is
interesting to trace the evolution of spines from these leaves
as the plant grows, because they are the organs correspond-
ing to leaves which the furze possesses in the adult state.
Spines, in this case, are vestigial leaves developed as protec-
tive organs. The green assimilative tissue, which should have
formed the leaf, surrounds the spines and younger twigs, and
thus the furze may be described as an evergreen without
leaves. This characteristic feature is also seen in the broom,
but here small leaves are produced as well, which are shed
in autumn, while shoots which bore them remain green
throughout winter. This assumption by shoots and twigs of
the functions of leaves, and the partial or complete atrophy
of the latter, are directly traceable to external conditions.
Where these conditions are extreme, the prevailing foliage
becomes abnormal. The flora of a humid swamp in a
tropical land is characterised by the large size of the leaves
of its individual members, inasmuch as heat, light, and
moisture are abundant, while in such localities respiration
cannot be as active as it is in drier places. Hence a large
transpiring surface is necessary, and this end is obtained by
the greater size of the leaves. The opposite extreme—that
in which respiration is at a maximum, and where rain
scarcely or never falls—is illustrated by the xerophilous
floras of arid tropical uplands, such as that of the Mexican
plateau. The prevailing feature of such a flora is the
abundance of species of Cactus, Opuntia, and Euphorbia, in
which the leaves are either vestigial or have been wholly

38 MR ALEXANDER MORTON ON

metamorphosed into spines. There can be no doubt that
the plants which have thus become suited to such arid
surroundings are derived from forms which possessed leaves.
For such indigenous plants as Mereurialis perennis and
Luphorbia helioscopia have an abundant foliage, and yet how
different they appear when they are compared with their
spiny, leafless allies of tropical uplands.

An interesting problem is presented by the structures
known as phylloclades. These “ leaf-branches ” are seen in
many plants belonging to different genera. They are well
known in the indigenous Ruscus aculeatus. But they are
characteristic of several other genera in which vestigial
leaves have been mentioned, as Opuntia, species of Genista,
Phyllanthus (Kuphorbiaceze), and Phyllocladus (Conifers). In
many families of these above-mentioned genera, there ‘is
a tendency to suppress the true leaves, and a relative
tendency to develop on the twig or branch the green
assimilating tissue which would naturally have formed the
leaf, had there been one. The phylloclade represents a
further development of this nature. It is as if the plant-
bearing phylloclades found it necessary to revert, to a certain
extent, to the original form of the organ represented by
foliage leaves. But since these, in the families mentioned,
have become so aborted as to be functionally useless, the
branch bearing these vestigial leaves has adapted itself to
perform these functions by laterally extending itself.

In those plants which have become completely parasitic,
the necessity for leaves altogether disappears. Yet vestiges
of leaves are found on the bird’s-nest orchid, while no trace
of them is found on the dodder. The ancestral forms of
these plants undoubtedly had green leaves, for the parasitic
habit is the result of a gradual adaptation. It would be a
matter of extreme interest were it possible to trace all the
steps in such a process as that by which plants with green
leaves have become completely degraded to the parasitic con-
dition. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in parasitic
phanerogams is seen in the fully developed flowers, a fact
which emphasises the reproductive as distinguished from the

vegetative aspect of the life-history.

The study of the morphology of floral organs furnishes

VESTIGIAL AND RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN PLANTS. 39

many instances of vestigial and metamorphosed structures. Of
a simple structure, and rudimentary as regards their perianth,
are the flowers of the Amentacee. But the abundance of seed
produced yearly by the members of this order of plants clearly
proves that the essential organs of their flowers are actively
functional. Their rudimentary character consists only in
the absence or simple form of the perianth. This same
character prevails among those plants whose flowers are
fertilised by the agency of the wind. In the Amentacez
and in the Conifere this simplicity of floral structure is
a primitive feature, and the method of securing pollination
by the wind is perfectly compatible with the absence of a
brightly coloured perianth. It is a noteworthy fact that the
flowers of the catkin-bearing trees are unisexual, and when
it is considered that such orders as the Composite and
Orchidacez, which have reached the highest state of develop-
ment as regards their floral organs, are hermaphrodite, the
inference is obvious that the ancestral forms of plants with
unisexual flowers were probably very distinct from those
types from which the trees with hermaphrodite flowers have
sprung. Where wind-pollination is not a primary but a
secondary feature, as is probably the case in grasses, vestigial
organs, as might be expected, are to be found. The lodicules
which force open the palez and glumes, when the pollen is
ripe, are generally supposed to represent vestigial portions of
the perianth.

In some of the higher phanerogams, unisexuality has been
brought about by the degeneration of one set of essential
organs. In Lychnis diwrna some flowers are staminate,
others pistillate. This arrangement of sporophylls has been
caused by the partial or complete abortion of one set of
organs whose vestiges are usually found in those flowers in
which they have not been developed. In many of the more
highly organised flowering plants, similar instances of the
complete disappearance of the andreecium or gynecium are
found, as in the sea-buckthorn (Hippophw rhamnoides), differ-
ent species of Cucumber (Cucurbitacez), and Sedum Rhodiola
(Crassulacee). The unisexual condition has doubtless been
gradually produced in these plants with the aim of securing
cross-fertilisation, When stamens are transformed into

*
40 VESTIGIAL AND RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN PLANTS.

petals, as in Canna, or into glandular nectaries, as in
Parnassia, they are usually known as staminodes. In these
extreme cases a transference of function has taken place, and
although such instances show no degradation of structure,
yet they illustrate how one organ may, in the course of time,
have developed into another. More vestigial in their nature
are the remnants of the stamens found in Zrodiwm. In this
family one whorl of stamens has become vestigial, while in
the allied Geraniacee both whorls are fully developed.
Many instances may be found of one or more stamens of a
whorl disappearing. This is especially the case in dorsi-
ventral flowers. In such instances it appears to be the
dorsiventral nature of the flower which has occasioned the
reduction of the andreecium, The natural orders of the
Orchidace, Labiate, and Scrophulariacee have typically
dorsiventral flowers, and in most species belonging to these
great orders the andrcecium is more or less incomplete. In
the cases exemplified by the Scrophulariacez, the median
posterior stamen is usually that which first undergoes
reduction. In very few plants belonging to this large
natural order is the staminal whorl complete, as in Verbascwm.
In Pentstemon the filament of the stamen remains as a
staminode, while in Mimulus the merest vestige at the base
of the corolla is all that is left of this organ. In the large
natural order of the Labiate, the stamen, which occupied the
same position, has disappeared. The disappearance of this
stamen in these flowers naturally leads to the conclusion that
irregular or dorsiventral flowers have been derived from
regular and symmetrical forms. The regular flower must
therefore represent an earlier form of floral structure than
the irregular or dorsiventral form. Many other plant-organs
show reduction or degeneration, and it is sometimes difficult
to explain why such changes have taken place, while in
certain other cases the explanations are obvious. This
branch of botanical study, however, possesses many attractions
for those who are willing to pursue such a fascinating
inquiry.

DR DAVID HEPBURN ON THE HUMAN SKELETON. 41

THE HUMAN SKELETON, WITH NOTES ON THE
ERECT ATTITUDE AND ITS EVOLUTION.

By Davin Hepsury, M.D., F.R.S.E, Lecturer on Regional
Anatomy, University of Edinburgh.

(Read 6th October 1898.)
(ABSTRACT. )

AFTER a short summary, in which the terms exo-skeleton,
endo-skeleton, axial, and appendicular were defined and
explained, the author gave a synopsis of the main features
of the human skeleton, in the course of which various com-
parisons were instituted between the bones of man and
those of certain of the lower animals, in order to provide
a basis for the comparison of the attitude of man with that
of other Vertebrata. In discussing this part of the subject
the author said :—

Throughout the entire group of fishes the attitude of
their body is horizontal to the surface of the earth, As
a consequence, their head is directed forwards, their tail
backwards, their dorsum or back upwards, and their venter
or belly downwards. Among all four-footed animals using
their limbs for support and locomotion, ic, quadrupeds, the
same horizontal attitude is found, and the limbs, like the fins
of fishes, are arranged as an anterior and a posterior pair.
Approximating most closely to man in structural features
there is the group of Anthropoid Apes, whose limbs, besides
acting as organs of support and locomotion, are still further
modified to serve as organs of prehension, for which reason
they are named Quadrwmana.

As regards their attitude, while they still retain a certain
amount of the horizontal posture as they progress on all-
fours, yet their vertebral column is carried with a definite
obliquity to the horizon, so that their head looks slightly

upwards as well as forwards, their dorsum slightly back-
VOL. 1 4

49 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

wards as well as upwards, their venter slightly forwards as
well as downwards, and their fore limbs may be considered
as an upper pair and their hind limbs as a lower pair. When
they do not walk on all-fours, they usually get their fore
limbs clear of the ground by leaning upon a stick, ae, by
artificially lengthening their fore limbs, or, by balancing
themselves with outstretched arms, they may stagger along
with an uncertain gait.

The attitude of man is in marked contrast to that of the
ape, for his vertebral column is carried vertically to the
horizon ; his head is poised on the summit of his spine, his
dorsum is directed backwards, his venter forwards, his lower
or hind limbs are used for support and locomotion, and his
upper or fore limbs principally for prehension. To quote
the words of the late Professor Goodsir, “ Man alone walks
erect.” It is to this erect attitude, so characteristic of man,
that he owes much of his supremacy over the lower animals,
for he thereby obtains a pair of limbs free to construct and
handle weapons alike for purposes of offence and defence.

If we now examine the modifications of man’s skeleton in
view of his erect attitude, we shall find that his vertebral
column presents a series of alternating curves impressed
upon it by the great weight of the head. These curves are
not found in the spine of any quadruped, and even the
spinal column of the gorilla only shows a feeble approxima-
tion to them, Another most important feature of the erect
attitude is the condition of man’s hip-joint. In him alone
can the lower limb be extended in a straight line with the
back-bone, an arrangement which results from the configura-
tion of the hip-joint, whereby, in the erect attitude, the
weight of the trunk falls behind the hip-joints, which are
provided with mechanical arrangements for maintaining the
erect attitude independently of muscular effort. The atti-
tude of such a bird as the Penguin must not be confounded
with that of man, as an examination of the curves of its
back-bone and the condition of the joints of its lower limb
will readily show.

The author then proceeded to point out that, whereas the
young of most mammals are born provided with the attitude
of their parents, this is not the case with man, who is not

THE HUMAN SKELETON. 43

born in possession of the erect attitude. On the contrary,
this attitude is acquired by man during his own lifetime by
passing through a series of transitional stages from the
horizontal to the quadrupedal (in which position the infant
creeps), then to the oblique, and finally to the erect posture ;
and that, coincidently with these transitions, the brain has
undergone an increase in size, the spinal column has acquired
its curves, and the hip-joint has become correspondingly
modified.

In conclusion the author said:—It seems to me that
these simple facts throw much light on certain problems
connected with the evolution of the human race. There is
an accumulating amount of evidence in support of the
theory that man has evolved from some lower type of
animal. It is not a question of finding a “missing link”
whose discovery would bridge the chasm between man and
the highest ape, but rather the discovery of a common
progenitor, since man and the ape are already situated at
the extreme ends of two diverging lines, which may very
well have started from a common point. Naturally, there-
fore, all fossil remains which might possibly fill up the gap
between man and this unknown progenitor are subjected to
the closest and keenest scrutiny, and there are opposing
theories regarding the nature of the facts which should be
accepted as evidence in support of a gradual transition from
an oblique attitude to the erect attitude characteristic of
man,

Some anthropologists maintain that, in the process of
acquiring an erect attitude, the skeleton would first show
man-like characters in the bones of the lower limbs, and
that these changes would slowly work their way upwards
until an animal would be evolved having the body of a man
although still possessed of a head but a few degrees better
than that of the ape. To my mind this view appears
untenable. An animal having the skull of an ape, and
therefore the brain and the intelligence of an ape, would be
placed in most distressful circumstances in the struggle for
existence by possessing the body of a man. Such a com-
bination would place its possessor out of harmony with its
environment and mode of life. Imagine an ape provided

44 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

with human legs and feet, and surrounded by an environ-
ment which rendered climbing a necessity. What chance
of survival would he have without the intelligence requisite
for the manufacture of weapons wherewith to supersede
the lost art of climbing swiftly either to reach his food or
to escape from imminent danger? It has been argued that
the first incentive to the acquisition of the erect attitude
would be the need of free hands in the desire for and the
manufacture of simple weapons. But the recognition of
the utility of weapons necessitates an increase of intelligence,
and presumably, therefore, a larger brain as the starting-
point of the evolution. From this stand-point an increase
of intelligence would enable its possessor to adapt himself
to his surroundings with greater ease, to combat those
adverse conditions of existence under which less favoured
individuals succumbed ; in other words, to survive in the
grin struggle and thereby to start his offspring at a more
favourable level for the upward progress. The mere
persistence of an ape-like body would not be a disastrous
inheritance for an animal of increasing intelligence. A man
would not be fatally handicapped by the possession of an
ape-like pair of feet, while an ape could scarcely be the
gainer by the substitution for his own splendid foot-hand
of a pair of human feet, however perfect. Just as in the
human infant an increase of brain-power precedes the
acquisition of the erect attitude, so, it seems to me, an
increase of intelligence must have preceded any upward
development of lower forms in the direction of that
“paragon of animals” which we call man. At the same
time there is nothing incongruous in the theory that the
erect attitude characteristic of man may have been evolved
in association with a cranial capacity materially less than
the lowest which has been recorded for any individual of
the genus Homo. Of course, I do not mean to imply that
the process of evolution advanced more rapidly in the case
of the head than in that of the feet, any more than I
believe that it is possible for an animal to develop human
feet while retaining an ape’s brain. In other words, any
animal whose individual bones indicated the possession of
the erect attitude would have a skull and a brain sufficiently

THE HUMAN SKELETON. 45

resembling those of man to be entitled to the term Homo,
although not necessarily Homo sapiens. Doubtless all
evolution is the result of the complex influences of environ-
ment affecting all parts of the organism equally and simul-
taneously, but the adaptability which stamps one animal
as the “fittest” for survival proceeds in all probability from
an advancing intelligence, which, however, is not always
synonymous with a large brain or a great skull capacity.

[The author desires to express his indebtedness to Sir Wm. Turner for a
number of the lantern slides with which this paper was illustrated. ]

ON SOME SURFACE DIATOMACEA FROM
HONG-KONG HARBOUR.

By Dr H. Scorr-LaupEr, R.N
(Read 8rd November 1898.)

WueEn I was stationed at Hong-Kong, some years ago, I
noticed, while going to and fro between my ship and the
shore, myriads of minute glistening points floating in the
sea, flashing back the rays of the sun as they changed their
position in the water, and glowing with iridescent colour. A
few minutes with a muslin towing-net eave me a jelly-like
mass, which I found to consist of a mixture of microscopic
crustaceans and of diatoms of a great variety of form.

As the family of the Chetocerex, or awn-bearing diatoms, is
the most numerously represented and most characteristic of
the Chinese gatherings, I shall notice them more particularly
in this communication,

Very few of the species of this family had hitherto been
described, except from detached and mutilated fragments
found in sedimentary deposits, guano, the stomachs of
ascidians, ete. ; and as they were all new to me, I sent draw-
ings and material to the late Mr J. Ralfs, of the Royal
Microscopical Society of London, who was a well-known

46 DR H. SCOTT-LAUDER ON SOME

authority on eryptogamic botany, and he kindly assisted me
to name and classify the species. The result, with figures,
may be found in the 7ransactions of that Society for 1864,
vol 12.

The general characters of the family Chextocerex are as
follows (figs. 2 and 10):—They are filamentous, the frus-
tules are united to each other by the interlacing of tubular
awns which spring from the angles or circumference of the
contiguous cells, which in front view are quadrangular, and
in side view oval (Chextoceros) (fig. 3) or circular (Lacteri-
astrum), fig. 11. The breadth of frustule is from 3/99” to
300.

The awns are usually many times longer than the breadth
of the frustule, in section either cylindrical, quadrangular, or
hexagonal, and having bead-like tubercles or short spines
arranged in a spiral manner around the length of the awn,
or with a cellular structure in some species.

In the perfect filament the awns of the terminal valves,
that is to say, the two valves of the original frustule (fig. 1)
produced from the sporangium or auxospore, are usually
shorter and stouter than the intermediate ones, and often
differ from them in shape (fig. 2).

The process of multiplication of the frustules in a filament
is similar to that common to all diatoms. The endochrome
shrinks away from the sides of the cell, forming a spherical
central mass with strongly defined outline. This and its
nucleus divide into two equal portions, the connecting hoop
of the frustule at the same time increasing in breadth until
the frustule is double its original length. The two masses of
endochrome each secrete a new valve, a line of demarcation
is formed in the hoop, which apparently contains very little
silex, new awns sprout at the line of demarcation, and thus
two frustules are produced, each consisting of a new and an
old valve.

At certain seasons, or under certain unknown con-
ditions, this process takes a different direction. The con-
densed endochrome, instead of dividing, secretes a silicious
envelope, in shape quite unlike the parent frustule, forming
an endocyst within the frustule, probably of a sporangial
nature (fig. 4). The term endocyst has been suggested by

SURFACE DIATOMACEH FROM HONG-KONG HARBOUR. 47

Mr Thos. Comber and Dr Cleve in place of sporangium, as
the real function of these bodies is as yet uncertain.

The endocyst varies in shape according to the species ;
in some it becomes a body with a capitate head and con-
stricted neck, the other end being convex, and a broad
connecting hoop joining them (fig. 5). In others the
neck is wanting; some have the convex ends smooth,
others have them studded with spines (figs. 7, 8, and 9);
others again have the valves produced into two or more stout
conical horns, simple or branched at the extremities (fig. 6).
These bodies always lie with their similar ends towards
each other throughout the filament, and the silica which
impregnates their cell-walls is much thicker and stronger
than in the wall of the frustule itself. The endochrome
is now mostly transformed into a number of spherical,
highly refractive globules, apparently of an oily nature, the
filaments become very fragile, breaking up on slight disturb-
ance, and the enclosed cysts are set free.

I have been unable to follow out the further processes
they undergo towards the reproduction of the diatom.

These curious bodies, which are found in considerable
number in guano and sedimentary deposits in a detached
and isolated condition, were, until recent years, usually con-
sidered to belong to distinct and independent genera, and are
figured and named as such in works on the subject. For
instance, several species of Dicladia, Goniothecium, Hercotheca,
and Omphalothecu are undoubtedly the endocysts of Chetoceros,
as they have been observed in situ by myself, and more
recently by Count Castracane, Mr Comber, and others,
notably from gatherings of oceanic plankton obtained during
the Challenger expedition.

These endocysts are not confined to the family under
consideration, as Mr Comber has, in the Z7vransactions of the
Royal Microscopical Society, recently described bodies,
apparently of a similar nature, as occurring in a species of
Melosira diatom from the Antarctic Sea (Zhalassiosira
Antarctica).

The family Chetocerew are divided into the two well-
marked genera above mentioned :—(1) Chxtoceros (figs. 1, 2,
and 3), oval in side view, with a single awn springing from

AS >. DR UH. SCOTT-LAUDER ON SOME

each angle of the frustule; and (2) Bacteriastrwm (figs. 10
and 11), circular in side view, with a varying number of
awns springing radially from the circumference of the valve.
The number of frustules in a filament may vary from one to
one hundred or more, but, as a rule, it breaks up into
shorter lengths of twenty or thirty frustules. A perfect
unbroken filament is always. recognised by the terminal
valves with the more robust awns of the parent frustule.

In this family, as in the Diatomacex generally, it is often
difficult to distinguish species from each other and from
varieties of the same species. The variations of form merge
so gradually into each other, that, without having seen the
intermediate varieties, one is apt to put down as distinct
species at each end of the scale what are, in reality, modifi-
cations of one and the same plant, and so lead to unnecessary
multiplication of nomenclature.

Of the genus Chetoceros found in Hong-Kong harbour, I
have identified twelve species, which, for the purposes of
classification, I have divided into three groups, viz. :—(1)
Those having spinous awns, (2) those having beaded awns,
and (3) those having cellular awns, the members of each
group generally having other characters in common.

The genus Bacteriastrum (fig. 10), also very abundant in
Chinese waters, can be divided into two fairly distinct
species—B. varians, varying greatly in the number of awns to
each frustule, and B. hyalinum, larger and more delicate in tex-
ture, with a more constant number of awns, thirty to thirty-two.
The frustules of which the filament is made up are connected
together by the intimate apposition or fusing together, as it
were, of the awns of contiguous cells for a certain distance
from the margin of the cell; they then separate again into
the two awns of which they were primarily composed, giving
the appearance of a bifurcated awn. The awns of the
terminal cells at each extremity of the filament are more or
less curved, and are simple, having no other cell contiguous
to assist in forming the compound bifurcating awn.

This process of blending and bifureating again, which.
takes place normally in Bacteriastrwm, also very rarely
happens as an accidental abnormality, in Chetoceros. I have
only met with one instance of it.

SURFACE DIATOMACEZ FROM HONG-KONG HARBOUR. 49

In Pritchard’s Jnfusorva, and other text-books on Dia-
tomacee, three distinct species of B. are described, viz. :—JB.
furcatum, B. curvatum, and £. nodulosum; but from the
foregoing description of structure, it will be seen that they
are merely different parts of a perfect filament of one
and the same species.

B. nodulosum is a terminal cell with the spirally-arranged
beads strongly marked.

The awns of the Kong-Kong species are always spirally
beaded, this being most evident in the terminal cells ; while
in the bifureated awns of the intermediate cells the beading
is only evident on the free extremities.

The sporangial endocysts (fig. 12) of this genus are
smooth on the larger curvature, with a few delicate spines
on the smaller end.

Figs. 13 and 14 represent a.curious diatom which is not
uncommon in Chinese waters, and the classification of which
is, I think, rather doubtful. It is very closely allied to Mr
Wallich’s Hemidiscus cuneiformis, which he has placed in
the family Anguliferex, and the detached frustule has been
named by Mr Greville Palmeria Hardmaniana ; but, as
far as I am aware, it has not hitherto been described as it
appears in its living and perfect condition.

Each frustule is similar in shape to the carpellary
segment of an orange, and by the apposition of six or eight
of them side by side, arranged as the segments of an orange,
a globular compound plant is formed (fig. 14). It is probable
that the spheroidal shape is only a phase in the growth of
the plant, as its form must alter and tend to become annular
as the frustules multiply ; it then probably breaks up into
smaller groups of frustules, which form the basis of a new
sphere. The frustules fall apart on very slight disturbance,
and the perfect sphere is only seen when recently taken
from the sea.

The valves (fig. 13) are nearly flat, semilunate in outline,
with a straight or very slightly concave venter ; the surface
of the valve is minutely cellulate, the lines of cellulation
radiating from a clear space in the centre, interspersed
at regular intervals by more strongly marked radial lines,
each of which has a minute spicule at its peripheral termi-

50 SURFACE DIATOMACEZ FROM HONG-KONG HARBOUR.

nation. The wedge shape of the frustule in section is
caused by the connecting hoop between the valves being
broadest on the dorsum or convex side.

I am inclined to remove this diatom from the family
Anguliferex and place it in that of the Coscinodixex.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATE illustrating Dr Scorr LAvDER’s
Paper on some Surface Diatoms from Hong-Kong

Harbour.
FIG.
1. Chetoceros affine, parent frustule.
2. + , filament increasing by self-division.
3: " » side view of valve.
4. ti » formation of sporangial endocysts.
5. Endocyst of C. Lauderi.

5a. 5 2 a variety.
6. C.cellulosum, C. lorenzianuwm, with endocyst, usually
considered an independent diatom under the name
Dicladia capreolus, ete.
6a. Awn of C. cellulosum, highly magnified.
7. Endocyst of Chetoceros, front and side view.
8. . ‘. ciliatum.
9. C. compressum, with endocysts.
10. Bacteriastrum varians.
fol? ® » side view of intermediate frustule.
12. JB. varians, sporangial endocyst.
13. Palmeria Hardmaniana, side view of valve.
14. 4 a perfect plant.

—

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14 MAY 27
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NAT UISY

THE DECREASE AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS. 51

THE DECREASE AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN
BIRDS IN SCOTLAND.

By the Rev. H. N. Bonar, M.B.O.U.

(Read Ist December 1898.)

THE relation of all birds to each other when subject to no
human interference must have been a most delicately ad-
justed affair. I do not mean to affirm that it was finally
fixed, but I can safely say that, compared with the conditions
which exist at present, it was at least stable.

When human beings multiplied sufficiently for their
numbers to make any perceptible difference on the face of
the land, then began the disturbance of the conditions under
which all wild creatures had previously existed. Forests
and thickets were cleared away, swamps and lakes were
drained, filth was poured into rivers, and poisonous smoke
into the air. Towns sprang up where wildernesses had
been, and birds and beasts were either exterminated or
driven to seek more inaccessible spots.

All this was inevitable ; the advance of civilisation necessi-
tated it, and a man is better than a bird or beast.

And here the increase of certain birds comes in. Birds,
plain enough in their plumage, nasty enough in their flesh,
tuneless enough in their note to escape persecution, began
to reap benefit from the presence of man. They found that,
wherever men were, there was always a minimum of food
(even in the hardest winter), along with a certain amount
of shelter and, perhaps, unconscious protection from their
natural enemies. They then began to alter their habits, and
eradually to conform to their new surroundings.

But, so far, those disturbances of the balance of nature
were nearly always necessary, though regrettable. It was
at this stage that men set to work to make bad worse.

52 REV. H. N. BONAR ON THE DECREASE

And here, for convenience sake, let me name four out of
the many reasons for the decrease of certain birds :-—

1. The destruction of birds’ haunts.
2. Game-preserving.

3. The greed of man.

4, The increase of other birds.

1. The destruction of birds’ haunts.

The Crane (Grus cinerea), the Bustard (Otis tarda), the
Bittern (Botaurus stellaris), and the Black Tern (Sterna nigra),
may be mentioned as representatives of many species which
now breed no more in our islands, chiefly because men have
crowded them out of their breeding-grounds.

Many others are rapidly disappearing for the same reason.
Take the cases of the Lesser Tern (Sterna minuta) and the
Roseate Tern (Sterna dougalli), the Ringed Plover (dgialitis
hiaticula) and the Grey-lag Goose (Anser cinereus), the first
two of these species being very nearly extinct in our country.
All these birds lay their eggs on the ground, and have no
chance of hatching their young when men abound near their
haunts. Take also the case of a not uncommon bird, the Eider
Duck (Somateria mollissima), which is rapidly being driven
away from its nesting-grounds on the east coast of Scotland.
It still does nest in East Lothian, but in a few years it
must go.

The destruction of the forests which used to clothe a large
part of Scotland has driven away many birds which used
to breed in trees—ey., the Raven (Corvus corax), which, how-
ever, still retains a hold as a breeding species by taking to
cliff-nesting; the Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris), which, alas, I
now do not dare to call the “Common” Buzzard; the Kite
(Milvus ictinus) and the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus), owe their
rarity, in part, to the scarcity of tall trees.

2. The next cause of decrease is game-preserving.

I think people fail to realise the very great changes in
bird-life which the introduction of one single species has
brought about in our land.

AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS IN SCOTLAND. 53

An exotic bird, of semi-sedentary habit, clumsy in body
and heavy on the wing, it can never really thrive in this
country without being pampered and artificially bred. It is
a regular farm-yard bird, and as such is an excellent addition
to our list of edible fowls, but as a wild bird it is an ornitho-
logical failure. Bad luck to the man who brought us the
Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) from Colchis, to exterminate
better birds than itself, and to corrupt the morals of man,
bird, and beast wherever it exists in any numbers. It lays
a large number of eggs (worth a shilling each, generally) on
the ground—a great temptation for men and boys, and, what
is worse, it sheds these eggs broadcast through the woods—
small wonder that crows, jays, magpies, and even rooks are
taught to prey on them, ‘The hen is the most careless of
mothers and does not know how to bring up her chicks,
which, unprotected, fall an easy prey to the dashing Sparrow-
Hawk (Accipiter nisus). The pheasant has even corrupted
the virtuous Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus),* which (coming to
kill the mice attracted by the food strewn profusely round
the pheasant-coops) learns that a young pheasant is sweeter
than a mouse. This stupid bird roosts either on the ground
or on low shrubs, and thus invites foxes or poachers to kill
it. It must bear a large share of the blame for the frame of
mind of the average keeper. He knows that he will be con-
sidered incompetent if he cannot show a great head of game
on the first of October. Therefore he divides all wild
creatures into two classes only, and whatever is not game, is
vermin, and is treated as such, And so we hear of a keeper
shooting a Tawny Owl (Syrnivm aluco) or an Osprey (Pandion
haliaetus) under the impression that he is helping to keep up
a good stock of game.

As for birds which really do prey on game, they must be
shot out entirely on every well-regulated estate where
pheasants form the main item of winged game. And for
this proprietors are very greatly to blame.

Mr Howard Saunders is not wrong when he says,t
“with the increase of pheasant-worship, the doom of the
buzzard was sealed” in England.

*See Newton’s Dictionary of Birds, note, p. 478,
+ Manual of British Birds, p. 311.

54 REV. H. N. RONAR ON THE DECREASE

But the keeper has learned his lesson too well, and has
carried his methods from the pheasant-covers to the moors.
Now, killing a bird of prey by shooting it is at least a
sportsmanlike way of doing an evil deed; but to resort to
poison or to pole-trap is disgraceful.

One day last April, when crossing a moor in the Lothians,
my eye was attracted by something flapping in the distance
beside a mountain tarn. As I drew near, I saw it was a
Carrion Crow (Corvus corone) caught in a pole-trap. Its
mate, with something in its mouth, flew off as I came up,
and I saw it had been attempting to feed the luckless bird
as it hung in agony, head down, in the grim jaws of the
trap. Now, I do not love carrion crows. I had found
not far off this spot a Golden Plover’s (Charadrius pluvialis)
nest with the eggs sucked, possibly by this very bird; but
there was only one thing I could do. With great difficulty
I smothered the bird’s struggles and opened the teeth of the
trap. I examined the wounded leg by which it had been
caught, and found that, for a wonder, the bone was not
broken, so I liberated the poor, tortured creature and rejoiced
to see him fly free—to be joined almost immediately by his
mate, still with that choice morsel in her mouth. Then I
looked about me, and found at the foot of the pole the
remains of several birds, amongst which I could only identify
the bodies of a kestrel and a Black-headed Gull (Larus
ridibundus).

As for poison, the mischief it may dois enormous. A
keeper takes a dead kelt or a hare or a lamb and poisons the
carcase, and exposes it. Of course, every living creature
which eats any of that bait dies. It may be an eagle, a raven,
or an osprey, a fox, an otter, or a collie—it matters not.
Poison cannot discriminate any more than the pole-trap.
It is surely time that those devil’s weapons were made illegal.

Then we have also the incessant persecution by gun of
every raptorial bird. It is a marvel to me that my special
favourite the Peregrine Falcon (falco peregrinus) is not utterly
shot out, for that he does destroy game there is no doubt. It
may seem to be an extreme position to take up, but I am
prepared to argue that a certain number of raptorial birds
_ improves a grouse-moor, in the same way as I believe otters

AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS IN SCOTLAND. 55

improve a salmon river. If the diseased and weakly birds
and fish are taken from the moor and river, you have a
more robust stock left to breed from, and the chances of
disease are very much diminished. In a very interesting
correspondence carried on in the Field newspaper this
summer, it was demonstrated that a hawk will always of
set purpose pursue the weakest bird which comes under his
vision. One authority* said that he had seen Merlins (Falco
zwsalon) frequently desist “from the pursuit of a fully-
moulted lark in order to bestow their attentions on one still
in the moult.” He then :adds that “the peregrine with her
marvellous powers of vision and her experience of flying
things . ... can detect in a grouse ....a weakness
which disables him from shifting as well as his fellows.”
And this writer goes on to ask, “ How does one rook in a
flock know, before the hawk has begun to stoop, that he is
going to be singled out as the quarry? How, but by
knowing that he is, and that the hawk knows that he is,
the weakest of the whole lot ?”

Under the present system the weakly and diseased birds
are sheltered and encouraged to breed. It needs no com-
ment of mine to show you that this policy is unwise, and
in the end defeats itself.

3. Another cause of the decrease is man’s greed.

People kill birds for their plumage; they trap them alive
for their song; they wish to possess their skins or eggs.
The man who can supply these demands gets money.

Let me give an instance or two. Why is the Kingfisher
(Alcedo ispida) a rare bird? Not because it is sometimes
shot for feeding on trout-fry among its other food, but be-
cause of its bright plumage.

The man with a gun cannot keep his finger off the
trigger if he sees a chance of “procuring” or “ obtaining ”
(he does not care to say “ killing ”) such a beautifully-coloured
bird, So the poor kingfisher is shot, and is then
set in a stuffy little parlour to fade and become moth-
eaten.

I have seen a good deal of this bird lately, and really it

* “Merlin,” in Field, July 9, 1898.

56 REV. H. N. BONAR ON THE DECREASE

is difficult to find words to describe the vivid brillianey of
its colouring. It is one of my greatest pleasures to watch
its opalescent blue-green back and ruddy chestnut breast.
No dead or stuffed kingfisher can give anyone any idea
of the real glory of this bird. I would fain hope that,
thanks to protective legislation, its decrease has been
arrested.

What is true of the slaughter of the kingfisher applies
also to all conspicuously-coloured birds. I need not, I feel
sure, remind the ladies of this Society of the crimes which
are perpetrated to procure egret plumes (“ospreys,” as they
are called in the trade); but I may take this opportunity
of asking them to set their faces against the wearing of
owls’ and terns’ wings (nay, sometimes even whole “dead
birds”) in their hats. Men will commit all manner of
cruelties so long as women are willing to pay them a good
price for birds’ lives.

Then I must not omit to mention the trapping of
song-birds. Why is the Goldfinch (Carduelis elegans) so
scarce? More careful cultivation has reduced the hedge-
side thistle seeds, its favourite food. But that is not the
main reason. Why is the Bullfinch (Pyrrhula europea)
seen so seldom? Not because the bird is sometimes shot
for damaging fruit-buds. Both these lovely birds are scarce
because they have been trapped year after year by the
hundred and by the thousand for cage-birds. Other cage-
birds I might mention, had I time, but these two must
suffice as examples.

Only let a bird become rare enough, and the greed of
the dealer or the collector will soon stamp it out. It is
possible that, even while I write, the last pair or two of the
Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus) and the Kite (JMilvus
utinus) may have been blotted out as British-breeding
birds. Their existence in our land hangs by such a thin
thread that, at any moment, a blundering keeper or an
avaricious collector has it in his power to sever it.

Take the case of the noble Osprey (Pandion haliactus),
to which I have referred already. It is doubtful if five
pairs of this bird now breed in Scotland; certainly, none
of their breeding-places would exist one year longer were

AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS IN SCOTLAND. o7

they not most jealously protected. But the birds themselves
migrate and so cannot be sheltered; and in April this year
one was butchered at Beverley, Yorkshire, as it passed
northwards to its breeding-place. The only consolation (a
small one) in this case was that the gunner’s friends
triumphantly wrote to the Field, announcing that this rare
bird had been “obtained.” This act led to the prosecution
and conviction of the criminal for shooting a protected bird
in the close season. But genuine collectors and ornitholo-
gists are much to blame in the matter of exterminating
rare birds. The prices offered by them for British eggs and
specimens are so high that shepherds and keepers can
scarcely resist the temptation. And so the mischief is done,
the nest is robbed, the parents are shot, and yet another
bird becomes extinct as a British-breeding species.

But, worse still, scientific men, who know the mischief
they are doing, will shoot the birds or take the eggs, often,
indeed, for museums—sometimes, I fear, for money. I
cannot help quoting a recent instance to show what I
mean, though in this case the British bird is not a British-
breeding bird.

A very well-known ornithologist visited Novaya Zemlya
and some adjacent islands in July 1897. In the published
account of this expedition,* he speaks of “that charming
bird” the Little Stint (Zringa minuta), for which he
showed his liking by taking 183 eggs of this species—“ all
of which,” he punctiliously adds, “were fertile.” Comment
is needless.

It is not quite so bad to find eggs taken for food, as in
the cases of the Blackheaded Gull (Larus ridibundus) and
the Lapwing (Vanellus cristatus); but certain it is that both
these birds are decreasing because of the constant gathering
of their eggs. In a highly-cultivated county like East
Lothian, I do not think that one pair of lapwings out of
four manage to rear their young.

4. The last reason of the decrease is the increase of other
birds.

It is at this point that the cog-wheels of the delicately-

* Ibis, April 1898,
VOL. I. 5

58 ' REY. H. N. BONAR’ ON THE DECREASE

\

adjusted economy of bird-life fit into quite another part of
that mysteriously-regulated mechanism which we call the
Balance of Nature, for want of a better term. We see that
some birds become rare as others become plentiful.

It is remarkable that the Crow-tribe (Corvidx) seems most
of all to have its numbers affected by the presence of man.
Some of the Corvide have almost been exterminated, and
others have increased so largely as to become a plague. The
Raven (Corvus corax), the Carrion Crow (Corvus corone), the
Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix), the Magpie (Pica caudata),
and the Jay (Garrulus glandarius), are shot, trapped, poisoned,
and harried, till in many Scotch counties they are practically
extinct. I must admit that these birds sometimes harm
game or eggs or lambs; but surely this cannot justify their
utter extinction. JI have seen one magpie in East Lothian,
where thirty years ago it used to be fairly common; while
the jay has not been noted in the county since 1882, when
one was “obtained” on the Lammermuirs.* This is a
digression intended to lead up to the fact of the extinction
from the east coast of one member of this family, the
Chough (Pyrrhocorax graclus). Now, this bird has never
been abundant, and has (so far as is known) no bad _ habits,
as its relatives have. It has not been trapped or poisoned
or shot out. In fact, man did not systematically begin to
persecute it till its skin or eggs became rare enough to have
a commercial or scientific value. Its great decrease is prob-
ably due to the abnormal increase of its impudent relative,
the jackdaw. Yarrell suggests this.t Muirhead, in his
Birds of Berwickshire, does so also.{ Another voluminous
ornithological writer asserts it plainly.{ “The stronger
daw,” he says, “is ousting the chough from its ancestral
homes,” Professor A. Newton—always reliable—says|| that
the jackdaw “seems to be dispossessing it of its sea-girt
strongholds, and its present scarcity is probably, in the main,
due to its persecution by its kindred.”

But the jackdaw has another serious charge made against
him—that of driving out the Barn Owl (Stria flammea)

* Annals Scot. Nat. Hist., Jan. 1898. + Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 256.
+ Birds of Berwickshire, vol. i. p. 199.
§ Ch. Dixon, Lost and Vanishing Birds, p. 198. || Dict. of Birds, p. 87.

AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS IN SCOTLAND, 59

from its nesting-places. Fifty years ago this bird used to
be common in Berwickshire and East Lothian, according to
all the authorities, written and verbal, whom I have con-
sulted. Now, in Berwickshire, Muirhead says it is “ almost
extinct.”* In East Lothian I have seldom seen or heard it
as yet. Persecution by ignorant keepers will not account for
this, for the Tawny Owl (Syrniwm aluco) and Long-eared .
Owl (Asio otus) are not uncommon. ‘The fact that jack-
daws occupy at present all the known old nesting-places of
the barn owl is significant, and there can be little doubt
that this pert and bustling bird has evicted the useful owl.

In my opinion, matters are becoming serious. No one
species of bird has a right to multiply so as to swamp other
species. In a state of nature this could not happen; the
Creator did not intend it to be so. If the increase of
jackdaws and rooks (and I may also add the name of the
starling, though it is not actually one of the Corvidx) goes
on at its present rate, there will not be sufficient food for
these voracious birds alone—leaving the more modest and
timid birds out of the question. In order to live they must
change their habits and take to other food. In fact, I
believe that at this moment this change is taking place, ¢,g.,
jackdaws and rooks are now taking to sucking eggs—a
habit which, apparently, they have been forced to adopt
because of their numbers. Rooks are learning to dig up
and destroy potatoes and to root up early wheat for lack of
proper food. When on this subject, I mention, only to
ridicule, the idea that the starling sucks small birds’ eggs ;
but unless the great increase of this bird is checked some-
how, it will be forced to take to some other equally bad habit.

The rook has driven out lately a large colony of Herons
(Ardea cinerca) from the trees in an island in Cama Loch,
Sutherland, and I doubt not that it will go on driving out
other birds before it unless some measures are taken.

But I have kept till now the bird which, after the
pheasant, is chiefly responsible for the decrease of other
birds. The Common Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a creature
for which, as an ornithologist, it is extremely difficult to say
one good word.

* Birds of Berwickshire, vol. i. p. 280.

60 REY. H. N. BONAR ON THE DECREASE

The most impudent of all birds, probably the most
prolific of all birds, he is destructive, pugnacious, and
quite incapable of shame. He eats what he should leave,
and largely leaves untouched what he should eat, viz.,
insects.

In towns, his fearlessness and a sort of bluff heartiness
render him popular; and the harm he does there is small,
except that he wantonly destroys crocuses and primulas in
the gardens. He is often welcomed by those who are
ignorant of the criminal side of his life, and who delight to
see birds in a city. It almost seems to me that the only
way to account for his being such a blot on the economy of
the bird-life of this country is to accept the theory that,
like the pheasant and the brown rat, he is an importation,
and was never intended to live in Britain at all. He has
followed man (and corn) all over the world. The more
refined Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) may possibly be
the original sparrow of our islands.

But let me show that I am not talking at large. I
append here a few figures to show what manner of fowl
this little sparrow is.

J. H. Gurney, jun., the well-known ornithologist, caused
755 dissections of sparrows to be made by different experts
in different places during all the twelve months of
the year. He tabulates the results as follows* :—10
per cent. of their food consisted of seeds of weeds, 6 per
cent. of beetles, insects, and caterpillars, the remaining 84
per cent. is made up of 4 per cent. of green peas, 5 per cent.
of bread and similar food, and 75 per cent. of corn. I give
these statistics to explode the charitable idea that sparrows
mainly live on grubs, caterpillars, and harmful insects,

The late Col. Russell of Romford, Essex (who gave
evidence before the Wild Birds Protection Committee on
the sparrow in 1873), brings another very grave charge
against the accused. He proves clearly that the regrettable
decrease in the numbers of the House Martin (Chelidon
urbica) is due to its incessant persecution by the sparrow.t
Here are a few facts. Round Col. Russell’s house the

* Ornithology in relation to Agriculture and Horticulture. W.H. Allen & Co.
+ The House Sparrow. Wesley & Sons, London.

AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS [IN SCOTLAND. 61

swallows (to use the more familiar term) gradually became
fewer and fewer, the sparrows hindering them from nesting
or occupying their nests when built, till in 1869 only two
broods were hatched. Next year, Col. Russell began war-
fare against the sparrows, which he kept up year by year,
shooting them down rigorously. Thereupon the swallows
increased so that in the spring of 1881 he counted 237
nests round his house and premises. He notes also a fact
which shows how far-reaching the economy of Nature is.
When the swallows were almost extinct round his house,
midges (up till then unknown in the district) became so
plentiful that no one could sit in his garden on a calm
evening; whenever the swallows re-established themselves
the midges decreased. Ere I leave this subject, let me quote
a few lines from Howard Saunders, ever cautious and scrupu-
lously accurate in his statements.* “The food of the martin
consists entirely of insects, and it is a pity that this
beneficial bird should be dispossessed and driven from its
home, as it often is, by the almost useless house sparrow.”

Now let me quote my own recent experience. I have
put up a good many nesting-boxes of various kinds in my
garden, hoping to attract as many birds as possible, but the
attempt is vain, for no bird can stand against the sparrows.

Early last Spring a pair of Tree-creepers (Certhia
familiaris) visited a bark-covered box which was placed in
a cedar, opposite my windows. It was delightful to watch
them running up the bark of the tree, then taking a short
flight to the wall of the house, up which they ran like flies
up a window-pane, then back to the nesting-box again.
But though its entrance-holes had been narrowed down to a
calibre just fitted to exclude sparrows, these bullies would
not suffer the tree-creepers to enter. They were mobbed
again and again and driven away. They returned three or
four times, evidently much attracted by such snug quarters ;
but they were, within twenty-four hours, hustled out of the
garden by their jealous enemies—one hen-sparrow in
particular being prominent in her attacks on them.

Again, in the end of last April, a pair of Blue-tits (Parus
ceruleus) built in another of my boxes, in spite of constant

* British Birds, p. 158.

62 REV. H. N. BONAR ON THE DECREASE

bullying and ill-treatment. For five weeks the contest
went on, till at last, when the nest was almost finished, a
pair of sparrows (who could not enter the box itself) took
sentry-duty by turns—one sitting on the entrance perch
while the other fed—and finally drove the tits away.

But the tragedy of the Oxeyes (Parus major) showed me
more clearly than anything else the ruffianly character of
the sparrow.

One of my nesting-boxes was a hollowed log with a
wider aperture, to encourage the larger tits to build in it.
This they did, for, strange to say, the sparrows at that time
offered no resistance to them. Their first clutch of five eggs
proved infertile; but, laying again, they hatched out four
young ones in the end of June. I transcribe the following
from one of my note-books:—‘July 17, 1898—Pair of
sparrows noticed all day about oxeyes’ nest.” “July 18.—
First thing in the morning, noticed angry chattering of
oxeyes, and saw hen-sparrow sitting on nest-perch; cock-
sparrow combating oxeyes, who, with green caterpillars in
beaks, tried vainly to get into nest and feed young. [
stoned sparrows away and relieved the siege. Later on
things grew worse, and I had to stand near nest again and
again to let the parents enter it. At midday saw hen-
sparrow come out of nesting-log. The young tits (evidently
suffering from hunger) call clamorously. They can only
be fed when I am near.” “July 19.—Looked out of window
first thing in morning. Oxeyes very remonstrative. Spar-
rows evidently having the upper hand. After breakfast
went to nest and saw hen-sparrow come out. Presently I
found one young oxeye dead on the ground, directly under
the nest. Retired and watched. Saw cock-oxeye come
repeatedly with a caterpillar in his mouth, and perch in
hedge under the nest. Approached cautiously and found
him trying to offer the food to another dead young one,
which, in its fall from the nest, had been caught in the
hedge. The sparrows were vociferously mobbing him all
the time. Got ladder and examined nest—empty. Watched
carefully, and eventually found parents feeding one three-
quarter-fledged oxeye in thick privet hedge. What became
of the fourth I know not.” “July 20.—Sparrows going

AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS IN SCOTLAND. 63

out and in of nesting-log, rather timidly, however. Hope
they'll nest there and let me catch them.” “ Aug. 1—But
they didn’t.”

Now, am I wrong if I call sparrows “ ruffians ” after such ex-
perience of them? And yet I feel that the blame rests chiefly
on man, who has altered the environment of the bird, has
killed down all the enemies which were so wisely set to keep
the sparrow and other birds in check; who has ruined the
moral character of every bird he has had to do with closely.

(In support of this latter rather strong statement, let me
only mention the cases of the domestic duck and the
pheasant—the ancestors of these birds in a wild state were,
and are, strictly monogamous—the birds as we see them
are polygamous.*) But to return to the sparrow; he has
deteriorated because he can now eat without working for
his food. He is merely a parasite, driving out purely insect-
eating birds from the places where they are most needed,
while he himself, as I have shown, will hardly under any
circumstances eat an insect. I know that the poor bird
had its right place and proper work originally assigned to
it, and among proper surroundings in a state of nature it
was undoubtedly useful. But all is changed now; and I
believe that its further increase will be a misfortune.

My hope, as I close, is that all rare birds will be allowed
to increase—that game preservers will become reasonably
tolerant towards what they most foolishly call vermin—that,
as far as possible, the disturbed balance be allowed to re-
adjust itself. One Scottish proprietor, above all others,
deserves special honour for the way in which he has pro-
tected and encouraged rare birds on his property — Sir
Herbert Maxwell,t who has done more than this, for in 1891
he turned loose twelve jays in the middle of his game pre-
serves, where they now breed. So that he has thus success-
fully reintroduced to Wigtownshire a beautiful bird which
had been extirpated by keepers.

Would that others would take a similar interest in rare
and persecuted birds; would that men would learn that the
same wise Hand which formed the birds also proportioned
their numbers to each other.

* See Seebohm’s British Birds, vol. ii. p. 448.
+ See Annals Scot. Nat. Hist., April 1898, p. 114.

64 MR DAVID RUSSELL ON

LOCH MAREE AND WEST ROSS.

By Mr Davin RUuSSELL.

(Read 1st December 1898.)

THE district to which this paper specially refers is the
mountain tract lying between the great central watershed of
Ross-shire on the east, and the sea on the west, extending to
the south as far as Kyle Ferry, and, in a northern direction,
to the River Kirhaig, which is three or four miles to the
south of Lochinver.

Generally speaking, this mountain tract may be regarded as
the modified descendant of what was, in past geological times,
a great plateau, which rose to 3000 or even 4000 feet above
sea-level. Originally this plateau extended far to the north,
the south, and the east, and there is every reason for believing
that at one time it extended also beyond its present limits
to the west.

This great upland tract has been carved by various de-
nuding forces into deep valleys and lochs, so that the plain-
like character of the upland is not realised until it is viewed
from one of the higher mountain summits, such as the top
of Slioch. From such a stand-point there appears an almost
endless succession of peaks extending to the north, the east,
and to the south, as far as the eye can reach; each eminence
rising to nearly the same level. 3200 feet below the
summit level is Loch Maree, adorned with dark, pine-clad
islands and marginal patches of a brighter green.

To the west, the form of the surface is unlike the sur-
rounding country. On that side we are on the edge of
the mountain plateau, and a series of smooth, dull green,
undulating, and rounded ice-worn knolls slope from the
summit level down to the sea. Small lochs and pools are so
numerous that the general aspect of the land is as if the
country had been flooded, and the arms of the sea running
far inland contribute further to the impression of sub-
mergence.

LOCH MAREE AND WEST ROSS. 65

Loch Maree lies almost in the centre of West Ross, and
10 miles west of Achnasheen station on the Strome Ferry
line.

At Achnasheen very remarkable terraces may be noticed.
Achnasheen is not, strictly speaking, in West Ross, being on
the east side of the watershed; but as the terraces referred
to are typical, and on a much larger scale than those of
the same general nature near Kenlochewe, they may be
referred to here.

Achnasheen Terraces—The terraces occur where two
valleys meet, and they extend for a short distance up both.
One terrace is nearly three-quarters of a mile in length, and
about 60 feet in height. They probably date from the later
part of the Glacial Period, and represent the deposits found in
ice-dammed lochs.

Mr W. C. Lucy, F.G.5., described these terraces in 1883.
They are covered with peat varying from 2 to 8 feet in
thickness, in which are large roots of trees. Mr Lucy says
of these :—‘“ Mr Mackenzie of Achnasheen showed me four
stages of growth; 2 feet below the surface he found
a large fir stock with traces of fire upon it, and, on raising
it, there was found under it a still larger one, not charred.
When that was removed, a third was discovered; and below
that again a fourth was seen.”

These terraces are treeless now. The thickness of the
peat testifies to the long period that must have elapsed since
these rock features were formed. The chief evidence of their
age, however, is to be found in the internal structure. A
section exposed by the undermining action of the stream on
the Loch Rosque terrace shows the contorted bedding—over-
laid by 4 or 5 feet of more regular layers of sandy gravel—
and the peat, which is of practically the same thickness
on the sloping sides as on the top, proves the present outline
to be almost as ancient as the terraces themselves.

Soon after leaving Achnasheen for Loch Maree, the
white peaks of Ben Eay attract the attention; and the
grandeur of the scene, when the watershed is crossed at
an elevation of 850 feet and Loch Maree comes into view, is,
in my opinion, nowhere surpassed in Scotland,

At Kenlochewe, at the foot of Glen Docherty, there is

66 MR DAVID RUSSELL ON

a remarkably fine display of geological phenomena within
a short radius of the village. Loch Maree itself lies over a
zone of weakness—a great fault which runs parallel to
the strike of the Hebridean gneiss. The rocks on the south
side of the loch have been let down by a south-west
downthrow of considerable magnitude.

The outstanding features of the surface vary in accordance
with the structure of the rocks of which they are composed.
The order of succession of the rocks from below, upward, is—
gneiss, Torridon sandstone, and Cambrian quartzite.

On the north side of the loch, Beinn Airdh Charr, Beinn
Lair, and the base of Sloch are almost wholly gneiss.
Slioch itself is chiefly composed of Torridon sandstone,
which rock also covers the south-east shoulder of the
mountain. It lies in nearly horizontal layers and covers
up the ancient land-surface of the gneiss, which is gradually
being re-exposed as the overlying strata is removed by the
ordinary denuding forces.

On the south side of the loch the Torridon rocks extend
westwards beyond Talladale, and the islands of Loch Maree
are Torridonian. Just opposite the islands, across the line
of fault, the north shore of the loch is gneiss, and it
rises almost perpendicularly to a height of fully 1000 feet,
then slopes up to the summit of Beinn Lair.

Returning to the south side of the loch, overlying the
Torridon rocks is the quartzite which gives to the peaks
of the Ben Eay range their characteristic snow-white, sugar-
loaf appearance.

Opposite Kenlochewe a bold escarpment rises to a height
of over 2200 feet, and exhibits one of the thrust planes that
extend for many miles to the north and south. Combined
with other earth-movements, these thrust planes have thrown
the strata into such confusion that for many years geologists
were baffled in their attempts to unravel the problems of the
succession of these rocks.

Passing on to a much later period, we note the evidence
of the Glacial Epoch, when this part of the country was
covered with ice to the depth of, perhaps, nearly 3000 feet—
evidence written everywhere so clearly that even the least

LOCH MAREE AND WEST ROSS. 67

interested asks what it means. The mountain sides are
rounded and scored. Above Ru Noa the quartzite is grooved
and polished. Where peat or turf has been removed from
the underlying rocks, the same appearances present them-
selves. The islands of Loch Maree illustrate the same
feature beautifully. Some of the smaller islands slope
gently to the south-east and show rugged, broken faces
to the north-west.

Rudha-aird-an-anail, a hard knob of rock at the south-east
extremity of Craig Tollie, which has withstood the grinding
action of the ice better than the surrounding rocks, stands
out into the loch, scored on all sides, and dips sheer into
deep water. Everywhere it is the same. Large boulders
are left—travellers—high on the mountain sides. One above
Talladale is right on the summit of the ridge at an elevation
of over 1000 feet.

As the climate near the close of the Glacial Period became
less severe and the glaciers retreated up the valleys to
the mountains, these lesser glaciers also left their record.
On the slopes of Ben Eay, as elsewhere, moraines are
abundant.

Passing on to a more recent period, we note, everywhere
in the peat, stumps of trees. Sometimes whole trunks are
found by the peat cutters. At first one is inclined to
accept the statement that early in the seventeenth century
English companies brought iron ore from Cumberland to
the west coast of Scotland and cut down the trees for
smelting purposes, thereby denuding the country of its
woods. Doubtless this destruction continued for a long
period—considerably over a hundred years, and a large area
must have been cleared in consequence.

Mr Dixon, in his excellent book on Gairloch Parish,
locates six old iron furnaces or bloomaries on or near the
shores of Loch Maree, and the destruction implied by these
must have been very great; but remains of trees occur in
the peat of Orkney, and these islands must at one time have
been covered with wood. Solinus, who is supposed to have
written about 240 a.D., says of the Orkneys (I quote from
Prof. Geikie’s interesting account of post-glacial deposits in
Scotland in Zhe Great Ice Age) :—“They are three in

68 MR DAVID RUSSELL ON

number and contain neither inhabitants nor woods.” And
according to Torfacus, historiographer to the King of
Denmark, the condition of the Orkneys in the year 890
agreed with the description of Solinus. Possibly the Scotch
areas of woodland date from a time when the land was
more elevated and the climate, consequently, more continen-
tal than it is now. Remains of trees occur in situations
that are now so wet and marshy that it would be impossible
to have a natural growth of similar trees under present
conditions. Probably an increase in the humidity of the
climate has had something to do with the decay of the
woods, not so much by destroying the trees as by preventing
young growth where clearances were made, whether by
wind or by other natural agencies or in later periods by man.

Mr J. C. Brown gives some interesting particulars (in
Forests and Moisture) of the drying up of marshes on the
growth of trees on adjacent dry ground, because of the
evaporation through the stomata of the leaves, which may
exceed many times the amount of rainfall. And we have
evidence of this in the growth of young plantations in
Ross-shire. Many thousands of acres have been planted
within recent years. If the soil is wet, ditches must be cut
and the young trees must be planted sufficiently close
together to keep the soil dry, otherwise they are unhealthy,
and many die. Under such conditions a natural growth
is impossible.

Mr Brown also gives examples to show that marshes
sometimes appear on the destruction of forests. Perhaps
the most interesting of these refers to Russian forests. It
is stated that in some districts where large areas of forest
have been destroyed by wind, the trees rot where they fall
and the ground becomes a marsh, which; he adds, may some
day have the appearance of a Scotch peat-moss.

He also states that, on the clearance of pine forests in
Russia, a growth of natural birch springs up. In Ross-shire
there is a considerable growth of natural birch—probably
it dates from the destruction of the pine woods, still in
existence when the iron smelters came upon the scene. It
grows in situations not so wet but that pines might still
grow there; indeed, Scotch firs do occur along with the

LOCH MAREE AND WEST ROSS. 69

birch, and give a delightful variety of foliage. The remains
that we are assuming may date from a much earlier period
are found imbedded in peat so wet and close that now even
the hardy heather has a struggle for existence.

In 1772 Thomas Pennant visited Loch Maree. “The
islands,” he says, “have only a few trees Sprinkled over
their surface,” and the shores “on the south are bounded
with mountains adorned with birch woods, mixed with a
few pines.” Probably there are more pines to-day than
there were one hundred years ago, Some of the islands
are covered with Scotch firs. His description of the north
shore corresponds with the present conditions, He speaks
of rowing “beneath steep rocks, mostly filled with pines
waving over our head.”

Probably, wherever the conditions are favourable, there
has been a natural growth of the Scotch fir since the time
of the iron works. That the area of favourable conditions
must at one time have been very much greater than it is
now, goes without saying.

Scotland has not only recently awakened to the fact that
her forests are decaying. As far back as 1503 an Act of
the Scottish Parliament was passed, “ Anent the artikle of
greenwood, because that the wood of Scotland is utterly
destroyed.”

It must be remembered that, however favourable the
climatic conditions might be, a large portion of the area of
West Ross is altogether unsuited to the growth of trees of
any description. Even the hardy Scotch fir could not find
a holding on the bare stretches of gneiss. It is only in the
peat bogs that trees have disappeared. The mountains are
bare and rocky and the peat bogs barren, but the margin
of the loch is fringed with wood. And it is the combined
beauty and grandeur of the scenery that is the most charac-
teristic and most charming feature of Loch Maree,

In a paper—* Contributions towards a Flora of West
Ross ”—published in the Zransactions of the Botanical Society
of Edinburgh, 1894, Mr G. C. Druce deals very fully with
the flora of West Ross.

After the publication of Mr H. C. Watson’s Topographical
Botany, in which nine counties had no list of common plants

70 . MR DAVID RUSSELL ON

recorded, Mr Watson asked Mr Druce to visit West Ross,
which was one of these, in order to compile a list of its plants.

Between 1880 and 1894 he made five excursions with
this object in view, and the total number of plants now
on record for the district is over 570.

The plants referred to in this paper were not gathered
with any idea of adding to the records of West Ross. On
comparing my notes with Mr Druce’s excellent paper, I find
that I have one or two new records—some not previously
recorded varieties, and other notes that are of interest as
supplementary to Mr Druce’s paper.

Mr Arthur Bennett has very kindly verified the specitens.

Nymphxa alba, L,—In a aaa loch close by the shore of
Loch Maree. |

Corydalis claviculata, D.C.—In a thicket by the sea-shore
not far from Gairloch Pier.

Silene maritima, With.—Specimens gathered on the sea-
shore at Gairloch, on the margin of Loch Maree, and on Beinn
Lair (not by a stream) at an elevation of about 2000 feet.
The plants from Beinn Lair are stouter and of a darker green,
the leaves larger and broader, measuring about a quarter of
an inch across, while those gathered by the shore measure
only from one-eighth to three-sixteenths.

S. acaulis, Jacq.—F rom Slioch.

Cerastium triviale, Link—Growing on Slioch, between
1500 feet and 2000 feet. A handsome plant, unlike the
usual genus in appearance and sepals not so obtuse as in
typical specimens.

C. latifoliwm.—With C. triviale on Slioch. Mr Frederic
N. Williams has very kindly examined specimens of this
plant, and believes it to be the true C. latifoliwm of North
Scandinavia and the Alps.

Arenaria Cherleri, Benth.—A single specimen from Beinn
Lair.

Potentilla Sibbaldi, Hall.—Beinn Lair, Slioch, and, in June
1897, Meall Each.

Lathyrus macrorrhizus, Wintine —In fine condition on Isle
Maree.

Epilobium palustre, L.; £. alpinum, L.; £. alsinelfolium,

LOCH MAREE AND ‘WEST: ROSS. 71

Vill. (mew record)—These three species were growing
together in a water-course on Slioch, about 2000 feet.

Ligusticum scoticum, L.—By the shore, Gairloch.

Daucus Carota, L.—By the shore, Gairloch.

Hedera Helix, L.—Craig Tollie and sea-shore, Gairloch.
Native.

Solidago Virgawrea, L.Generally distributed and variable.
Var. cambrica on Beinn Lair ascends to the summit— 2817
feet. Specimens gathered at the base measured 7 inches in
height; and ascending, 3 inches, 2} inches, 14 inches, and
at the summit not more than 1 inch.

Gnaphalium uliginoswm, L.—Pretty generally distributed
over Slioch and Beinn Lair. Usually very small, about 1 to
1} inches.

Cricus heterophyllus, Willd.—I do not remember seeing
this plant, except on a ridge west of Talladale, somewhere
about 1000 feet above sea-level.

Lobelia Dortmanna, L.—Fairly plentiful on the sandy
shore of Loch Maree about Isle Maree,

Arctostaphylos alpina, Spreng.—Slioch.

Armeria vulgaris, Willd.—Near the summit of Slioch,
at an elevation of about 3100 feet.

Trientalis ewropea, L. (new record).—In the woods at
Ru Noa. I found it here in August 1896, and again in
June 1897, in full flower and plentiful.

Gentiana campestris, L.——Luxuriant about Poolewe.

G,. baltica, Murbeck.—A few specimens found above
Letterewe.

. Atropa Belladonna, L—Growing among rocks by the sea-
shore, Gairloch.

Utricularia intermedia, Hayne.—Pretty generally distri-
buted about Loch Maree; also on the islands of Loch Maree.
I found it on each of my visits in 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1897,
but never in flower. In 1896, U. minor was flowering
freely in Glen Sligachan, Skye, while all the plants I saw
in West Ross were flowerless.

U. Minor, L.—With U. intermedia in sphagnum bog above
Gairloch.

Pinguicula lusitanica, L.—I have only found two very
small specimens on the peat-moss about Loch Maree. It

72 MR DAVID RUSSELL ON LOCH MAREE AND WEST ROSS.

erows freely by the roadside above Tollie, where there is
plenty moisture and no peat.

Plantago media, L.—Near Talladale pier. Not native.

Scutellaria galericulata, L—On the stony shore of Loch
Maree, west of Talladale.

Mulaxis paludosa, Sw.—Sphagnum bog, north of Gairloch.
Mr Druce says, “Rather common on the shores of Loch
Maree.” I have not found it except in the sphagnum bog
above referred to.

Habenaria albida, Br.——Plentiful about Kenlochewe in
June 1897.

H. bifolia, Br.—Talladale.

H. chlorolewca, Ridley— Near Poolewe.

Tofieldia palustris, Huds.—On Slioch and Beinn Lair.

Sparganium affine, Schnizl.—In small loch above Gairloch.

Rhynchospora alba, Vahl—Common in pools on the peat-
moss between Ru Noa and Talladale.

Deschampsia cespitosa, var. brevifolia, Parnell—-A very
handsome plant, and fairly plentiful on Shoch.

Hymenophyllum unilaterale, Bory. — Fairly common
between Talladale and Tollie.
Asplenium | Adiantum-nigrum, L.— Common. Var.

obtuswm, Willd., also gathered.

A, marinum, L.—Plentiful by the shore at Gairloch.

Polystichum aculeatum.—Craig Tollie. Also a few plants
of P. aculeatum, var. Lonchitidoides.

Polypodium Dryopteris, L.—Fairly plentiful between
Talladale and Tollie.

Lquisetum limosum, L.—Small hill loch north of Gairloch,

Lycopodium inunedatum, L.—Meall Riabhach (near Ken-
lochewe). ‘

Selaginella selaginoides, Gray.—Kenlochewe, almost at sea-
level (Loch Maree is only 36 feet above sea-level), and on
the slopes of Shoch.

Spanish Chestnut.—On Isle Maree.

PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 73

A paper was read by Mr Rosert TurNBULL, B.Sc., on 5th
January 1899.*

A paper was read by Mr Joun S. Frert, M.B., C.M.,,
B.Se., on 19th January 1899.

THE PLAY: OF ANIMALS.

(Being for the most part a review of the recent work of GRoos.)

By Prof. J. ArrHuR Tuomson, M.A, F.R.S.E.
(Notes of a paper given before the Society on 2nd F ebruary 1899.)

ONE of the most important indirect results of Darwinism
has been to convince naturalists that no fact of life is trivial.
To the inquisitive spirit everything is a problem, but the
problem is illumined when we realise, as Bagehot put it,
that everything is “an antiquity,” the product of a past often
inconceivably long—an event, a personage, or, it may be,
only a “ property ” in the drama of evolution which has filled
the world-stage for millions of years. Moreover, it was
part of Darwin’s genius that he realised, more than any
other, the solidarity of nature and the inter-relations of
things. The Systema Nature was the crowning work of
Linneus; but it was a new system of nature which Darwin
disclosed—a web of life—in which even the apparently
trivial fact is invested with momentous importance because
of its complex correlations with others. A moth, escaping
from an entomologist’s window, costs the United States a
million of dollars; a few sparrows and rabbits, transported
from their native home, disturb the balance of life in two
continents. The clay-clod on a bird’s foot may affect the
fauna and flora of a district; and everyone knows how cats
are linked to clover-crop, and ivory-backed brushes to the
slave-trade.

* This paper will appear in next volume of Transactions.
VOL. I. 6

74 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

All this, enigmatical as it may seem at first sight, and
commonplace at second sight, is by way of introduction to
my proper subject here, which is the biological importance
of play. For play—whether of animals or of men—would
surely have been regarded by the staid naturalists of a pre-
Darwinian school as a sort of aside in nature, to consider
which would compromise their dignity as scientific workers,
the fact being that its careful study, as Professor Groos has
shown, raises the deepest problems.

And here I may at once admit frankly that, in regard to
my subject, I have nothing original to communicate, apart
from a slight personal equation. I have, indeed, often
watched and thought about the play of animals—the kittens
and their ball, the dogs and their sham-hunt, the lambs and
their races, the monkeys and their “ tig’”—but I never got
to clearness until I read Professor Groos’s Spiele der Thiere
(Jena, 1896); translated as The Play of Animals (London,
1898); and recently followed by another volume on human
play, Die Spiele der Menschen (Jena, 1899). The author
has brought his knowledge of biology, esthetics, and
psychology to bear upon the subject of play with a success
which makes his work one of the most important recent
contributions to comparative psychology.

I have not attained to any definition of play—that comes
last, not first—nor does it matter much, since, I suppose, we
all have vivid reminiscences or present experience of what
play means. To say the least, it is very widespread among
mankind, though one reads in Mr Kearton’s entertaining
book, With Nature and a Camera, the following sentences in
regard to the people of St Kilda :—‘“TI innocently asked the
minister one day what kinds of games the children played.
The old man smiled good-naturedly at my ignorance, and
answered: ‘None whatever; their parents would consider
it frivolity to have them taught anything except climbing
rocks, catching sheep, and such other things as will become
necessary to them in after-life.’” Now, though I do not go
the length of placing play quite in the foreground of life, as
a brilliant artistic friend did when he spoke of life as a series
of interruptions from golf, I do think that the good folk of
St Kilda would increase their present and future effective-

THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 75

ness, as well as happiness, if they let their bairns play. That
would probably do more than increased postal communication
to lay aside “ life-harming heaviness.”

To return from this digression, we may, I suppose, say,
negatively, that play is not work, though it may be as hard ;
that play is not mere exercise, though perhaps it exercises
best ; that play has no seriously perceived or conceived end
for the sake of which it is played, though it may be, while
it lasts, most serious; that it is not necessarily social, for
many a man and beast may be very happy playing alone ;
and that it is not necessarily competitive, though that often
gives zest to it. Of its positive content, we shall speak
later on.

I may also note that, because of the complex difficulties
involved, I have left out of consideration anything that
might be interpreted as love-play or courting-play, and have
kept mainly to the play of young animals.

There are theories about everything nowadays, and there
are two main theories as to the play of young creatures.

The first theory is that play is an expression of over-
flowing vigour, energy, and animal spirits; that it is the by-
play of vigour.

This view was first clearly stated by Schiller; it was,
long afterwards, elaborated by Herbert Spencer—a strange
contrast.

The theory is simple; but it is too simple, and breaks
down twice. No doubt the young creature is an over-
flowing well of energy ; but even the wearied animal or child
will turn in a moment from fatigue to play, and the theory
does not in the least explain the characteristic forms of play
in different creatures. In fact, the theory only states one
of the internal or physiological conditions of play—there
must be some energy to spare. That there should be
a superabundance of energy is certainly not essential.
Schiller’s theory of play was re-expressed, as I have said,
by Herbert Spencer, but he, feeling its inadequacy, eked it
out by laying emphasis on imitation. According to Spencer,
the cause is superfluous energy ; imitation defines the channel
of expression. The youngsters mimic in play what they see
their seniors do in earnest.

76 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

This is a favourite theory, and there isa strong element of
truth in it, but as an all-sufficient explanation the imitation-
theory will not work. I hardly think one can explain the
doll-play of the daughter of a house, who is an only child, as
wholly imitative. A kitten taken very early from the
mother will play profusely without any known _possi-
bility of imitative stimulus. The subtler games of our
children are often imitations of our industry, but I do not
think that we can generalise this.

The other theory of play is Darwinian, and Groos has the
credit of having developed it. According to this theory,
there are play-instincts, which may be stimulated by super-
fluous energy; these play-instincts have been gradually
established and strengthened by the elimination of the bad
players (in subsequent life-struggle). Play is justified in the
economy of nature in two ways; firstly, because it is the
apprenticeship to future work, the training school for serious
efforts, or the rehearsal before the real performance; and
secondly, because intellectual development probably flourishes
better in proportion as the brain is freed from the necessity
of bearing with it the hereditary mechanism for the perfect
performance of certain activities. If play can perfect any
instinctive activity before failure is vital, the weight of a
stereotyped inheritance is lessened.

We may go a step further.

Play is more than the apprenticeship, the rehearsal,
introductory to future life and work. It is more than a
means whereby the brain may be freed from some of its
hereditary burden. It is one of the few opportunities which
afford free scope for variations without too rigorous selection.
This is of very great importance, especially as regards the
practical outlook of man, and perhaps also as regards the
origin of art. In the real business of life, most initiatives—
“new departures,” “ idiosyncrasies,” variations—are the sub-
ject of rigorous selection, which often nips in the bud vital
initiatives worth cherishing, Play is Nature’s device for
granting elbow-room for those variations which form or
may form part of the raw materials of progress.

THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. viv

Forms or Puay.

There seem to be two fundamental and primitive forms of
animal play—the play of movement, and the play of experi-
ment.

Play of Movement.

“Most young things,” Hamerton says, “appear to be
reservoirs of pent-up natural energy that finds vent in
irrepressible gambols.” The simplest play is the gambol or
frolic. Quite apart from direct use, insects play in the air,
birds among the branches, dolphins in the waves, and so on,
endlessly. And as they play the heart beats more quickly,
the breathing is more rapid, the peripheral blood-vessels
expand, and there ensues that happiness which is the reflex of
healthy function. The secondary advantage is the training
of the nerves and muscles for future work. Perhaps the
so-called roughness of many young boys is often simply
inappropriate play or a symptom of insufficient play.

Everyone must remember with affection the wood-chopper
pourtrayed in Thoreau’s Walden. “By George,” he would
exclaim, “I can enjoy myself well enough here chopping; I
want no better sport.” “Sometimes, when at leisure, he
amused himself all day in woods with a pocket pistol, firing
salutes to himself as he walked.” The idiot! you say; but
when he was at dinner the chickadees would sometimes come
round and peck at the potato in his fingers, and he would say
that he liked “to have the little fellers about him.” Such
exuberance of spirits had he, that when a thing amused him
“he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the ground with
laughter.” That was primitive playfulness, and if we know
the connection between emotion and muscular movements, we
shall not think of it too lightly.

When one sees beautiful sights, or hears fine sounds, or the
like, sensory impressions travel in to our brains, of course.
But they do not quite stop there. They set agoing other
messages, which travel out to the heart, which beats differ-
ently ; to the larynx, which vibrates; to the lungs even, and
other parts—in short, internal muscular movements occur.
As the results of these, a third set of messages travel in

78 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

again to the brain, and when the circle is completed, so to
speak, we are pleased. We cannot but think that we are
thus brought nearer an understanding of the origin of the
vocal play—the song—of birds, which is due to internal
muscular movements associated with strong emotions, © The
fact, at least, is that there is a subtle connection between
emotion and motion. Literally, Wordsworth’s heart leaped
up when he beheld the rainbow in the sky, and filled with
pleasure as he beheld the dancing daffodils.

Perhaps we should remember this in relation to the
noisy racketings of children, which are often so un-
pleasant on purely esthetic grounds. They are probably
often quite natural expressions of emotions, for which it is,
of course, our business to offer more appropriate channels of
expression.

The play-nature of many movements is particularly plain
when there is anything unusual about them. Thus Alix
relates that, on one occasion when botanising on the Alps,
his dog ceased to follow him on the gradual path, and
seemed deliberately to choose a long slope of frozen snow.
There he lay down on his back, folded his legs, and slid
down like a toboggan. At the foot he rose quietly, looked
up to his astonished master, and wagged his tail. Alix
imagined that his dog had thought out the short-cut; it
seems to me much more likely that it was simply play—
done for fun!

Of course, we are agreed that all movements which can
be shown to be of direct material advantage must be placed
outside the category of play; but, however strict one is,
many indubitable cases remain.

When Romanes says of fishes, “nothing can well be more
expressive of sportive glee than many of their movements,”
you may not be convinced. When Hudson says, “I have
spoken of the fire-fly’s pastimes advisedly, for I have really
never been able to detect it doing anything in the evening
beyond flitting aimlessly about, like house-flies in a room,
hovering and revolving in company by the hour, apparently
for amusement,” you may still be unconvinced; but I
think you will at once admit the genuineness of move-
ment-play if you watch macropod fishes in their tank, or

THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 79

monkeys on their swings in the Zoo. If we are not to make
nature magical, these are plays, and nothing else.

Play of Experiment.

Another simple and primitive expression of the play-
instinct is what we may perhaps call experimenting—when
animals test things, often pulling them to pieces; or test
themselves, often performing interesting feats; or test their
neighbours, finding out how they will respond. It is the
endless game of finding out about the world, and while it
begins in playful inquisitiveness, it gradually rises along an
inclined plane into the seriousness of genuine experiment.
It is obviously one of the roots of science, and has been one
of the most profitable of the many plays in Life’s great
school.

Speaking of his kids, Mr Hamerton says :—“ If there is a
basket in the place which will hold one of them, and no more,
the others will watch him with great interest, and as soon
as he jumps out (which he is never very long in doing) the
others inevitably jump in and out again by turns. A game
of this kind will last till one of the kids has a new sugges-
tion to make.”

One day it was the fashion among the kids to carry a little
sprig of green between the lips; another day they tried to
upset the artist by getting under his seat; from that they
passed to experimenting with the big dog till “he could
stand it no longer and rushed out of the place, not trusting
himself to refrain from using his mighty jaws, which would
have crushed a kid’s head like a nutshell.”

I suppose many of you have read Miss Romanes’ observa-
tions on her Capuchin monkey—a very valuable and well-
executed piece of work. Let me cite a few sentences. “He
is very fond of upsetting things, but he always takes great
care that they do not fall upon himself. Thus, he will pull
a chair towards him till it is almost overbalanced; then he
intently fixes his eyes on the top bar of the back, and as he
sees it coming over his way, darts from underneath, and
watches the fall with great delight; and similarly with
heavier things. There is a washhand-stand, for example,

80 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

with a heavy marble-top, which he has upset several times,
and always without hurting himself. One day he played
for a long time with a hearth-brush, learning to unscrew the
handle, and, what was much more difficult, putting it to-
gether again. When he had become by practice tolerably
perfect in screwing and unscrewing, he gave it up and took
to some other amusement. One remarkable thing is that he
should take so much trouble to do that which is of no
material benefit to him.” This last sentence is interesting
though it should not have been so expressed. It is part of
the essence of play that it is not of direct material benefit.

Sham-Hunting.

A number of games may be summed up under the title
sham-hunt. Into this there enters the psychological element
of self-illusion. The booty may be real, as when the cat
plays with the mouse, or both the booty and the chasing of
it may be fictitious. The sham booty may be living, as
when the dog plays with a beetle; or, more commonly, dead
as when the kitten plays with a ball of twine.

Many naturalists have written concerning the play of the
cat with the mouse. It has been interpreted as a whetting
of the cat’s appetite, as a means of improving the taste of
the mouse, and as elaborate cruelty. Romanes—though a
man of keen insight—committed himself to the view that
it illustrated the delight in torture for torture’s sake.
Probably these suggestions are all unnecessary. Surely,
what we see is just a little game, justified in the present by
the repetition of pleasant excitement, justified in the race by
the increased dexterity which it develops.

I need hardly say that a great many carnivores play
just as the cat does. Their play is a practice for their work.

?

Sham-Fight.

Another type of play is the sham-fight, as we may so
often see it between puppies or kittens. It has been de-
scribed among lions, tigers, hyzenas, wolves, foxes, bears, and
other carnivores ; among kids, lambs, calves, foals, and other
hoofed animals; it is also very common among birds. Of

THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 81

course, some care must be taken to distinguish genuine sham-
fights from real fights, and it must be allowed that as
among boys, so among animals, what begins in fun may
end in deadly earnest. Brehm, in describing two young
gluttons, says nothing could be more playful; they are
almost never at rest for a minute; they fight in fun all day,
but every now and then the note of earnest is struck.

Just on the border-line are some difficult cases, such as the
combats of male spiders, who may fight for days without giving
or receiving a wound, or the tilts of the fighting ruffs, who
fight straight on for hours without obvious cause, about a
fly, a beetle, a standing-place, anything or nothing.

Perhaps you notice the quaint way in which these two
last-mentioned combats suggest the duelling of the French
and German nations respectively. The spiders’ duels,
wherein no one is hurt, are like those of French politicians ;
those of the ruffs, in which there are at least hard blows,
suggest the duels of German students, in which the merest
pretext—the ejaculation Dummer Junge —brings the steel out.

Of much interest, considering the level at which they
occur, are the sham-fights of the ants. Near the beginning
of the century, Huber related that on fine days the meadow-
ants collect outside the hill, and hold sports, especially of a
wrestling and gymnastic sort. For a long time this story
was rather scoffed at, but in 1874 Forel saw the same sight,
confessing at the same time that he should not have believed
it unless he had seen. The ants behaved like a crowd of
schoolboys riotous with fun—scrambling, wrestling, jump-
ing, and fighting. “ Yet all,” he said, “ was without anger and
without any squirting of poison; it was plainly a friendly
tournament.” Fun was uppermost, but it might at the same
time have its use as an exercise or drill for these combative
creatures,

Social Plays.

The sham-fight is really one of a large group of plays
of which the characteristic note is rivalry, provided always
that we draw the line whenever the rivalry has serious
reference to any material object of desire. There is no
doubt that the competitive element gives zest to animal

82 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

as to human games. It is not essential, but it is an im-
portant auxiliary. It is a pleasure to the animal as to us
“to be a cause” ; it is a greater pleasure to be a more effective
cause than someone else.

I refer to races among wild horses and asses, lambs and
kids; to various forms of tig and “follow my leader” in
monkeys; to rival exhibitions of agility. Perhaps some
forms of dance and song should be included here, when they
occur unconnected with courtship.

Even when they have some connection with courtship, it
is difficult to decide whether the courtship led to the play,
or whether a form of play was simply utilised in the court-
ship.

“ A striking example,’ Mr Hudson says, “is the Rupicola,
or cock-of-the-rock, of tropical South America. A mossy
level spot of earth surrounded by bushes is selected for a
dancing-place, and kept well cleared of sticks and stones ;
round this area the birds assemble, when a cock-bird, with
vivid orange-scarlet crest and plumage, steps into it, and,
with spreading wings and tail, begins a series of movements
as if dancing a minuet; finally, carried away with excite-
ment, he leaps and gyrates in the most astonishing manner,
until, becoming exhausted, he retires, and another bird takes
his place.” There are similiar displays among so-called
savage peoples.

Imitation—Twofold Relation.

It seems indisputable that there is a strong imitative
instinct in many animals as well as in man. Especially for
gregarious animals, it is often of much importance to do
instinctively what others are doing, ¢g., to take a simple
case, for a rabbit to follow another’s white tail to the burrow
without personally investigating the danger. The profound
importance of imitation in human society has often been
emphasised.

Now, play seems to have a twofold relation to the imita-
tive tendency—in the first, it may be that imitation gives
form to play; in the second place, the play may be the means
of acquiring aptness in necessary imitation.

We all know that monkeys--whose name means mimic

THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 83

in some languages—will spend hours in imitating what they
have seen man do. With hesitation and timidity and many
a failure, but with every manifestation of joy when success
is reached, a monkey will learn to open a match-box and
strike the matches.

It has been shown for a few-—perhaps a dozen—young
birds that they will utter the characteristic cry although the
eggs were artificially incubated and the young not allowed to
hear their kin. A plover’s ery has been heard from within
the ege.

In these cases we are justified in saying that the cry is
instinctive and forms part of the general inheritance.

On the other hand, it is certain that young birds will
take on the song of their foster-parents—a fact which
points to the conclusion that the details of song are normally
learned by imitation. It is also well known that adult birds
are extraordinary plagiarists, often combining in a single
song four or five phrases imitated from their neighbours.

Now, although song is mostly restricted to the adult male
birds and to the time of courtship, this is not invariably the
case. Young skylarks, robins, and thrushes, and others sing
apparently for the pleasure of it; and we may regard these
as cases where the youthful play is the means of acquiring
more perfect imitative power before the critical time of life
arrives.

Singing in chorus, as in starling and linnet, American rice
troupial and goldfinch, seems also to approach play.

Mr Hudson, in his Naturalist in La Plata, has some
interesting observations on the song-flight and chorus-singing
of the crested screamer or chakar, a bird about the size of
our heron.

“The chakar . . . . so ponderous a fowl, leaves its grass
plot and soars purely for recreation, taking so much pleasure
in its aérial exercises that in bright, warm weather, in winter
and spring, it spends a great part of the day in the upper
regious of the air.” And as it soars it sings.

He once came upon an enormous congregation around a
lake, arranged in well-defined flocks, averaging about five
hundred birds in each. “ Presently one flock near me began
singing, and continued their powerful chant for three or four

84 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

minutes ; when they ceased, the next flock took up the strain,
and after it the next, and so on, until the notes of the flocks
on the opposite shore came floating strong and clear across
the water, then passed away, growing fainter and fainter,
until once more the sound approached me, travelling round
to my side again.” Here play reached to some dignity in
art. Play is often, indeed, like the young form of art.

In Mr Witchell’s interesting book on Zhe Evolution of
Bird-Song, I was pleased to find the thesis that “the
primary necessity to the development of varied song in
species or individual is leisure.” The persecuted, laborious,
careful birds are apt to be songless. “A want of leisure
may have been a potent cause of the lack of individual
variation of phrases in the birds of the tropical regions.” I
think you will allow that this view agrees well with what
we have seen in regard to play.

Among the most important of human plays is that which
seems almost, if not quite, universal among little girls—the
doll-play, in which we see a marvellous premonition of
maternal care. I am not an authority on the subject, but I
cannot agree with those who explain it as wholly imitative.
It may be embellished by imitation; it is surely itself
instinctive.

Animals may have pets—as many ants have—and friendly
companionships with creatures different from themselves,
but there seems no reliable evidence of animal dolls.

An approach may perhaps be found in those cases where
monkeys take extraordinary fancies to particular objects,
pieces of wood, brushes and the like, taking them to sleep
with them, fondling them, and fighting over them. Pechuel-
Loesche relates a very circumstantial case of a monkey
which came very near making a doll of a large thermometer.

Another approach may perhaps be found in the enormous
collection of cases in which an animal cherishes the young
of another kind, as a dog a chicken; and another approach
has been detected by some in the habit that a few half-
crown birds, such as swallows, have of feeding and caring for
their younger kin. In this connection, it might repay one
to think carefully over the parental carefulness of worker-
ants, bees, and termites, which are not themselves parents.

THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 85

Summing up.

To sum up:—There are many play-instincts among
animals; they have been wrought out in the ages, partly as
safety-valves for overflowing energy and emotion, partly as
opportunities for the emergence of variations before too
rigorous selection begins, mainly as periods for perfecting
powers which are essential in after-life. Animals, as Groos
says, do not simply play because they are young; they
continue young in order that they may play. Although
there are play-instincts, it is freely allowed that the play
may be modified by imitation, and much influenced by
intelligence.

If the above views be correct, we see a new import in the
games of our children. They are natural safety-valves, to
close which must mean disaster ; they are opportunities for
the free play of individuality, originality, idiosyncrasy —
variations, in short, more or less sheltered from selection ;
they are necessary to the perfecting of powers—physical,
emotional, and intellectual—which are afterwards of critical
moment. Play is thus a rehearsal without responsibilities,
a preliminary canter before the real race, a sham-fight
before the real battle, a joyous apprenticeship to the busi-
ness of life.

In short, play is so universal because it is of fundamental
importance as the young form of work.

The creatures who played best when young, worked best,
lived best, perhaps loved best, when they grew up, and thus
through the long ages the play-instinct has been fostered.

From our study of animals, I say, we find a deeper mean-
ing in the familiar saying, “ All work and no play makes Jack
a dull boy.” ;

May we not twist an old precept a little and say, “Let us
play while we can, so that we may work when we must.”

A paper was read by Mr B, N. Peacu, F.R.S., F.G.S.,
on 9th February 1899.

86 MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON

THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY.

By Miss Constance A. HINXMAN.

(Read before the Society on 4th February 1897, and considered to be of suffi-
cient importance to justify its publication in the Society’s Zransactions. )

THe Avifauna—or Bird-Life—of any district, depends, in
a very great degree, upon its physical features and character-
istics. This is, of course, obvious, in its more general appli-
cation, to the. most casual observer, who will not expect to
find birds of the moorland and mountain among the
cultivated lowlands, and who will be surprised to see, on his
first visit to the Highlands in spring-time, birds, which had
always been associated in his mind with the sea-shore (such
as the sea-gull and oyster-catcher), very much at home in
quite different surroundings. But beyond this general
application of the clearly-marked division between mountain
and valley, moorland and cultivated ground, the close
observer will at once recognise the influence which even
slight differences of soil and vegetation, and the presence or
absence of wood or water in any district, exercise upon the
abundance and variety of its bird-life. For this reason,
it will be well to begin with a short account of the area
under consideration.

The basin of the Spey, that is, the country drained by the
main river and its tributaries, comprises an area of about 2000
square miles in extent. A great part of this area is high
mountain ground, and includes the northern and western por-
tions of the Cairngorm range; the hills of Gaick; the moun-
tains round the head of Loch Ericht to the summit of the pass of
Drumouchter; and the whole of the Monadhliath range south
of the Findhorn watershed. To these succeed the rolling
moorlands of Banffshire and Elgin, which fall gradually
northwards towards the sea, until, in the lower part of its
course, the river drains the flat plains and fertile corn-lands
of the Laigh of Moray.

The actual source of the Spey is usually considered to be
Loch Spey, a lonely mountain tarn whose waters are swelled
by the streams that flow off the hills that lie between the

THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY. 87

head of Glen Roy and Corryarrick. The infant Spey leaves
the loch as a burn of some size, soon to be considerably
augmented by the waters of the Truim on the right, and the
Calder, flowing from the heights of the Monadhliath Moun-
tains, on the left.

In its early career the Spey is an impetuous mountain
stream, and falls 230 feet in the first nine miles of its
course; but, after passing Laggan Bridge, it settles down
into a steady, and even sluggish, river, expanding at
intervals into wide reedy pools, the haunt of ducks
and other water-fowl. After its confluence with the Truim,
the course of the stream quickens somewhat, until it enters
the wide alluvial plain below Kingussie, once the bed of an
extensive lake, and now occupied by marshy meadows, still
liable to constant floods.

Below Loch Insh, which is the last remnant of the
ancient lake, the Spey is largely augmented by the waters of
the Feshie, coming down from the recesses of the Western
Cairngorms, and in flood-time spreading far and wide over
the broad shingle delta that marks the confluence of the two
streams. From this point the Spey flows with a steady
current, in alternating stream and pool, past the beautiful
woods of Kinrara and Rothiemurchus, the birch-copses of
Kinchurdy, and the flat meadows of Nethy Bridge, to the
picturesque old bridge at Grantown. Here the valley
contracts, and the fall of the stream again becomes more
rapid, being at the average rate of 104 feet per mile from
Grantown to the sea.

After passing through the fertile haugh-lands of Cromdale
and the Dale of Advie, the river enters the most picturesque
part of its course, below the mouth of the Avon at Ballin-
dalloch, and plunges down a steep incline in a succession of
whirling rocky pools and swift-sliding rapids. Between
Blacksboat and Carron it is closed in by heavy pine-woods,
and at one spot one can well imagine that it flows from the
heart of a mighty forest, such as that which once clothed
the whole of the Highlands; for the trees spring from the
very edge of the water, while nothing is to be seen but the
fir-clad hills on either side.

This continues, more or less, the character of the river

88 . MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON

scenery to Aberlour, where the stream flows beneath the
steep rocky scaurs of Wester Elchies, hung with birch and
gean-trees, while on the right stretches a belt of highly-
cultivated arable land. From Aberlour to the sea, the great
river, swelled by the waters of many affluents, large and
small, swings back and forth across a wide, fertile valley
with the stroke of a mighty pendulum—now washing the
foot of the oak-hung crag of Craigellachie, then to the right
again, past the grassy slopes and luxuriant beech-woods of
Arndilly, and through the rocky pool of Sourden to the long
bridge at Fochabers.

A short distance below Fochabers, the river-bed spreads
out into a wide delta of shingle, through which its waters
find their way to the sea at Garmouth by an intricate
system of channels that shift with every flood.

The shingle banks are, in places, covered with a dense
growth of willows and other shrubs. These thickets are
thronged in late summer and early autumn with family
parties of summer warblers, preparing for their migratory
flight across the North Sea.

So far, we have brietly followed the course of the Spey
itself, but it remains to give a glance at the character of its
principal affluents, and of the country through which they
pass. The chief of these, on the left bank, are the Calder
and Dulnan, both bringing down the waters from the wild
moorland country of the Monadhliath Range. On the right
bank are the Truim and Feshie, already mentioned; the
Tromie, draining the hills of the Gaick Forest ; and the Druie.
The last-named is formed by the junction of two streams,
the Beinne, that issues from Loch Eunich, beneath the
precipices of Brae Riach and Sgoran Dubh, and the Luineag
from Loch Morlich. These streams flow through Rothie-
murchus and Glenmore, where are to be seen the last
survivals of the ancient forest—groups of stately, wide-
spreading pine-trees towering over their younger brethren.
One special feature of this locality is that the undergrowth
is in large measure composed of juniper bushes, some of
which have attained a remarkable size.

Lastly comes the Avon, the most important of the tribu-
‘taries, its own course being forty miles in length. It finds

THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY. 89

its source in Loch Avon, amid a scene hardly to be surpassed
for wild grandeur and impressive beauty in the whole of
Scotland, especially when one comes upon it at the dawn of
a midsummer day, and looks sheer down from a height of
more than 1000 feet upon the clear green water, girdled by
dark precipices glowing crimson in the rays of the rising
sun, with snow-wreéaths lingering still in the deep gullies.

After leaving the loch, the upper course of the Avon lies
through a lonely mountain glen, the lower past tracts of
cultivated land and between hill slopes covered with birch-
copse, till it falls into the Spey below the old castle of
Ballindalloch.

From this short description of the basin and course of the
Spey, it will be seen that the area under consideration
presents a great variety of character and feature, and is,
therefore, favourable to the presence of a large and varied
avifauna.

Thus we have the Alpine solitudes of the high Cairngorms,
where the ptarmigan crouch among the stones and the
eagle soars above the precipices; the rolling moorlands,
home of the grouse, curlew, and golden plover; the birch-
copses, oak-woods, and far-stretching pine-forests for the
woodland birds; the marshy meadows, the haunt of water-
fowl and waders; and the fertile haugh-lands and slopes of
Banff and Moray for the birds of cultivation.

One special feature of the Spey valley is the great differ-
ence in the number of birds seen there, especially in the
neighbourhood of the river, during the spring and early
summer, and later in the year. In autumn the river
will be silent and deserted except for one or two
herons, and the cheery little dippers, flitting from stone
to stone with their sweet fragment of song, or, perhaps, as on
one occasion at Delfur, a kingfisher (a bird of rare occurrence
so far north), passing like a jewelled arrow, with its swift
darting flight, up into the thickets of a lonely back stream.
But in the spring-time every shingle bed along the river is
noisy with the shrill, harsh cry of the oyster-catchers, very
striking in their black and white plumage, red bills and legs ;
and there is heard the quavering whistle of the sandpiper,
and the plaintive call of the ringed plover, a small colony of

VoL. I. 7

90 . MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON

which is established every here and there. The marshy
meadows are thronged with breeding waders; redshanks,
snipe, and green plover; and on the hills and moorlands are
dunlin, curlew, and golden plover, most of whom will be
gone again by the end of August or early September.

Another notable point of the bird-life on Spey-side is the
number of black-headed gulls which live there during a
great part of the year, forming nesting colonies, numbering
from a few pairs to several hundreds.

The largest of these colonies is found at the Boggach, a
marshy pool between Loch Alvie and the Spey. It is a
beautiful spot. On one hand rises the steep craggy side of
Tor Alvie, hung with feathery birches, on the other, a dark
pine-wood. The air is filled with clouds of circling, screaming
gulls, that at a distance appear like snowflakes against the
blue sky. Their nests are crowded together on floating islands
of sedge; while in the clear spaces between swim numbers
of coots and a few teal and mallard. These so-called black-
headed gulls (the head is not really black, but sooty-brown)
are one of the very few species of birds which would not be
the worse for a little judicious thinning of their numbers.
During the comparatively dry summer of 1895, the old birds
were hard put to it to find food for their young ones, many of
whom must have died of starvation. One fully fledged
young gull was picked up dead, and absolutely skin and bone,

Special mention has been made of Rothiemurchus in the
title of this paper, and there are one or two matters of in-
terest more particularly belonging to this locality. The
most important of these, though also the best known, is the
fact that on the ruined wall of the old castle on the island
in Loch-an-Eilein is the last, or nearly the last, home of the
osprey (or fishing eagle) in this country. Those who have
read Mr Harvie Brown’s Fawna of Moray will be familiar
with his exhaustive history of the ospreys in Rothiemurchus
and Glenmore. For the benefit of others, it may be men-
tioned that, after breeding more or less continuously in the
Glenmore and Rothiemurchus forests, at first in one or other
of the old pine-trees, and later, after the nest had been
several times disturbed, on the island, from the first recorded
observation in 1824 to the year 1888, a historic battle took

THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY. 91

place between the birds, and the nest on Loch-an-Eilein was
deserted for a time.

In 1894 the ospreys again took possession of their old
home, and during the summer of 1895, when we were living
on the shore of the loch, just opposite the island, we were
able, by the help of field-glasses, to observe them very closely.

The birds showed little fear or shyness, going on with
their own concerns while we were sitting within eighty yards
of them, and it was a privilege, not soon to be forgotten,
to watch thus closely one of our rarest and most beautiful
birds of prey.

The eggs were presumably laid about the beginning of
May, and from that date the bird sat very closely until the
second week in June, when the young were hatched out.
We were never able to see actually more than one young
bird at the time in the nest, but two eggs must have been
hatched, as the two young birds were afterwards seen flying
about.

During the time of incubation the female bird was fed by
her mate, and it was an interesting and beautiful sight to
watch him sweeping down from over the mountains with
his quarry, usually a trout of some considerable size, grasped
in both talons ; and then circling round and round the island,
giving a peculiar cry of greeting, which was always answered
by his mate upon the nest. After several circuits he would
alight, deposit the fish upon a particular spot in the nest,
a slightly higher kind of platform at the back, and depart
again. After he was gone the female used to leave the eggs,
and eat the fish where it had been laid—holding it under
her claws and tearing it to pieces with her powerful beak.

One day, after the young birds were hatched out, I saw the
male osprey behaving in a curious manner. He was flying
close to the surface of the water, a thing I never saw him do at
any other time, carrying something in his claws from the nest to
the further shore, where he alighted. This he repeated two
or three times. The thing, whatever it may have been, was
gray and fluffy, and at first I came to the rather hasty
conclusion that he was taking the young bird out for an
airing. But at last the mysterious object was left on the
side of the nest, opposite the place where the fish was always

92 MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON

deposited, and here it apparently remained during the rest
of the summer. The ospreys are very often seen flying up
the Beinne River, probably to fish in Loch Eunich, and: once
a friend who was with us saw a large fish caught in Loch-an-
Eilein. Mr Harvie Brown mentions the presence of tourists
as being a possible cause of the ospreys forsaking Loch-an-
Kilein. Whether the birds had grown bolder, or whether they
had become aware of the strict protection which is now
afforded them, at all events one was glad to see that they
paid very little heed to strangers. When the young birds
were fully fledged they used to stretch their wings into the
air, one at a time, and then, if anyone was on the shore, a
cry from the parents would warn them to lie close again.
But this was the only sign of caution or fear we observed,
except that occasionally ne female bird would join her mate,
and fly screaming round the island.

From these general remarks we may now pass on toa few
more particular notes concerning the different families of birds
found within the district.

The song-thrush appears to suffer more than most birds
in severe weather, and after the hard winter of 1894-95, the
species was almost killed out, at least in Rothiemurchus,
but now they are seen again in something like their usual
numbers.

The missel-thrush is more hardy, and is an increasing
species in the district, especially in the upland glens.

The Norwegian thrushes, the fieldfare and redwing, appear
in October and November as the rowan-berries, . their
favourite food, are ripening ; but as the weather becomes more
severe, they pass on towards the south.

The ring-ouzel, for the most part of the year, is a bird of
the hills anil moorlands, but is also tempted by the rowan-
berries to the more sheltered valleys.

The water-ouzel, or dipper, I have already mentioned. — It
is one of the most familiar birds, both in summer and winter,
along the rivers and burns; and it is especially pleasing in
the latter season to hear its brief notes of song as it ‘flits
before one, even when the river may be covered with floating
ice. That the dipper has a song, and a very Sweet one, is a
fact not very well known, and occasionally. disputed.

THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY. 93

' Of the warblers, by far the commonest is the ubiquitous
willow-wren, which is found far up” the wildest glens,
wherever there is the least patch of wood.

The wood-wren is little known to the ordinary observer,
who probably cannot distinguish its song from that of the
preceding species, but it is fairly common in the main
valley of the Spey, wherever there are oak and_beech-trees.
The nest is placed on the ground, in similar localities to that
of the willow-wren, but differs from it in the absence of the
pevies of feathers.

‘The chiffchaff is not a resident, and is al heard on
autumn migration.

One of the most characteristic birds of Rothiemurchus
and the woodland districts generally is the redstart. It
has increased in numbers to a remarkable degree during the
last few years, and is now very abundant. It is a most
beautiful bird, and very conspicuous, both from its clear,
sweet warble and its habit of flitting rapidly back and
forth across the glades, its fiery tail partly expanded and
moving quickly from side to side.

The various species of tits are also very characteristic
of the wooded regions, the commonest being the cole, the
blue, and the long-tailed. The marsh-tit is local, but now
recognised as a fairly common resident about Kincraig and
Rothiemurchus It was only first recorded as a breeding
species in Strathspey a few years ago, by Mr William
Evans.

The crested-tit, one of the rarest and most local of British
birds, may be regarded as almost a common species within
the limits of the great pine forests, out of which it rarely
strays, though it has been observed as far north as
Ballindalloch, and as far south as the Pass of Killiecrankie.
Tt is not conspicuous, and would be easily passed over by
one not familiar with its peculiar call-note. It nests low down
in rotten stumps, making a soft, warm nest of moss and rab-
bit’s fur. The eggs are very beautiful, the red markings much
bolder than in those of other tits. During the autumn the
tits, especially the marsh and ‘cole-tits, congregate in large
parties, together with the golden-crested wrens. It is a very
pretty sight to see them crowding a small birch-tree, busily

94 MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON

examining each branch and twig; and then passing on, in
one flight, to another birch or alder.

It would take too long to enumerate in detail all the
smaller birds common to the district, but among the more
interesting, I may mention the delicate, long-tailed gray
wagtails that haunt the rocky mountain burns; and the
tree-pipit with his sweet song, often performed in mid-air, as
he rises singing from a tree-top, and then sinks with out-
stretched wings, the song drooping and dying with the fall
of his flight.

Bullfinches and redpoles are fairly numerous in the
plantations, the latter especially, whose cheery twitter is
often heard about Kinrara and Kineraig.

The siskins come to the river-side alders in large flocks
during the autumn, while a few remain to breed in the fir-
woods.

Those interesting birds, the cross-bills, are resident in the
pine forests all the year round, but their nest is rarely found.
They feed chiefly on the seeds in the fir-cones, and it is an
interesting sight to see them climbing about in the tops of
the larch-trees like parrots, stripping the cones with their
curiously formed beaks. They are very bold, and allow one
to watch them from quite a short distance.

The snow-bunting deserves a special word of mention.
A few pairs of these Arctic birds may every summer be
found scattered thinly over the highest parts of the Cairn-
gorms, in whose sterile slopes and craggy steeps they perhaps
find a resemblance to the Arctic solitudes from whence they
come. The nest is a very difficult one to find. It is placed
far in amongst the loose stones of the mountain side, and so
fearless are the birds, that, unless the female can be watched
on to the nest, there is little chance of discovering it, as she
will not leave the eggs until almost grasped by the hand.
After the young are hatched the task is much easier, and
careful watching will always reveal the position of the nest.
The first nest from the Cairngorms was found on Ben Avon
in 1893, and, with eggs and birds, now forms one of the
beautiful series of nests set up in their natural surroundings,
which is one of the greatest attractions of the Natural History
Department of the British Museum.

THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY. 95

The hoarse bark of the raven is occasionally heard over-
head in spring, but the birds themselves are not often seen,
even among the recesses of the Cairngorms,

No amount of trapping and shooting seems to lessen the
number of those universally distributed marauders, the hoodie-
crows. They are terribly destructive to both eggs and young
birds, and one feels very little pity when war is declared
against them in turn.

The jackdaws, which are also great egg-stealers, have
much increased of late years; they swarm in the rocks of
Craigellachie.

The magpie is generally distributed throughout the wooded
districts. It is of course very conspicuous wherever found,
with its handsome, metallic blue-black plumage and curious
wavering flight.

The starlings again are a much-increasing species.

The rooks have been accused of late years of forsaking
their innocent diet of grubs and wire-worms, especially in
dry seasons, and taking to the carnivorous practice of eating
eggs and young grouse. The much-persecuted race of
falconide has sadly diminished since the days of game-
preserving. The goshawks are gone, that in the time of Col.
Thornton used to build in the forest of Rothiemurchus; the
kites are gone, that fifty years ago might be seen soaring, two
or three together, over the woods of Strathspey ; the buzzard
is rarely seen; and the pair of Loch-an-Kilein ospreys are the
last representatives of their race in the district. It is
satisfactory to’ know that these, at least, are now strictly
preserved ; and it may be hoped that under the watchful care
of the present laird of Rothiemurchus they may long con-
tinue to add an additional interest to the beauties of that
neighbourhood.

The sanctuaries of the deer-forests still afford shelter to
the golden eagle and peregrine falcon, and the former, thanks
to a certain amount of preservation, is perhaps a slightly
increasing species.

The merlin is found on the open moorlands, making its
nest amongst the heather on a steep brae-side, or, more
rarely, using a deserted crow’s-nest in a tree.

The fierce sparrow-hawk and innocent kestrel both meet

96 MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON

an equal fate at the hands of the keepers, though the latter
is rarely guilty of the blood of anything larger than a mouse.
These two species hold their own in spite of much persecu-
tion, though in decreasing numbers.

Coming now to the ducks, we notice the goosander as one
of the most interesting species. It is by far the largest of
the diving ducks, and a very handsome bird, the drake
especially, with its striking black and white plumage and
crest. The goosander has only been recognised as breeding
in this country within the last few years, but is now common
and increasing as a nesting species in the forests of Strath-
spey. The situation of the nest is a very remarkable one
for a duck, being placed at the bottom of a hollow tree; the
hole of entrance and exit sometimes ten or fifteen feet from
the ground. It is a curious question how the young birds
manage to get up to the entrance when ready to leave the
nest. After they have left it, the old birds take their brood
of eight to ten young ones down the burns, where they play
great havoc among the trout, one or two families almost
clearing out a stream as they go.

The merganser, a closely-allied species, but smaller and
less noticeable in appearance, nests as high up the Spey as
Cromdale, and is seen on Loch Insh in the autumn.

Teal and mallard are abundant. .

The tufted duck has not yet been recorded in Strathspey,
though nesting in many parts of Scotland.

Widgeon are seen on the forest lochs in May, and a pair
or two very probably breed in the long heather. Other
ducks, such as the golden-eye, pochard, and pintail, occasionally
put in an appearance on the lochs and streams in winter. -

The swans (the mute swan in a semi-wild condition)
form a very conspicuous feature of Strathspey, as many as
thirty-six have been seen together on Loch Insh. | They look
very fine as they fly up and down the valley, and the peculiar
sound of their wings is heard from a long distance.

It is unnecessary to speak of the universally distributed
wood-pigeon. The stock-dove, distinguished from the former
by its smaller size and absence of the white patches on. its
neck, is supposed to be extending. its range in Scotland,
though it is probable that. it has long frequented districts

THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY. 97

where it has only of late years been distinguished from the
wood-pigeon. The stock-dove breeds in holes in rocks and
banks, and the nest has been found in the Cromdale and
Advie districts of Strathspey.

One of the most conspicuous birds on the pools and lochs
is the coot. It has a curious practice of occasionally laying
a single egg in the nest of the black-headed gull, along with
the gull’s eggs.

The moorhen is also common, but keeps more to the
streams, and a family of old and young birds may sometimes
be seen near the farm steadings in a half-tame condition,
associating with the farm-yard ducks.

The curious rattling call of the water-rail may be heard
in the spring among the reed-beds of Loch Insh, but one is
seldom able to catch a glimpse of the shy, skulking bird
itself.

There are several small heronries in the neighbourhood,
the largest being probably that on the banks of the Avon,
between Drumin and Kilmaichly, and the herons may be
seen fishing, solitary, far up amongst the hills.

The interesting family of waders is one which is particu-
larly well represented in the district, especially, as has been
already said, in the breeding season. The cheery little sand-
pipers are met with everywhere, tripping along the sandy
beaches of the lochs, and flying before one as one follows the
course of the streams.

Another common species is the redshank, with its beauti-
fully-marked black and white plumage, and legs the colour
of red sealing-wax. Numbers of these birds nest in the
marshy meadows about Loch Insh, and if one disturbs them,
fly distractedly round and round the intruder, giving their
double-noted, whistling cry of alarm, and with their wings
drooped in the fashion peculiar to them. The nest is usually
well concealed in a tuft of coarse grass, and it requires a
sharp eye to spot and keep in view the exact tussock from
which the bird has sprung 100 yards or so away. A much
rarer bird is the greenshank, similar to, but a good deal
larger than, the last-named, and, as its name implies, with
green legs. A few pairs may generally be found scattered

thinly over the wilder parts of the river valleys, and the
VOL. I.

98 MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON

nesting site is usually amongst bare and open ground near
one of the forest lochans. The greenshank is a peculiarly
shy and wary bird, and its nest is extremely difficult to find.
The bird has the curious habit, for a wader, of perching on
the top of a solitary tree, from whence it can command all the
approaches to its nesting-place, and here it will remain,
yelping in a pertinacious and aggravating way, till the
patience of the watcher, lying concealed to mark the bird to
its nest, is fairly exhausted. A good many snipe also breed
in the marshy meadows, especially about Kingussie and
Nethy Bridge.

The woodcock prefers the woodlands, and is found nesting
in increasing numbers in the forest of Rothiemurchus.
Standing on the shores of Loch-au-Eilein, after dusk on a
June evening, one sees them against the sky, flying back-
wards and forwards overhead, every now and then giving
their whittering call. It should be noted that those wood-
cock and snipe which breed in Strathspey do not remain
during the winter, but migrate to the south, their places
being taken by more northern-breeding individuals, which
arrive in October and November, and remain till the follow-
ing spring.

The green plover, or peewits, are still numerous on
the moors, in spite of the wholesale robbing of their eggs ;
and higher up on the hilltops will be found the golden
plover.

The curious trill of the dunlin, one of the smallest of the
waders, may be heard on ‘the high-lying peat-mosses ; while
a single pair were found nesting in 1896 on the shores of
Loch Insh.

I need hardly mention the curlew, whose wild and
beautiful cry, so associated with the coming of spring to the
moorlands, is familiar to everyone.

A specially interesting species found in this district is
that rare and beautiful plover, the dotterel, now becoming
more and more scarce. To find it, one must go to the bare,
rolling plateau which stretches for miles over the higher
levels of the Cairngorms. Here, amid the barren peat-
mosses and scattered stones, a few pairs may be seen. Their
richly-marked eggs are laid in a slight hollow in the ground,

{HE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY. 99

usually in the shelter of a stone. As in the case of the
snow-bunting, the fearlessness of these birds makes their
nest a very difficult one to find, the female sometimes almost
allowing herself to be stepped on before rising.

Of so-called sea-birds, the oyster-catcher and black-headed
gull have already been referred to. A few pairs of the lesser
black-backed also frequent Loch Insh and the mid-reaches
of Spey, and probably breed in the hill-mosses. <A stray
cormorant has, on several occasions, been seen on Loch-
an-Kilein, having, no doubt, followed up the course of the river
from the sea. The common tern is sometimes seen hovering
over the lower reaches of the river, and has been known to
breed on sandy islets near Cromdale. It has also been
observed high up in Glenlivet, and on the shores of Loch
Morlich.

The birds we have been considering are all constant
residents or regular migratory visitors. The rare visitants
recorded are very few. This may be chiefly owing to the
fact that the valley of the Spey is not one of the lines of
migration; the ranges of the Grampians acting as a barrier
to the birds coming from the south, who prefer to take
the easier route by the East Coast and along the south shore
of the Moray Firth. Another reason may be found in the
few resident naturalists or other persons qualified to identify
and record unusual visitors.

An interesting question arises in dealing with a district
like the one we have been considering, with its divisions of
wild country, preserved forests, and arable land. That is the
effect of man on bird-life; whether directly, by the destruc-
tion of so-called vermin, such as hawks and owls, and the
preservation of game-birds; or indirectly, by the increase of
many of the smaller birds in consequence of the destruction
of their enemies. Man’s influence is also seen in the
extension of plantations, which favour certain woodland
birds; and also of cultivated areas, where others, especially
of the graminivorous species, find food and surroundings to
their liking. It is a matter of general observation that the
number of small birds has very considerably increased during
the last few years, whether owing to either of the causes I
have just suggested, or to the working of the Wild Birds’

100 THE BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPEY VALLEY.

Protection Acts. It does seem to be the fact that a wider
interest in birds is spreading among people generally. If this
is so, it is a matter for congratulation, and that not only for
the sake of the birds. For an intelligent interest in the
bird-life around one, as in every other branch of Natural
History, brings a keen sense of pleasure with it, even to the
observer who cannot claim to be scientific; and adds
incalculably to the delights of the country, whether to those
who find their home in it all the year round, or those who
are only able to go there for their spring and summer
holidays.

NATURE NOTES.

OCCURRENCE OF THE OTTER (Lutra vulgaris) 1N
LINLITHGOWSHIRE,

In June 1896, I trapped a female otter on the River Avon,
near Boness. This specimen, which measured 43 inches
from tip to tip, and weighed 17 lbs., was exhibited by me
before the Society. THos. ALLAN.

FINGER-PRINTS OF MARSUPIALS.

I HAVE lately been studying the feet of some preserved
specimens of phalangers which I have in my possession—
the Flying Phalanger (Petaurus breviceps), and a ringed-
tailed species, both from Victoria, Australia.

In spite of the well-developed pads in the palms of both
these marsupials, the arrangement of the papillary ridges is
remarkably like that of the human hand. The “ pattern
areas” are unmistakable, the summits of the pads being
covered by designs, which, no doubt, will be variable in each
individual. A noticeable variation from the direction of the
ridges in the human hand is, that those upon the digits

NATURE NOTES. 101

follow an upward direction, even along the first phalange,
until the tip is reached, where the prominence below the
claw is covered by a pattern resembling a rather irregular
arch.

The opposable thumb upon the hind feet being nailless,
the ridges are carried over the top, and nearly half-way
down the outside of the phalange until met by the hair.
Both species are very similar in these respects.

This direction of the papillary ridges gives the animals a
grasping power peculiarly suited to their needs.

The careless manner in which my specimens have been
dried has, unfortunately, twisted the feet, so that it makes
it hard to judge very well of the manner in which the palm
is folded by the grasp. The ridges are strongly developed
in proportion to the size of the limb, but, of course, to no
greater an extent than is necessary for the habits of the
creature. BEATRICE 8S. WILLANS,

SUPPOSED OCCURRENCE OF THE NUTCRACKER (Nucifraga
caryocatactes, Linn.) NEAR ABERDEEN.

I ative the following on the authority of Mr Robert
Walker, M.A., Secretary of the University Court, Aberdeen,
with whom I have lately been in correspondence.

Mr Walker had several times heard a peculiar bird-note
(which he describes as like “ kir-kir-kir-kir-ik”) which he
could not identify, coming from some old and lofty trees in
grounds on the outskirts of Aberdeen. On the afternoon of
5th November 1898, he heard the ery directly overhead, and
soon discovered, among the topmost branches of a beech-tree,
some forty or fifty feet high, the bird from which it pro-
ceeded. He watched it carefully through a pair of binocu-
lars, and, although at the time he had no idea what kind of
bird it was, he was at once struck by its corvine appearance.

As it was not particularly timid, and as he was less than
fifty feet from the bird (directly below it), he was enabled
by means of his powerful glasses to see its every movement.

102 NATURE NOTES.

Owing to its comparatively large size the bird had difficulty in
steadying itself on the very slender outside branches which
it was trying to reach, and consequently it flapped about a
good deal with its wings in its attempts to balance itself on
the thin branch to which it clung. At last, seizing its
opportunity, it pounced on a beech-nut within reach, This
it grasped with its toes, then deftly pecked once or twice, and
finally extracted the kernel. All this was clearly seen by
Mr Walker through his binoculars. Being in such a favour-
able position he was particularly struck by the rich brown
colour of its plumage. Though he subsequently heard its
ery, he never again saw the bird.

Next day he went to Professor Trail, who, on hearing the
details I have just given, pronounced the bird to be the
nutcracker.

It is interesting to note the account of the bird’s feeding
habits given by Yarrell (vol. ii. p. 338, Brit. Birds), He
says :—“ It plucks cones or nuts from the smaller boughs. It
then repairs to a larger branch, and there holding its booty
fast to the perch with one foot, skilfully picks out the seeds.”

In Scotland there are, so far as I am aware, only three
well-authenticated cases of the occurrence of this bird. One
at Invergarry in October 1868, and one in Orkney. Both
those luckless birds were “obtained,” so that there can be
no doubt as to their genuineness; while a third example
was, on the reliable authority of Sir Herbert Maxwell, seen
in Wigtownshire in 1891. This Aberdeen bird was not, I
am glad to say, shot. In fact, the reason why Mr Walker
delayed making public its occurrence was his great desire to
save the nutcracker from the gun of the collector.

I think there can be little doubt as to the identity of the
bird. We have—

1. Its resemblance to a crow.

2. Its method of shelling nuts.

3. Its rich brown plumage.

4. Its note (though to this I do not attach much
importance, except when taken in conjunction
with the other three points).

I only add in conclusion: if it were not a nutcracker,
what bird could it possibly have been ? H. N. Bonar.

NATURE NOTES. 103

OCCURRENCE OF THE GREAT GREY SHRIKE (Lanius excubitor,
Linn.) IN ROXBURGHSHIRE.

AT the January meeting of the Society, I had the pleasure
of exhibiting a specimen of the Great Grey Shrike, which
was shot in Rule-Water Valley, near Jedburgh, in the
month of September 1898.

The late Mr Robert Gray, in his interesting and accurate
volume, The Birds of the West of Scotland, says that the
great grey shrike is a regular winter visitor to Scotland, and
it has for many years been seen here in the early autumn
months, frequenting the beautiful wooded glens of our
middle marches.

The specimen I showed is apparently an adult male,
though, according to Gray, such are of rare occurrence in
Scotland. GrEorGE Fyre, Jedburgh.

NESTING OF THE PigD FLYCATCHER (Ficedula atricapilla,
Linn.) IN DUMFRIESSHIRE.

AT the October meeting of the Society, I had the pleasure
of exhibiting a nest and four eggs of the pied flycatcher
which I received from a cousin resident in Dumfries.

The eggs, which she believed to be those of a chaffinch,
had, unfortunately, been kept so long before being trans-
mitted to me that I found it impossible to remove their
contents, and thus to preserve them. They were, however,
unquestionably those of the pied flycatcher; and as the near
vicinity of the town of Dumfries is not given by Mr Service
(Annals of Scottish Natural History, 1897, p. 249) as a
breeding locality of that bird, the incident is worthy of
record, J. B, DossiE.

104 NATURE NOTES.

NEST-BUILDING ECCENTRICITIES OF Birbs.

A REMARKABLE case of eccentricity in the nidification of a
pair of Spotted Flycatchers (Muscicapa grisola, Linn.) came
under the notice of Mr Ferguson, head gardener to Mr
Murray Stewart of Cally, Kirkcudbrightshire, who is a keen
ornithologist. The birds began to build in the garden
vinery. Before they had finished they had no fewer than
seven nests, all more or less rudimentary, placed in a line
pointing obliquely downwards on a suitable projection from
the structure. The normal number of eggs was laid, and
for their reception only the four nests nearest completion
were used, two containing two eggs each and two one each
only.

I have myself seen some cases of exceptional interest.
Chief of these was that of a double nest of ring-dove and
blackbird. When I saw it, the strange combination con-
tained two eggs of the ring-dove and one of the black-
bird.

A pair of Tree Creepers (Certhia familiaris, Linn.) had
taken possession of the decaying stump of an uprooted tree,
aud built their nest deep down in a dark corner, which
was just too dark for comfort. To remedy matters the
birds pecked a hole through the decaying wood and
bark, just over the nest. That the hole was the work of
the birds was evident from the wood fibre scattered around
the nest, and its apparent freshness.

I have known cases where the Willow Warbler (Phyllos-
copus trochilus, Linn.), in order, doubtless, to avoid the
undesirable attention of weasels, has built its nest high in
a hawthorn-hedge, and in two instances well up in the ivy
covering an old wall. JI am aware that the latter case is
not altogether exceptional; but this special instance is
somewhat extraordinary, as the nests were exactly on the
same spot, the second being built and used at an interval
of nine years after the first, whether by the same pair of
birds or not, I am unable to say. J. W. PAYNE,

NATURE NOTES. 105

“CoLIAS EDUSA” IN ARRAN.

A MALE specimen of this butterfly was captured by me on
clover, at Lochranza, in the last week of September 1892,
and was exhibited by me before the Society.

Hitpa M, Turton.

Nestinc HABITS OF A SPIDER.

AN interesting, and quite common, little spider is Theridion
lineatum. Two specimens of this pretty species have come
under my notice when they have heen engaged in attaching
the cocoons of eggs to a leaf-shelter. On both occasions I
kept the spiders for several weeks, where I could, nearly
every day for at least a few moments, observe the actions
of the spider and the state of the cocoon.

The first individual I found on a bunch of sweet-peas in
a vase. She was then carrying the cocoon attached to her
body, and evidently seeking a mooring-place suited to her
purpose. There being no foliage in the bouquet, and the
flowers fading daily, the spider wandered from blossom to
blossom for a few days in evident distress and perplexity.
She was then placed in a small box with a glass lid, where
she could be conveniently observed. In a few hours she
fixed on a corner of the box which seemed to meet her
requirements. There she slung the cocoon securely, with
many threads stretching in all directions, and took up a
watchful position above it. No shaking or opening of the
box frightened her from her post, and though small flies
were introduced, she made no effort to capture them—but
they may have been too large.

In the course of a week or more, the cocoon | began to
alter from its pale bluish-green to a lighter tint, and to
expand very gradually; finally the spider family emerged.
But what appears to be the most remarkable arrangement
is, that the day before they emerged the mother withdrew
a little distance from the nest, and there died. Not having

106 NATURE NOTES.

any use for a lively brood of spiders, I suffocated—or to
speak more correctly—baked them, and was then able to
count the little corpses. I am not sure that some did not
escape from the box, or die in the crannies of it, but those
I could collect numbered ninety-two. As the cocoon was at
the first not quite one-quarter of an inch in diameter, and
the body of the parent somewhat smaller, this seems a fairly
numerous progeny for one individual.

The second Yheridion I found in the leaf of a hanging
plant (Zradescantia). The pale greenish colour of the spider
is protective, and the nest was noticed before the weaver
was observed. The cocoon was already fixed to the leaf
when found, but the spider worked for some days com-
pleting the surroundings. The cocoon lay almost in the
centre of the leaf, which was drawn together slightly by a
snare which extended to adjacent foliage. The leaf was
filled with an irregular mass of web, and through this,
leading to the cocoon, a neat tunnel was woven. About
this opening the spider was always on guard after the com-
pletion of the work. Often the whole day would pass
without her apparently making the slightest movement.
But at some unobserved period she evidently displayed
some activity, for quite a considerable number of midges
and a few aphides were collected. As the spider did not
appear to devour these herself, they may have been food
provided for the young spiders.

This was in the autumn—October; the usual time for
hatching is about July, and though the nest was made
under quite natural conditions, it was apparently too late,
and perhaps too chilly, for the young brood. Only a few
spiders came out of the nest, crept feebly to the surrounding
snares, and died there in the course of a day or so.

The mother behaved precisely as in the previous case.
She drew away to the extremity of the snare, and died just
before the little spiders came out.

BEATRICE 8. WILLANS.

NATURE NOTES. 107

EFrect OF Storms on LirroraL INVERTEBRATES.

ALL shore naturalists know the tremendous destruction of
life which occurs during violent storms, and as there can be
little doubt that many of the peculiarities of littoral animals
have been induced by the necessity for protection against
wave-action, it is of much interest to note the species which
are specially liable to this form of elimination. The follow-
ing is a brief list of some of the invertebrates found on the
shores of the Firth of Forth after the violent easterly gale
of October 18-19, 1898.

The most abundant forms were Mollusca, some species of
which occurred in extraordinary numbers, Scattered widely
over the beach, large specimens of Lutraria elliptica and
Mya truncata were at first very obvious, but the unremitting
persecution of the sea-gulls rapidly reduced their numbers.
The birds smashed in the shells with their beaks, and
devoured the whole of the soft parts with the exception of
the tough siphons, which were left lying on the sand in
great numbers. Specimens of Cardium edule were also very
numerous, and seemed to be equally relished, but Solens
were not very conspicuous. In the pools Pecten opercularis
was found in large numbers, most of the specimens being
living and active; also full-grown specimens of Fusus and
Buccinum, some of the former being of enormous size.

Large masses of Laminaria had been torn up by the
breakers, and involved with it in a common destruction
were numbers of the different kinds of animals which
usually find shelter in its long fronds and tangled roots,
Many of these seemed, however, to have escaped injury, and
were still in an active condition. Among these were large
numbers of the bright red porcelain crab (Porcellana longi-
cornis), Galathea sqguamifera clinging like it to the prostrate
Stems, the ungainly spider-crab (Hyas araneus), together
with sea-spiders, numerous annelids, the pretty little Helcion
pellucida, and many others. Lying beneath the weed were
extraordinary numbers of small hermit-crabs, which had
been apparently washed out of the rock pools and entangled

108 NATURE NOTES.

with the weed, but which showed no signs of injury. In
contrast to these living hermits, there were a few dead or
moribund full-grown specimens inhabiting Fwsus shells,
which must have come from deep water, and had succumbed
to the battering to which they had been subjected. In the
shell of one of these I found two specimens of the worm
Nereis fucata, also dead. Apart from these hermits, the
larger Crustacea were not very conspicuous, though near
Longniddry I found one specimen of Portumnus variegatus,
which does not appear to be very abundant in the Forth.

Other interesting finds were several specimens of the
anemone Jolocera, near Granton, which is specially interest-
ing, because it grows at a depth (30—50 fathoms) believed
by many authorities to be beyond the limit of violent wave-
action, and some very fine specimens of Aphrodite aculeata,
reaching a length of close upon six inches. As usual after
a storm, large masses of the ascidian Ascidiella virginea
occurred everywhere on the beach. The individuals grow
in dense clusters attached to stones or to the polyzoan
Gemellaria loricata, and the constant elimination by storms
must be very heavy. At most periods of the year these
clusters are to be found strewn on the shore.

Generally, one may say that the effect of violent storms
on the littoral invertebrates depends greatly upon the habit
of the particular animal. Attached animals, like sponges,
sea-anemones, ascidians, Aleyoniwm, etc., are saved by their
sedentary habit from wave-action, unless this is very violent,
but when once torn off their destruction is inevitable. In
the case of slow-moving or burrowing animals lke many
Mollusca, the danger of wave-action appears to be less the
mere removal from the natural habitat, than the exposure to
organic foes—most of the molluscs named above seemed to
have received relatively little injury, but fell victims to the
birds before they could attempt to return to their natural
habitat. Soft-bodied animals, like the annelids, molluses
without shells, and fish, seem to be actually beaten to death
by the waves, a fate from which the borrowed shells of the
hermits and the coats of the crabs and their allies do not
always save them. It is no doubt this danger which has
foreed so many shore animals to acquire heavy armour,

NATURE NOTES. 109

sedentary or burrowing habits, and those other passive
means of defence which are so generally characteristic of
adult littoral forms. M. J. NEWBIGIN.

SomE NovrEes ON THE MyYCETOZOA.

THE Mycetozoa, from the position they occupy on the
borderland between the animal and vegetable kingdoms,
appeal with force to all students of nature—to botanists
and zoologists alike. Up to the time of De Bary they were
ranked with the Fungi under the title of Myxomycetes, and
certainly in their reproductive stage they present a great
likeness to plants of the nature of Fungi. Sporangium,
columella, capillitium, spore—names used to describe the
different parts of the spore-cysts—bear witness to the
close identity of structure existing between them and the
Fungi, to similar parts of which the same terms are applied.
But here the likeness ends. When the life-history is
studied, it is found that the spore on germinating does not
give rise to a mycelium as in the Fungi, but to a swarm-
cell or zoospore, which, after a period of activity—swimming
about by means of a flagellum—becomes amceboid ; several
of these amcebulie then fuse to form a wandering plannodium,
which ultimately gives rise to the spore-cysts containing
the spores from which the life-cycle again begins. Recog-
nising the relationship with the lower forms of animal-
life which this life-history implied, De Bary, in 1858, gave
the group the name of Mycetozoa, and under that name
they are now generally known. Professor Ray Lankester
(Zoological Articles) groups them with the Protozoa. He
says :—“ Whatever course we take with the Mycetozoa, we
must take also with the Heliozoa, the Radiolaria, and the
Reticularia.” On the other hand, Dr Cook, amongst others,
argues for their inclusion in the Fungi.

However this may be, these very curious and debatable
organisms form a well-defined class, and have attained,
along lines of their own, to a considerable degree of com-

110 NATURE NOTES.

plexity. It is only in their reproductive stage that they
present any likeness to the Fungi; in the plasmodial stage
they most naturally suggest animals allied to the Rhizopods.
This kinship with the lower forms of animal-life is empha-
sised by the fact that food, eg., bacteria, is ingested by the
zoospores, and it is also strongly supported by a comparison
with the life-history of Protomyxa awrantiaca described by
Haeckel. The Mycetozoa are of great scientific importance.
The plasmodia afford large masses—the largest available
—of indifferentiated protoplasm free of all hampering
structure, giving great facilities for study; and many
important investigations have been made on the properties
of protoplasm by means of them.

Of late years the Mycetozoa have received much careful
study, but many points in their life-history still await
elucidation; and to anyone in possession of a microscope
they offer a rich field for useful work. The spore-cysts, or
sporangia, may be found at all seasons. Frost or very dry
weather, however, is against them. They inhabit damp
and shady places, especially old woods, and occur on tree-
stumps, old palings, dead wood, dead leaves, etc. Many of
them are of great beauty, both of form and colour. Although
a number of them are quite common, even abundant, they
require to be looked for; and, I fancy, are not noticed by
any but naturalists. I have found the woods at Roslin the
most productive place round Edinburgh. I have taken
there quite a dozen species. I have not managed yet to
determine them all, but the following are among them :—
Comatricha obtusata, Stemonitis fusca, and another species ;
Arcyria incarnata, and two other species; a species of
Trichia; and Tubulina fragiformia.

My first attempt at observing the growth of the Mycetozoa
consisted in bringing home likely-looking pieces of dead
wood, which I placed in the garden under natural conditions
as to shade and moisture. In this way I watched the
formation of the sporangia of Comatricha obtusata and
Arcyria incarnata. On 1st October 1898 I found at Roslin
a piece of wood bearing over one hundred sporangia of C.
obtusata. On examination at home, it was found that nearly
every one had scattered the spores. Sporangia, mounted in

NATURE NOTES. j11

balsam, showed the columella and capillitium beautifully.
On 20th October, at 4.30 p.m., I noticed a group of sporangia
beginning to rise on the wood. They appeared as small,
white, glistening elevations, studded over a space of less
than one square inch. At 6.30 they had elongated con-
siderably, and by 12 p.m. a dark stalk had formed bearing
the sporangium, still white and of an elongate form. Next
morning at 7.30 the sporangia had assumed a globose form,
but were still of a creamy-white colour. By 9.15 am.a
purplish-brown flush was spreading over the sporangia, and
when looked at again in the afternoon they were mature.
The mature sporangium of this species is dark brown in
colour, and the sporangium wall is evanescent, They are
variable in size and shape—typically round, some are
cylindrical.

In Arcyria incarnata sporangia are produced freely, but
little time is given for study of the complete sporangium, as
the sporangium wall soon goes, leaving only a small cup at
the base, while the capillitium spreads out in a large,
diffuse network, expanding to many times the original
volume. In a moist atmosphere, however, they may be
kept for a length of time, but whenever they are taken out
rupture takes place. Gatherings of this species should be
kept in the dark, as in the light they soon lose their
beautiful pink colour.

I tried several methods, eg., cultures made in moist
chambers, or on filter-paper, in order to study the zoospores,
but without success. Last March (1898) there appeared a
valuable and most interesting paper in the Quarterly Journal
of Microscopical Science on “The Aseptic Cultivation of
Mycetozoa,” written by Dr C. O. Miller, in which is
described a new method of cultivating these organisms. In
making cultures for the study of Protozoa, Dr Miller
obtained zoospores of Mycetozoa from the air and from hay.
He got Physarum cinereum, Didymium difforme, and other
species in this way. For the proper study of the different
species obtained, aseptic cultures were made in dilute hay
infusion with 2 per cent. of milk added. These were very
successful, and the author made quite a number of in-
teresting observations of the zoospores and plasmodia.

igo NATURE NOTES.

Following Dr Miller, I placed some hay in a jar, leaving
a few stalks projecting above the surface of the water. In
about twelve days large numbers of zoospores were seen.
On the twenty-sixth day sporangia had appeared. These
occurred in groups. In group (a) seven stalks of hay bore
eighty-eight sporangia. Group (0) consisted of twenty-seven
sporangia borne on two stalks of hay. These two groups were
together, Exactly opposite, at the other side of the jar, was a
group (c) of seventeen sporangia on the glass, Examination
showed this species to be Didymium nigvipes (Fries), micro-
carpon (Rost), var. Xanthopus. Dr Miller, in his article, states
that D. microcarpon usually appears in hay cultures made
without aseptic precautions, and that it forms sporangia from
the twenty-first to the twenty-fourth day after planting.
Lister (mon. Mycetozoa) gives Edinburgh as a locality for
var. Xanthopus of this species. In those sporangia which
I examined the white columella, which is the varietal
character, was distinctly seen. Spores placed in a hanging
drop hatched within twenty-four hours. It was most in-
teresting to watch the emergence of the zoospores. The
spore-case ruptured, and the contents slowly escaped. After
‘lying beside the empty case for awhile as a clear, round
drop, very slow amcboid movements began, which lasted
for about ten or twelve minutes. During this time the
flagellum seemed to be developing, and the zoospore, now
somewhat elongated, swam away through the surrounding
water with a peculiar dancing movement. They are now
somewhat pear-shaped, with the flagellum extended as the
stalk of the pear. The nucleus lies at the anterior end.
The older zoospores would sometimes come to rest on the
slide, and immediately amceboid movements would begin ;
the creature drawing itself together and sending out pseudo-
podia in all directions. One or two specimens, after moving
thus in an indefinite manner for a time, would assume a
linear form, and crawl over the slide with the flagellum
extended straight out in front, and with several slender
pseudopodia projecting behind.

Wishing to follow the life-history of Didymiwm nigripes,
I next prepared several cultures as described by Dr Miller.
Dilute hay infusion with 2 per cent. milk was placed in

NATURE. NOTES. 113

Erlenmeyer flasks along with short stalks of hay. The
flasks were sterilised on three successive days, and were
then planted with spores of D. nigripes. Zoospores were
found in them all, but they did not all produce sporangia.
In some cultures plasmodia crawled up out of the medium,
preparatory to the formation of sporangia, as early as the
twelfth day ; in others, not until later. The plasmodium of
D. nigripes is greyish-white in colour. It consists of the
usual network of protoplasm, and, in my cultures, extended
in size from about an inch square to 3 or 4 square inches. It
advances over the glass with a creeping movement, like a
gigantic amceba. Under the microscope, the granular proto-
plasm can be seen to be in constant movement, streaming
along the veins of the network in a rapid torrent, which
gradually slows, and, after a slight pause, flows back again
in the opposite direction. This rhythmic flow forwards and
backwards generally lasts longer in the direction in which
the plasmodium is moving. When about to form sporangia,
it leaves the medium and creeps up the hay or side of the
flask. Aggregations of the protoplasm take place at certain
points, forming small, round, darker spots, which rise up into
small projections, and ultimately form the sporangia. When
fully formed the sporangia are snow-white, with the stalk a
yellow-brown, becoming darker lower, and swelling out into
a broad, dark brown base. The spores are of a pale violet-
brown colour, and the outside of the sporangium wall is
covered with stellate crystals of calcium carbonate.

Both the zoospores and the plasmodia of the Mycetozoa
may pass into a resting stage and become encysted. Ac-
cording to Lister, “in all cultivations of germinating spores a
number of the zoospores become encysted in a globular form.
They are known as microcysts. The plasmodium in the
resting stage is known as a sclerotium. The protoplasm
becomes divided into a number of cysts, and in this state it
may remain alive for two or three years.”

A. E. J. Carrer.

VOL. I. 9

114 NATURE NOTES.

NOTE ON THE DIVISION OF SuN-ANIMALCULES.

In January 1898, on examining the contents of a small,
wide-mouthed glass bottle which had been standing for some
days in a greenhouse, it was found that, besides some fila-
ments of JVostoc, and one or two other alge, there was a
very large number of sun-animalecules. Many of these were
dividing, and I took the opportunity of watching the process.
Its early stages appear to take a fairly long time. For
instance, a beautiful specimen, which, from its size and shape,
appeared about to divide, was watched for three-quarters of
an hour, but did not display any noticeable change. Another
specimen, however, I was fortunate enough to observe at the
critical moment when the actual separation began, and the
process, from that moment to its consummation, occupied
only twenty minutes.

The ordinary single sun-animalcule is almost perfectly
circular in outline; and its rays, or delicate pseudopods,
radiate from one centre only; but a sun-animalcule about
to divide is of an oblong shape, its breadth being equal to
that of an ordinary individual, and its length nearly double
(see fig. 1); and the pseudopods, if studied carefully, will
be seen to radiate from two centres.

The actual division, as I saw it, began by the central
portion of this oblong body becoming slightly narrower than
the two ends; and this narrowing continued till the whole
organism looked like a dumb-bell, having a round mass at
each end, and a somewhat thick band in the middle (see
fig. 2). Presently, at one end of the band, appeared a slight
longitudinal flaw, which widened till the band was split,
from that end to the centre, into two narrow strips (see
fig. 5). Meantime the two round masses were moving con-
tinuously further apart, and the band was consequently
being drawn out thinner and longer; and it was easy to see
that there were now two sun-animalcules, joined together only
by a very narrow link, The moment of actual separation
was difficult to determine, as the band became so fine and
thin that it seemed to melt rather than break into two.
After the separation seemed really effected, I followed the

Fic. 1, Fic. 2.

Fic. 4.

LOM, MX
14 MAY 27

NAT SY

NATURE NOTES. dip

fortunes of one of the new sun-animalcules, and saw that its
share of the original band (the two narrow strips before
mentioned) resembled two pseudopods somewhat longer and
thicker than their fellows. In one of them I noticed a
couple of granules such as are usually found only in the
body of the animalcule; the pseudopod was distended round
them, and they were clearly out of place (see fig. 4). Ina
short time, however, they slowly moved down the pseudo-
pod, and were absorbed into the main body.

Fig. 1 was drawn from a specimen which was changing
its shape very slowly, and the drawing may therefore be
considered as fairly accurate. The other figures were drawn
from a creature that was changing very rapidly, and were
made from memory after the process was complete. They
may therefore perhaps not be quite accurate, and are at all
events to be considered as to a certain extent diagrammatic.
I believe, however, that the curvature of the pseudopods,
which is one of the most noticeable features in the drawings,
is correctly represented. BEATRICE SPRAGUE.

LIVINGSTONE’S TREE.

I sHOULD like to make a few remarks on what was perhaps
the most interesting tree in the whole continent of Africa.

Both black men and white regard this tree with venera-
tion, since under its branches Livingstone’s heart lay buried.
About a year ago this tree began to show signs of decay,
and in order to preserve the inscription it has been recently
cut down. The inscription contained these simple and im-
pressive words—

“Dr LivinestonE Diep on May 4ru, 1873.”

From the branches of this tree a number of slices were cut,
stamped with the Government seal, and given to those who
were considered likely to prize them.

One of these I saw, and the paler central portion is in
the form of a heart, a coincidence certainly, but a curious

116 NATURE NOTES.

one! The leaves are oval; in colour they are pale sage
with a touch of chrome.

In Africa Livingstone’s tree is often spoken of as a Mvula;
but since discussion was rife regarding its real nature, a leaf
has just been submitted to one of our Edinburgh botanical
authorities. His opinion is that it may be a species of
evergreen oak ((Jwereus Ilex), although, in the meantime, he
gives this merely as a tentative suggestion and advises an
appeal to Kew.

But whatever it may prove to be, a tree was surely the
fittest memorial for the man whose name will long remain
green in that land and this. Monumental trees, from the
oak at Bethel to this one at Hala, might, I think, furnish a
fertile paper for any Natural History Society. The true
scientific spirit is broad and penetrating, while the human
interest attached to such trees illumines them with vital light.

E. J. CAMERON.

LITTLE CoKER NUTS.

Two nuts were sent me lately, with the information that
they were sold in fruit shops in England under the above
name.

The nuts were evidently those of a palm, and on inquiry
it proved to be Jubea spectabilis, the Coquito Palm of
Chili, the only Chilian representative of this family.
According to the account given in Lindley & Moore's
Treasury of Botany, the nuts are used by the Chilian
confectioners in the preparation of sweetmeats, and by the
boys as marbles. The same work also states that “a
quantity of them were brought to this country a few years
ago, and sold under the name of ‘ Little Coker Nuts, and
that they had a pleasant, nutty taste.”

Specimens of the palm may be seen growing in the
Temperate Palm House at the Royal Botanic Garden,
Edinburgh, but they are too small to bear fruit.

J. FREDK. JEFFREY.

NATURE NOTES, 117

LEAF METAMORPHOSES.

THE leaf performs so many good offices for the plant that
it may be regarded as a sort of Man-Friday or Caliban.
Besides throwing out myriad hands to catch stray particles
of atmospheric food for its master, besides being a living
crucible for transmuting raw material into chlorophyll,
parenchyma, gluten, etc., it is called upon to undergo many
transformations. No sooner has it arrived at the stage of
being a leaf than some inward force whispers that other and
higher functions await it. So the leaf toils painfully up the
spiral staircase of the stalk. Look at a stem, and try in
fancy to drop out the internodes; or imagine the stem
pressed together from top to bottom, and you will find the
leaves winding round like the steps of a corkscrew stair.

Follow the leaves of the common double peony up the
stem, and try to put your finger on the leaf where it ceases
to be a leaf and becomes a bract, forming part of the calyx.
Then another stage comes: the bracts are suffused here and
there with a glow of colour; the green is fading before the
flush of the flower. Still following the magic circling of the
leaf, the flush overrides the green, and the petal lies in our
hand glowing like a sea-shell. The tide of the flower-colour
breaking over the topmost stems and leaves is well seen in
many plants. In the common wood-hyacinth I have seen
it showing sea-blue through leaf-tips and stems; or you may
see it in the milkwort, where the leaves, as they reach the
flower, catch its first radiance. But the petal, changed
though it be, still bears all the true leaf characteristics
of stomata, parenchyma, veins, and cuticle. Then, once
again, the plant draws -upon the leaf-substance to form the
carpels of the ovary. A leaf folded lengthwise is the first
rough sketch at a shelter for the precious ovules.

If you examine a row of garden peas, you are not unlikely
to come across an abortive pod, a thickened, folded leaf
which, for some reason or other, has not been able to grow
into a perfect seed-vessel. It will, probably, show little
processes along its edge where the ovules would have grown
had something not gone amiss.

118 NATURE NOTES.

In the double cherry, where multiplicity of petals has
been secured at the expense of fruit, you will find a small
ereen folded leaf in the middle of the blossom. No attempt
at a carpellary leaf at all—only a tiny cherry leaf speaking
somewhat sadly of the might-have-been.

But the leaf is not content to stop here. In some cases,
where the several flowers of some ancestral type have found
benefit from forming themselves into a republic, instead of
each blossom being a separate kingdom and a law unto
itself, the leaf undergoes another change.

In the dandelion such a coalition has taken place, and
a calyx is no longer needed for each tiny floret. The calyx
has, therefore, to choose between being atrophied as an effete
organ or adapting itself to the altered conditions of its
surroundings. It has chosen to do the latter, and has
become a set of tiny hairs, which persist after the fall of
the corolla, and, forming a parachute for the ripened seed,
carries it away on the first favouring puff of wind.

It is not Nature’s relentless immutability which forces
our attention, but her miraculous plasticity ; her power of
moulding certain elementary forms into such differing and
fantastic shapes ; for, at every turn, she seems a masquerading
domino, a gay stranger smiling behind a new disguise.

ELIZABETH M. JOHNSTONE.

* POLEMONIUM C(ERULEUM” AND “ PILULARIA GLOBULIFERA ”
AT DRUMSHORELAND.

Durine the summer of 1898 one of the rambles chosen
by the Society was to the prettily wooded district near
Drumshoreland, where I was pleased to find, far from any
dwelling-house or garden, and with no evidence of being
a mere “escape,” several specimens of Polemoniwm cwrulewm
(Jacob’s Ladder), which is a rare plant in the neighbourhood
of Edinburgh, and, though probably not native in this
locality, is at least in the position of a prosperous colonist,
and therefore deserving of recognition.

NATURE NOTES. 119

According to the London Catalogue of British Plants (9th
edition), this species is only uative in five counties, all of
which are English, so that in all probability it is in no case
a truly Scottish plant, though it seems well able to retain
any habitat which it may acquire in this country.

Near Drumshoreland, also, is the only known station in
the Edinburgh district for the somewhat rare Pilularia
globulifera; but, though this plant has been repeatedly
found there during recent years, the members sought for it
on this occasion in vain, and it has probably disappeared
from the locality, though, owing to its inconspicuous habit
when growing along with grass, the existence of a few
isolated individuals may have been overlooked.

ROBINA ORROCK.

“ ASPERUGO PROCUMBENS.,”

Ar an informal excursion in June 1898 to the neighbourhood
of Joppa, we were gratified to find growing, not far from the
shore, a specimen of that somewhat uncommon “ casual,”
Asperugo procumbens.

Its occurrence on the east coast of Britain is distinctly
sporadic in character, and its presence in this district, I
think, is worthy of being mentioned, as it may be the means
of directing increased attention to the astonishingly extensive
flora of our ballast heaps. ROBINA ORROCK.

GEOLOGICAL NOTES,

LarGE, well-formed crystals of calcite are to be found in
an old quarry on the north side of Warklaw Hill, just above
Colinton.

The rock of the quarry is an amygdaloidal andesite, and
weathers rapidly. The calcite crystals occur in druses in
the breccia of a fault, which ranges through the quarry.

120 NATURE NOTES.

The druses are filled with stiff clay, and some of the
crystals are etched by the action of percolating water
charged with organic acids. This etching takes place along
certain lines other than the zones of growth or the planes
of cleavage [ /'].

Associated with the calcites, layers of stalagmitic
aragonite and thin films of malachite and chlorite are
found.

Agates also occur in this quarry; they are very poor in
the upper part of the rock, but in the lower and more solid
portion they are better. One specimen obtained measured
15 by 11 by 24 inches. ROBERT DYKES,

PECTOLITE AT CORSTORPHINE QUARRY.

CRAIGPATH Quarry, Ratho, is well known for its specimens
of pectolite, where it occurs in globular masses of a yellowish-
white colour, the broken surfaces showing a stellate arrange-
ment of acicular crystals. Normal pectolite is rare in
Corstorphine Hill Quarry; but on one of the field meetings
of the Society, a small specimen was obtained there. The
quarry is rich in prehnite, for which a poor specimen of
pectolite might be mistaken. There is very little difference
in chemical composition between the two minerals.
RoBERT DYKES.

A New Locauity ror GoETrHITE.

On one of the field excursions of the Geological section of
the Society, goethite was found by the writer of this note
on the south-eastern slope of Carnethy, above Penicuik. It
occurs in veins, from one-sixteenth of an inch to a quarter
of an inch thick, in radiating acicular crystals, having a
jet black or steel-grey lustre. Carnelian, chalcedony, and

NATURE NOTES. 121

purple chert are found associated with it, and give it a
very pretty appearance. Large specimens may be obtained
here, and it is probably the best locality for it around
Edinburgh, excepting the Garleton Hills. The rock in
which it occurs has long lathe-shaped crystals of felspar set
in a fine ground mass. Some of the vapour cavities contain
very fair agates. ROBERT DYKES.

THE coast section at the Heads of Ayr, Ayrshire, is for
the most part composed of old red sandstone volcanic rocks,
interstratified with ashy shales, limestones, sandstones, and
conglomerates. Amongst these rocks are four distinct out-
crops of amygdaloid, the homes of numerous agates and
geodes, with their beautiful crystal contents. A month’s
collecting there produced about fifteen hundred fairly good
specimens of geodes and agates. Last summer, in a search
of about two hours in the beach gravels, south of Dunure
Point, four hundred and thirty-five specimens were obtained.
ROBERT DYKES.

OCCURRENCE OF GOETHITE ON BLACKFORD HILL.

THE fibrous form of goethite occurs, though not very
abundantly, on the south. side of Blackford Hill. It is
associated with hematite, coating surfaces of the rock.

J. B. Mears.

DOUBLY-TERMINATED CRYSTALS OF QUARTZ ON CARNETHY.

Prrrect doubly-terminated crystals of quartz occur in vapour

cavities in the rock of Carnethy, Pentlands. They have
VOL. I. fe)

122 NATURE NOTES.

been formed upon crystals of barytes, which have been
subsequently dissolved and removed by some agent, leaving

impressions on the under-surface of the quartz.
J. B. MEARS.

THE MICROSCOPICAL SECTION.

In the spring of 1898 it was decided to appoint a Com-
mittee of Members of the Society for the purpose of bringing
together those members specially interested in microscopical
work, and of stimulating an interest in microscopy in the
Society.

The first meeting of the Committee was held in the
Freemasons’ Hall (small room), on 26th April 1898. There
were present Dr Drummond (in the Chair), Dr Scott
Lauder, Dr Sprague, Mr Crawford, Miss Turton, Miss
Orrock, Mr Stenhouse, Mr A. Morton, Mr H. H. Brown.

It was resolved—

1. That regular meetings of the Committee should be
held for microscopical work, apart from the ordi-
nary meetings of the Society.

2. That the meetings of the Committee should be open
to all members of the Society.

3. That meetings should be held (at dates arranged).

4, That during the summer months special attention
should be paid to the study of the Entomostraca.

During the summer, demonstrations or papers dealing
with the structure and life-history of different Entomostraca
were contributed by Dr Drummond, Mr Crawford, Miss
Newbigin, Mr Morton, and Dr Scott Lauder.

The idea of taking up a special subject for study proved
so successful during the summer, that it was decided to
follow the same plan during the winter session. The
subject chosen for study was the general structure of the
cell. Accordingly a programme was drawn up, and during

NATURE NOTES. 123

the winter 1898—99 demonstrations and papers were con-
tributed on the following subjects :

A general sketch of the animal-cell.

A general sketch of the vegetable-cell.

. The germ-cell.

. Fertilisation.

Cell-division.

The development of the embryo in the ovule.

Pom oh

None of the meetings of the section has in any way par-
taken of the nature of a “class”; but it has seemed to the
members of the Committee that such meetings, for practical
work especially, might prove useful to some of the members
of the Society. If this is found to be the case, it is in-
tended to arrange a short series of such meetings to be held
at separate times from the ordinary meetings of the section.

W. B. DruMMOND,
Convener.

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An MOS
14 MAY 27

CONTENTS OF PART L—VOLUME L

Corals and Coral Reefs. An Address delivered to the Scottish
Natural History Society at the Opening of the Session ~
1888-89, By J. G. Goodchild, of the Geological Survey,
F.GS., F.Z.S., Curator of the Collections of Scottish Geology
and Mineralogy in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and
Art, President, . os 3 3 : “ nae |

Natal and its Flora. By Mary Ross Cooper, L.L.A., - » 23

Notes on a Kitchen-Midden on Inchkeith. ale T8; Sprague; _
M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.E., . : ; oe af ae 2

Vestigial and Rudimentary Organs in Plants. By Mexandews
: Morton, B.A., B.Sc., : ; : Sete . 33

The Human Skeleton, with Notes on the Erect Attitude and its
Evolution. By David Hepburn, M.D., F.R.S.E., Lecturer on si
Regional Anatomy, University of Edinburgh. (Abstract), . 41 —

On some Surface Diatomacee from Hong-Kong Harbour. By pe
H. Scott-Lauder, Deputy Inspector-General, R.N.,° . _ 45

The Decrease and Increase of Certain Birds in Scotland, — PY the ~
Rev. H. N. Bonar, M.B.0.U., . : : : - 51

Loch Maree and West Ross. By David Russell, . : . 64

The Play of Animals. (Being for the most part a review of the
recent work of Groos.) By J. Arthur Thomson, M. A, F.RS. EB,
Professor of Natural History, Aberdeen pee eys : FF ee,

The Bird- Life of the Spey Valley. By Gants a Hinxman, ee 86 :

‘ aT wi.

Nature Notes, .

TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

JOTTISH NATURAL

HISTORY SOCIETY.

FOUNDED 1881. aM
VOL. L—PART II.

SESSION XIX.—1899-1900.

if
e EDINBURGH:
FOR ' THE. SOCIETY BY NEES AND CO., LTD.
’ Pi ata ae ks ‘a

e

TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

THE CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD.

By J. ArtHur Tyomson, M.A., F.R.S.E., Professor of
Natural History, Marischal College, University of Aberdeen.

(Read 6th April 1899. )

Ir I understand aright, one of the chief aims of our Society
is to promote the culture of the scientific mood. We
search after new facts and new truths, but our main
business here is rather, I think, to appreciate what has
been already gained. It is surely more important that we
should seek to understand the general geology of Arthur
Seat than that we should, after great pains, discover there
the trace of a mineral not previously recorded in the
district; more important that we should understand the
general life of birds than that we should detect the
occasional presence of a straggler in the Lothians; more
important that we should have some clear ideas in regard
to, say, plant associations, than expend our energies in
forming an opinion as to the species of bramble. Not that
we would overlook the importance and interest of the
unrecorded mineral, the bird-stragglers, the species of
bramble, or of any item of fact, but the recording of new
facts is hardly our primary business here. Our chief aim,
I think, is to help one another to unlock the doors of the
VOL. I. II

126 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON.

world around us; to help one another to a more thorough
scientific appreciation, first, of the Edinburgh, and then of the
Scottish life-area ; to work co-operatively towards a more and
more complete regional survey, and that not only for its own
sake, but as a means towards the culture of the scientific
mood.

In regard to the vexed question of publication of papers,
I am strongly convinced that what our society should aim
at is the gradual growth of, first, a portfolio, and then a book
—a co-operative work—which should be a regional survey
of the Edinburgh area.

Tue ScrENTIFIC Moop.

It is a commonplace that we occupy various attitudes in
relation to the world around us. There is the practical
mood concerned with the fundamental problem of multi-
plying loaves and fishes; the artistic mood which feels the
beauty of the world; and the scientific mood with its
incessant questions, “ What is this?” “Whence is this ?”
“How is this?” These and other moods are natural and
necessary expressions of the developing human spirit; they
should never be opposed to one another; they are saved
from exaggeration and vice when they are seen to be
complementary,—unified in a whole or healthy life, as
the different sets of rays in sunlight.

In thinking of some of the characteristics of the scientific
mood, we must, first of all, agree that it does not essentially
imply any particular knowledge of this or that science.
One of the most scientific men I know is almost quite
ignorant of all the concrete sciences, yet give him data and
a problem, and you soon discover that he is scientific in
every fibre of his mind.

It is a vulgar error that science is a peculiar kind of
knowledge. To say, “I am going in for science,” a phrase
which makes one shiver, is like saying I am going in for
breathing or for a good digestion. It reminds one of the
beadle who explained the generally backward state of men
and morals as due to the insidious spread of what he called
‘Thought, speaking of it as if it were a microbic disease.

THE CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 127

A PASSION FOR FActs.

As a first characteristic of the scientific mood I would
emphasise a passion for facts. The satire has it that the
scientific motto is “ first make sure of your facts, and then
distort them into a theory,” but this is too cynical. Our
motto is “ make sure of the facts,” and he must be very
charitable who thinks that this is a common habit; he must be
very slack with himself who thinks that it is easy. How
difficult it often is to get anything near the truth, how
difficult it is for anyone with even a dash of the artistic
mood to relate an occurrence accurately. Many children
pass through an interesting stage in which they fail to dis-
criminate between their dream-pictures and actual pictures.
Similarly, people who look a great deal at photographs
of places, may quite unconsciously say, “I was charmed
with the beauty of Aviemore,” though they never were
near it. We can thus understand the old naturalist-
travellers who mixed up in their diary what they really
saw and what the natives told them was to be seen.
Nor do we need to go back to ancient history to find
examples. But these are vices which the scientific mood
must fight against tooth and nail. There can be no
scientific progress without a passion for facts. Wasn’t it Dr
Chalmers with his big brain who used to interrupt a verbal
discussion, with the words “Give us a fact, man, give us
a fact!”

Apart altogether from its value intellectually, the dis-
cipline of the chemical balance, of analysis, of dissection,
of faithful drawing, is one of the most effective factors in
the evolution of truthfulness. Is not the scientific laboratory
one of the few places where it is perfectly good form to
tell one’s neighbour—even one’s senior—that the truth is
not in him ?

I believe with Agassiz that even a few weeks’ training
in natural science is one of the best preparations a man can
have for work in any department of life where accurate
carefulness and adherence to the facts of the case mean
anything.

128 PROF.: J. ARTHUR THOMSON.

Long ago Bacon said, “ We should accustom ourselves to
things themselves”; and this—to distinguish between
appearance and reality—is what the scientific mood seeks
after. Its emblem might be the Rontgen rays which
penetrate superficial obscurities; or Kipling’s mongoose
hiki-tiki-tavi, whose business in life it was to find out
precisely about things.

It was Huxley who spoke of “ that enthusiasm for truth,
that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession
than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of in-
creasing knowledge.” There can be no scientific progress
worthy of the name without this.

May I quote further a single sentence from Huxley’s
charming autobiography: “If [ may speak,” he says, “ of
the objects I have had in view since I began the ascent of
my hillock, they are briefly these: To promote the increase
of natural knowledge, and to forward the application of
scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life
to the best of my ability, in the conviction which has grown
with my growth and strengthened with my strength, that
there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except
veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing
of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe by
which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped
off.”

Every virtue has its vice, as every function its disease ;
so one cannot conceal that this passion for facts may become
a mania for information, and an intellectual intemperance.
Unskilful teaching or careless learning may result in mere
fat without muscle, or in the matter-of-fact man—one of
the most unscientific of persons—who ignores one of the
biggest of all facts—the reality of ideas.

Any mood may in extreme development become vicious,
and the passion for facts may imply violence to emotional
sanity, and disloyalty to the ideal of a full human life. In
his enthusiasm, in short, the student of science may deny
his manhood. The great embryologist Von Baer shut him-
self up when snow was upon the ground, and did not come
out again until the rye was in harvest. He was filled, he
says, with uncontrollable pathos at the sight. “The laws of

THE CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 129

development,” he wrote, “may be discovered this year or
many years hence—by me or by others—what matters it ?—
it is surely folly to sacrifice for this the joy of life which
nothing can replace.” J cannot well translate the pathos
of the simple German words, but he was a very sincere and
noble man, and his words ring true. Life is not for science ;
but science is for the development of life.

These are days of popularising in magazine article and
lecture platform—and much of this is justifiable and
healthy—but the sin easily besets us of depreciating the
dignity of a fact.

I would therefore note, at the risk of triteness, that a
passion for facts also implies seriousness, a “reverence for
what is beneath,” in Goethe’s words. It implies a respect
for facts when one gets them.

Though we need not be always scientific—for which we
are truly thankful—we must be scientific when we are
definitely proposing to be scientific. We cannot play at
the scientific mood.

“Science,” Bacon said, “is not a terrace for a wandering
and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair
prospect.”

What I mean by saying that we need not be always
scientific is simply that the scientific mood is sometimes
unnatural and irrelevant. To botanise upon our mother’s
grave is the classic illustration, but I may refer also to
the medical man’s discovery that Botticelli’s ‘ Venus,’ in
the Uffizi at Florence, is suffering from consumption, and
should not be riding across the sea in an open shell,
seantily clad.

CAUTIOUSNESS.

Following from the passion for facts, there is a second
characteristic of the scientific mood, namely, cautiousness,
or distrust of finality and dogmatism of statement.
Scotsmen have done well for the advancement of science—
they stand, I believe, far above the average in the 19th
century, perhaps this is in part because they are so ‘ canny,’

130 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON.

so unwilling to commit themselves unless they are sure.
It may even be that the excessive changeableness of Scotch
weather has helped to engender the scientific mood of
caution. Sometimes, indeed, this cautiousness becomes a
disease. I have heard three saving clauses in a single
sentence, and however we may differ as to the precise date
of its end it seems unnecessarily careful to speak of the so-
called 19th century.

No doubt the scientific mood must make hypotheses
or guesses at truth; the scientific use of the imagination
is part of our method. But what we have to guard
against is the insidious tendency to mistake provisional
hypotheses for full-grown theories, and, still worse, for
dogmas. As Mr Bateson has phrased it, we wish to
avoid “giving to the ignorant as a gospel, in the name of
science, the rough guesses of yesterday that to-morrow
should forget.”

As Prof. W. K. Brooks says in his interesting book
entitled The Foundations of Zoology—“The hardest of
intellectual virtues is philosophic doubt, and the mental
vice to which we are most prone is our tendency to believe
that lack of evidence for an opinion is a reason for
believing something else.” ... “Suspended judgment is
the greatest triumph of intellectual discipline.” As Huxley
said—and who has had the scientific mood more strongly
developed—“ The assertion that outstrips the evidence is
not only a blunder but a crime.”

The point is this:—just as burnt bairns dread the fire,
so the scientific mood, often deceived by hearsay evidence,
by incomplete induction, by the will-o-the-wisp glamour
of a fetching idea, by inference mixed up with observation,
and even by wilful falsehood, becomes more and more
cautious, distrustful, canny.

Perhaps you may think that I exaggerate the need for
caution, but it is not so. I take, for instance, from the
Daily Chronicle not very long ago, this cutting, to read
which may not be a waste of time :—

“A Monster MeEreorite.—A valuable addition to the
treasures of the Meteorological Section of the British
Museum is on the way from Australia. This is what is

THE CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 131

known as the ‘Bruce’ meteorite —a monster stranger
from the skies weighing close upon four tons. It has had
an interesting career. Where it came from, of course, no
man knoweth, but it fell at Murrangeng, in S. Australia,
Mr Bruce, who now lives in Scotland, bought it of a farmer,
who had no use for meteorites, for £2 for the purpose of
presenting it to the British Museum. The Government of
Victoria interested itself in trying to retain the curiosity,
and offered Mr Bruce £1000 for his rights, but the
Scotsman replied that ‘money would not buy it’; so
the article is now on the way over. It is composed of
almost pure iron, and is said to be the most rare specimen
of its sort in the world, though as to weight and
composition it does not beat the forty-ton meteorite said
to have been discovered by Sir John Ross in Greenland
in 1818. Another celebrated meteorite, the ‘ Cranbourne,
found in 1865 in Australia, which has been in England,
has been repurchased by the colony and returned.”

Now, to be quite frank, would we not have believed
this—those of us who are not experts on meteorites—
and yet it is absolute nonsense, a so-called ‘pure
fabrication from Fleet St. Of course, whenever this is
pointed out by the scientific person, we see that the
Government of Victoria never would have offered £1000
for a meteorite; that no Scot would ever have refused
the sum; and we see the vast improbability that any
treasure brought to England would be allowed to go away
again. But did we see these and other marks of falsity
—at first ?

Another aspect of the quality of cautiousness which
characterises the scientific mood is distrust of personal
bias in forming judgments. It should always be possible
to eliminate personal opinion from all scientific conclusions ;
their validity, in fact, depends upon this.

CLEARNESS OF VISION.

A third characteristic of the scientific mood is dislike
of obscurities, of blurred vision, of fogginess. We

132 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON.

instinctively discount the scientific abilities of the
student who always has his microscope wrongly focussed
and is satisfied with the ill-defined image; or of the
other whose dissection is invariably either mince or a
tangle; or of the other who is never quite sure whether
he knows a thing or not.

Ignorance is no particular reproach; we are all
dreadfully ignorant; the point is to know when we know
and when we don’t. It is one of the characteristics of
the scientific mood that it will have yes or no. “Do you
see it or do you not?” was the continual question of one
of the best teachers I have known. And if you see it,
what like is it, and how is it as it is?

A student of Agassiz’s relates how she was almost
brought to despair by the severe way in which that
great master, after giving her a specimen to study, came
day after day, and asked, with a cruel kindliness, “ Well,
what do you see now?” and then went away. But at
length the student saw something,—saw what was to be seen.

Those of the scientific mood are mainly trying to
construct a working thought-model of the outer world, to
form a mental image which will be a living picture, an
intellectual cinematograph. In other words, they would
make the world translucent,—as translucent as a few
animals are to every skilled biologist.

Can we shut our eyes and see the snail as it really is,
see its organs each in its proper place, see its blood
coursing, its muscles contracting, its cells waxing and
waning, its whirlpool of living matter ?—that is part of
the scientific picture of the snail, and yet only a part.

Can we shut our eyes and see the tree, as a whole,
with its wood and bast, its vessels and cells, all as they
are, its currents of sap up and down, its ceaseless change
from season to season ?—that is part of the scientific picture,
of the tree, and yet only a part.

It must not be thought, from my illustrations, that the
scientific mood has any particular relation to biology or to
any one order of facts. Many business men, who care
not a whit for science in the conventional sense, have the
scientific mood developed in great strength.

{HE CULTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC MOOD. 133

You remember Clerk Maxwell’s boyish question—“ What
is the go of this?”—and when put off with some vague
verbalism, “ But what is the particular go of this?” Such
a question applied to any order of facts is a mark of the
scientific mood.

The mole has a sort of half-finished lens, which is
physically incapable of throwing a precise image on the
retina. If there is any image, it must be a blurred tangle
of lines. In our busy lives, we tend to acquire mole-like
lenses in regard to particular orders of facts; we see certain
things clearly, others are blurs; but the scientific mood
is in continual protest against obscurities. It wearies us
with its insistence on lucidity.

SENSE OF INTER-RELATIONS.

A fourth characteristic of the scientific mood is a sense
of the inter-relations of things, The scientific mood
regards nature—the world—mankind—all—as a unity,
as a vibrating system most surely and subtly intercon-
nected. I mean, to put it more definitely, that the student
of biology, for instance, has hardly caught on at all, unless
he has a vision of the web of life, of the correlations of
organisms; of the links between old maids, cats, bees, and
clover-crop; earthworms and the world’s bread-supply ;
mosquitos and malaria; white ants and African agriculture ;
ivory ornaments and the slave trade. It is readily possible
to show a long chain connecting muddy manure with clear
thinking ; it is possible that the persecution of the walrus
is linked to the enthusiasm for cycling, and so on endlessly.
All these are MHouse-that-Jack-built puzzles until the
procession of causes is indicated, and then they become clear
as daylight—as possibilities (if not in all cases, actualities)
of inter-relation.

The scientific mood discloses a world of inter-relations,
a long procession of causes, a web of life, infinite sequences
bound by the iron chains of necessity. It may be that
another mood can transmute the metal so that the iron
bonds are seen as gold chains.

134 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

It should be carefully noted that those who have the
scientific mood do not venture to think that they can give
explanations of things, if by that is meant ultimate explana-
tion. The word ultimate does not occur in the scientific
dictionary. The biologist draws cheques, but they are
all endorsed protoplasm; the physicist’s bills are the
accepted, but only on the credit of the ubiquitous ether
or the mighty atom ; and these are conceptual hypotheses.

Science describes, analyses, discloses chains of sequence,
gives mediate explanations perhaps, but no ultimate explana-
tions. The man of scientific mood sees certain fractions
of reality which interest him; he seeks to see them as
clearly as may be, to put them in an ordered rational
-series; to reduce them to simpler terms, to find their
common denominator. Apart from his science he may
cherish the belief that some day the common denominator
may turn out to be the same as the philosopher’s greatest
common measure. J mean, as Fouillée says, that science
is a broken mirror whose reflections of reality philosophy
has to reunite.

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE.

An Address delivered before the Scottish Natural History
Society, July 6, 1899.

By Marton I. Newsicin, D.Se. (Lond. ).

THERE are perhaps few localities where the extraordinary
abundance of life is more striking than on the sea-shore.
From the birds which circle and cry overhead to the count-
less myriads of sandhoppers which spring up at every foot-
step, there seems to be life everywhere, life in a careless
and wanton profusion, the secret of which is known to the
sea alone. Nowhere else, in our climate at least, can one

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 135

hope to find such a number and variety of animals within a
limited area. It is, perhaps, remarkable therefore, that in
spite of our extensive coast line, and of our national love of
the sea, relatively so few people are interested in the life of
the sea-shore, even though many of the problems with which
modern biological science is most closely concerned are
perhaps more vividly illustrated there than anywhere else.
We have learned to believe that one of the most striking
characteristics of living things is the fact that they are
adapted to their surroundings, and change in harmony with
changes in their surroundings. But while in the case of
terrestrial animals there often seems to be great constancy of
environmental conditions, on the shore the changes are con-
spicuously vivid. Not only have we the periodical move- .
ments of the tides, and the less constant changes of storms,
but a careful study of any area shows that variation in the
physical conditions is always going on. Rocks which sup-
port an abundant fauna are overwhelmed by drifting sand,
and again new rock surfaces are uncovered. The currents
at the mouths of rivers are perpetually changing, and as
they change, the relative position of beds of mud and sand
change also. Though such changes may be sudden, at times
they are slow and gradual, and must give time for the
organisms to adapt themselves to the new conditions. The
shore is thus admirably adapted for the study of many
biological phenomena, especially those which can be investi-
gated without elaborate apparatus, and which are readily
accessible to all.

Without stopping to strictly define the meaning of the
word ‘shore, we may conveniently begin with that common-
place of observation which shows that all parts of the shore
area are not equally productive of life. It is true that
wherever the ebbing tide leaves bare long stretches of sand,
there will be found some of the inhabitants of the shore
waters, living or dead, according to the force of the waves
which have torn them from their rocky homes. But to find
these creatures in their natural condition we must forsake
the sandy beach for the weed-covered rocks left bare by the
tide. This is a very familiar fact, but the reason is perhaps
not altogether obvious. Consider for a moment what

136 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

happens when some change of current uncovers a ridge of
rock hitherto concealed by the sand. In such an area it is
easy to observe the gradual process of colonisation which
occurs. First come Alge of various kinds, the coarser
varieties being usually the first to gain a foothold. Then
acorn-shells and herbivorous molluscs make their appearance,
and as these thrive and multiply, they are followed. by
carnivorous whelks and star fishes. As the weeds grow,
crabs and other crustacea appear; and the new settlement
thrives apace until it contains most of the animals inhabit-
ing the parent area. How the animals reach the new area
is a question to which we shall return later, meantime we
are concerned with the causes which determine the gradual
process of colonisation, and the reason why it only occurs
where there is a solid substratum of some kind. We find
that in both cases the answer is very obvious, it is essentially
a question of food. Before shore animals can live and
multiply there must be an abundant supply of weed; for if
the flesh of all land animals is grass, the flesh of all marine
animals is sea-weed. Consider this for a moment in detail.
Periwinkles and limpets live on alge ; whelks, dog-whelks,
and their allies live on periwinkles, limpets, and similar
forms; the fish eat the whelks and dog-whelks; the seals
and porpoises eat the fish. So with any other chain of
organisms, the first link upon which all depend is always the
humble weed. Now the marine alge are not like land
plants, they have no true roots, and are able to obtain all
necessary food from the water; but save under exceptional
circumstances they cannot flourish without a firm substratum
to which they may attach themselves, and such a substratum
is furnished under ordinary conditions only by rocks.

Those who are botanists may, however, quite naturally
object that not all alge are large or attached, that the above
description leaves out of account the diatoms and numerous
other microscopic algze which form the basal article of diet
for the animals of the open sea, and which must also be an
important source of food for littoral animals. This is quite
true, and we have to include in the food supply of shore
animals, not only these microscopic alge, but also the
particles of various kinds swept into the sea by our rivers

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 137

which form a very important part of the diet of such
molluses as mussels and oysters. But before these two
kinds of food can be utilised by animals, we must again
have rocks on which the animals may settle down, for
practically all shore animals which feed on microscopic
particles are of relatively low organisation and sedentary
habit, unable to resist the force of shore currents by their
own activity, and therefore obliged to attach themselves
firmly to some base.

To recapitulate, shore animals are only found in number
and variety in the vicinity of rocks, first because many of
them are directly dependent upon the larger algze which can
only flourish on rocks; second, because the microscopic algz
and food particles in the water, which constitute the other
great food supply, can only be utilised by sedentary animals,
which must have a rock surface upon which to settle; third,
because all other shore animals depend for food upon these
two sets, and can only flourish where these are present in
abundance. It must not be supposed that these three sets
of animals are sharply marked off from one another, for
limpets and periwinkles consume a large amount of diatoms
as well as of the larger alge, and some carnivorous forms do,
upon occasion, eat weed; but it may be helpful to think of
the main sources of food in this way. By so doing it will
be obvious that one peculiarity of distribution is easily ex-
plained. If very many shore animals depend in whole or in
part on particles carried down into the sea by rivers and
streams, then such animals will tend to be more or less
sharply confined to the neighbourhood of the river mouths.
There are, in point of fact, numbers of animals’ which are
rarely abundant except in such localities. Among these are
many worms, some sea-squirts, mussels, oysters, and other
bivalves, together with many more active animals which prey
upon the sedentary forms. This fact is theoretically of
much interest and importance, but practically it is not of
very much value, for it was discovered long ago by the
founders of our sea-coast towns and fishing villages, and
most of these are placed near river mouths, so that in most
cases those parts of the shore which are subjected to detailed
investigation are likely to be near river mouths. Economists

138 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

are sometimes given to lament the wastefulness of our
modern systems of drainage, which carry off to the sea so
much which might be used on the land, but we must not
forget that this is not wholly loss, that it is largely on
account of it that our shore waters teem with such dense
life. Whether the organic substances swept down in the
river go directly to feed sedentary forms like worms and
bivalves, or whether they are broken down into simpler sub-
stances and ultimately taken up by the alge, they are equally
contributing to the increase of the larger forms of life, which
ultimately depend upon vegetarian or sedentary shore
animals.

From the above it is clear that the greatest variety
of shore animals is to be found about the weed-covered
rocks which fringe the coast in many places. As I desire
to speak only of such forms as may be observed in the
living condition in their natural haunts, we may consider
that for our purpose the ‘shore’ extends to the margin
of the Laminarian zone. The great oar-weed or Laminaria
is usually a very conspicuous object at the margin of
the rocks, and consists of long stout stems fixed at the
sea-bottom, and bearing long floating brown fronds at
the top. At low spring tides one may see the stems
standing out of water to a height of six inches or a foot,
and notice how the plants grow in a great belt at the
extremity of the rocks, the plants decreasing in size as
one approaches the shore. It is among the oar-weed that
the greatest treasures are to be found, and I shall count
as ‘shore’ the area from high tide mark to the landward
margin of the Laminarian zone. Of this area, however,
a considerable portion is accessible only at times of spring
tides, so that a Nautical Almanac is an important part
of one’s equipment for shore work. I shall not attempt
to give a list of the chief animals found in the shore area
as thus defined, even for our own district, but one remark
in the connection is worth making. That is, that pains-
taking shore-hunting continued throughout the year will
usually produce far more animals than any local list
would lead you to expect. The reason is pretty obvious,
for shore-hunting is hard work, often involving very

se

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 139

early rising and not a little fatigue, while dredging is
easy work, especially when, as often happens, someone
else does the hard work. John Hill Burton says that
the purchase of his first duplicate is the first terrible step
downwards of the book collector; and I am inclined to
think that his first dredging expedition is equally the
first step downwards of the shore-hunter. One may rise
up early—for the low spring tides have a dreadful habit of
coming at unreasonable hours—and spend several hours
toiling over stone-turning with but relatively little result;
while an hour’s dredging may produce a multitude of
interesting forms. In consequence, while many parts of
the coast have been systematically dredged, relatively few
have been subjected to a thorough investigation at low
water. To-night I shall confine myself entirely to the
results of shore-hunting, for there can be no doubt that
the beginner, at least, learns infinitely more from it, and
it is accessible to everyone, which dredging cannot be.

Then as to the kind of animals one is likely to find
on the shore as defined above. I should be inclined to
divide them into four more or less distinct sets :—

(1) The permanent residents—those with little or no
power of locomotion, which may be found between tide-
marks at all seasons of the year. Among these are sea-
anemones, many shell-fish, and hosts of others.

(2) The floating population—the animals with con-
siderable powers of locomotion—who are inhabitants of the
water about or among the rocks, and are trapped as it were
in the rock-pools when the water ebbs. Among these
are many fish and worms, the more active crustaceans
such as lobsters, prawns, and shrimps, and not a few others.

(3) The occasional visitors, those which are found
within the shore line occasionally or at certain seasons
of the year only. These are usually forms from deeper
water which come inshore to breed. Among these are
some fish, many molluscs including the large cuttles, many
crustacea and others. Many of these can be found in
abundance at certain seasons, and then disappear for the
rest of the year.

(4) The young or larval forms also found only at certain

140 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

seasons of the year; they are often hatched from the eggs
left by the preceding, and then quit the shore as they
approach adult life; or they may be the young of the true
shore forms, and then their disappearance is only apparent
and is due to their conversion into the adult form.

The classification is, of course, not a strict one, but it
is convenient to study the shore forms grouped under
some such heading. It is to be noticed also that the
classification refers only to the strictly marine forms. For
those who dishke wetting their feet, the shore contains,
in addition, many curious and interesting creatures. Over-

head the birds circle and cry, aud on the shore rocks many ,

species often occur together. If you are content with
humbler prey you will find that the uppermost rocks, those
rarely if ever washed by the spray, are crowded with
interesting forms. Among these are wingless insects, the
curious springtails, and strangest of all, down the deep
clefts, a very large ‘slater’ (Ligia oceanica) which
resembles superficially one of the extinct Trilobites,
which may perhaps be found fossilised in the same rocks.
Then there are the sandhoppers, many kinds of beetles,
ants, and numbers of other animals all to be found above
high water mark within a very limited area. These,
however, we shall neglect in favour of the true marine
forms.

1. Let us consider first the true permanent residents—
those adapted for life between tide-marks. Now I need
not remind you that the most universal and most striking
characteristic of living things is that they are adapted to
their surroundings—their environment. We must, there-
fore, ask what special peculiarities the surroundings of
shore animals display. We have already noticed the
abundant food supply, due, in part, to the drainage from
the land, in part to the abundant growth of weed in the
shallow shore waters. An even more striking peculiarity
in our part of the world is, however, the daily ebb and flow
of the tide. Twice in each twenty-four hours the waters
retreat and leave bare a great stretch of the shore, twice
they return, the breakers thundering on the rocks as they
advance. Sit on the rocks at North Berwick when there

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 141

is a good spring tide and a touch of east in the wind, and
you will understand that the shore animals must take
as their first motto “Grip fast.” Follow the retreating
waves backwards under a hot summer sun and you will
realise in the second place the necessity for a hard coat
or shell, or for some other protection against the risk of
drying up. A typical shore form must therefore first
protect itself from the force of the breakers, and, second,
against the strong summer sun or the frosts of winter when
the tide ebbs. There are many ways in which these two
ends may be attained, but perhaps the simplest is that
exemplified in the common limpet (Patella vulgata). The
limpets are usually the most conspicuous of shore animals
at low tide—tightly fixed to the surface of the rock they
seem indifferent to the absence of their natural element or
to any variation in temperature. But if you knock a
limpet off the rock on a summer’s day, or look at those
which the strong bills of the birds have knocked off, you
will notice that while a fresh limpet is always abundantly
moist on its under surface, one which has been exposed
even for a short period is hard and dried. You will notice,
also, that the under surface consists almost entirely of
a great muscle, called the foot, by means of which the
limpet clings to the rock. The limpet, therefore, solves
its two problems in the simplest possible fashion. When
the tide rises it wanders forth in search of food, when it
ebbs it returns to its own particular niche in the rock. In
some way which is not well understood, it hollows out
the rock so that the shell fits closely into a depression.
The large foot and the conical -shell give great clinging
power, while the density of the shell prevents loss of water
by evaporation through it. Though the sun beat down
or the breakers dash over the rock, the limpet is safe.
From the birds, however, it is not safe. They dislodge
it by a sudden blow of the beak, and turning over the
shell, devour its inhabitant at their leisure. Against such
attacks the limpet can do nothing. Compare with it
the periwinkles and dog whelks also so abundant on the
shore rocks. They have nothing like the clinging power

of the limpet, and on any sudden alarm prefer to drop from
VOL. I. 12

142 MISS MARION I, NEWBIGIN.

their attachment rather than to cling more closely; but in
their case the shell is coiled, is large enough to admit of
the whole animal being withdrawn into it; and further, the
foot carries an operculum or shutter by means of which the
mouth of the shell can be closed. This operculum not
only protects the animal from attacks, but also prevents the
evaporatiou of water, and so diminishes the risk of drying
up.

Limpets and periwinkles may be taken as types of those
shore animals which protect themselves from the danger of
drying up by their thick shells, which also protect them
from the force of the waves and the other untoward in-
fluences of shore life. So well sheltered are they that they
make no attempt to hide themselves from the summer suns
or the frosts of winter, but may always be seen fully ex-
posed to view whenever the tide ebbs. But everyone
knows that it is only relatively few animals which expose
themselves so freely, most have to be searched for diligently.
If this aspect of the matter has never struck you, you will
find it instructive to take a faunal list, such as Herdman
and Leslie’s Fauna of the Forth, and go down with it to the
shore and see how many of the animals named in it you can
find without an elaborate search. If we prohibit stone-
turning or the lifting up of weed, your list will, I think,
be short enough. In other words, relatively few animals
are hardy enough or well protected enough to expose them-
selves freely; most seek concealment, shelter both from
their physical and their, organic environment. The means
of concealment are many; we can look only at a few of
them. One of the most effective is perhaps the habit of
burrowing. A burrowing animal obtains protection from
the waves, save in great storms. It obtains permanent
moisture, a more or less even temperature, and is safe from
the versecution of most organic foes. The list of benefits
is so long that it is no wonder that so many different kinds
of animals have acquired burrowing habits. We can
mention only a few of them. If you stoop under over-
hanging ledges of rocks, or turn over weed-incrusted stones,
you may often see numerous round holes from each of
which a bright red star protrudes. Touch the stars and

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 143

each instantly disappears, ejecting a forcible jet of water
as it does so. If by means of hammer and chisel you follow
the stars into the rock, you find that they are siphons or
breathing tubes of a little white-shelled bivalve, called
Saxicava, on account of its rock-boring habit. High up on
the shore you may often find dry stones riddled with the
burrows of Saxicava, with the dead shells still sticking in
them. Such stones are often carried away as ornaments to
rockeries. Notice that Saxicava remains permanently with-
in its burrow. When the stones are covered by the water
it protrudes its red tubes, and through them both breathes
and feeds. When the tide ebbs or enemies threaten, it with-
draws the tubes and is safe. Not a few shore molluscs
are rock-borers, passing all their lives within tunnels of
their own making.

Far more numerous, however, are the burrowers in sand,
which, if it does not form so secure a resting-place as the
solid rock, is one more easily obtained, and is taken ad-
vantage of by many animals. Some of you may object to
the word ‘many,’ for you may have watched children digging
for hour after hour, and noticed how rarely they come upon
a living creature. But the explanation is simple enough.
Animals which live in sand usually live on sand, and can
therefore only flourish in sand which contains abundant
organic particles. These are often conspicuously absent
from the long clean stretches of beach most favoured by
children, which are thus unsuited for the support of animal
life. Slightly muddy sand near low-tide mark will often
yield an abundant harvest to a patient digger. Some
common sand burrowers may be mentioned as examples.
Most abundant are, of course, the worms—the fishermen lob-
worm (Arenicola), the rag-worms (Werine), and many others.
Then near low-tide mark one may find the interesting
heart-urchins (Zehinocardium), the spines with a beautiful
golden tint quite absent in specimens found dead and dried
on the beach. Many molluscs also occur, such as cockles
(Cardium), otter shells (Zutraria), old maid sheils (Mya), all
to be found in the living active condition. Among the
rarer finds are burrowing sea-anemones (Peachia), and that
curious worm-like Holothurian, known as Synapta. These

144 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

are only a few of the animals which seek food and safety
by burrowing in sand.

Then there are many other shore animals which do not
actually burrow and are not fixed, but which, when the tide
ebbs, creep into dark and shady corners, among weeds and
stones, in search of moisture and safety from keen-eyed foes.
It is in search of these that the shore-hunter diligently
turns stones and creeps under overhanging rocks, where the
weeds drip and the sea-squirts eject their tiny jets of water.

Before we leave these interesting forms one other point
must be touched on. We have seen that they are
characterised generally by their sedentary habits, are
often fixed, and can rarely travel any considerable distance.
But we have already seen that when any change of current
uncovers a stretch of rocks hitherto covered, that these
rocks speedily become colonised with the common forms.
How do these reach the new area? Let us take a concrete
example. In many parts of the Clyde the piers are
densely covered with sedentary animals, which clothe the
supports almost throughout their whole leneth. If one
goes out in a boat at a low tide and rows in among the
wooden supports of Keppel pier, Millport, for example,
the spectacle which discloses itself is one not soon to be
forgotten. Each pile is clothed from low-water mark to
base with a forest of giant sea anemones, animated flowers
with their myriad tentacles swaying gently in the current,
their colours of snowy-white, brilliant orange and pale
yellow thrown up by the background of crimson weed
and delicately tinted zoophytes, while in and out of that
fairy forest the silver-sided fish dart, suddenly disappearing
as the shadow of the boat falls over their dim water world,
and then as suddenly reappearing. It is one of those
sights which repay the shore naturalist for many a wetting
and many a fruitless hunt. The special point of interest
at present, however, is the question how the anemones
got there. The pier is very modern, and the anemones
are at least rare at other parts of the shore. The answer
explains the distribution of shore forms generally. Almost
all such sedentary forms produce active free-swimming |
Jarve, which are usually minute, and which are swept by

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 145

the currents to new localities. In order that new and
favourable localities may be reached, nature seems willing
to sacrifice thousands of larve, if perchance a few may be
saved, Further, that the favouring locality may be
utilised to the full, not a few of the purely sedentary
forms have two modes of reproduction. They bud freely,
the buds remaining attached to the parent or in the
immediate vicinity. They also produce active larve which
may insure the distribution of the species to fresh fields
and pastures new.

To sum up, the purely littoral forms are sedentary in
their habits, and have usually means of protection against
the force of the breakers and the risk of drying up. Almost
all have free-swimming minute larve, and many in addition
possess the power of budding. These forms live in
situations where they are exposed to the atmosphere for
several hours daily. They are often very tolerant of fresh
water, and are of great interest from the point of view of
the evolutionist, because it is probable that from such forms
both fresh water and terrestrial animals originated.

2. The second set of shore animals includes those which
rarely, if ever, leave the water of their own accord, which
have considerable powers of locomotion, and which are
to be found in the nooks and crannies of the rock pools.
As examples of these I shall take chiefly some of the
common shore fish and the common crustacea. The
crustacea, and especially the larger forms, are usually
beautiful in colour and interesting in both their ways
and their structure. The more specialised forms may
be divided into two sets—those like the lobster, which
have a long tail used in swimming; and the crabs, where
the tail is very short. It may perhaps be said that the
erabs have no tail at all, but if you examine a common
crab closely you will find that it has a short tail which
is carried permanently bent inwards. Now part of the
interest of our shore crustacea is that not only are there
true long-tailed forms like prawns and lobsters, and
true short-tailed forms like the crabs, but there are
numerous forms intermediate between the two. Take
first the prawns; they are not common on the shore,

146 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

their true habitat being in deep water, but now and again
the ring-horned prawn (Pandalus annulicornis) does occur
in shore pools. It is a most beautiful creature, with
a translucent body flecked and marked with bright crimson,
and with long feelers ringed with the same tint. Watch
it or any of its allies in a clear pool, and you will see
that its usual method of locomotion is by leisurely
swimming. On an alarm it can dart backwards swiftly
enough by a sudden flexion of the tail, but the legs are
too slender to make walking on the bottom easy. It is
a true swimmer, adapted for deep water and not for the
bottom. Occasionally among the rocks, far out, one
encounters another equally esteemed crustacean — the
common lobster. It is much shyer than the prawns,
and prefers to hide in rock crevices with merely the great
claws exposed, rather than to come out in the open, but
there is no difficulty in seeing that it is essentially a
creeping and not a swimming form. On an alarm it
darts backwards, like the prawn, with extraordinary
swiftness, but when undisturbed it prefers walking to
any other method of locomotion, The lobster and the
prawn are relatively rare shore animals, but the next
form, the beautiful little Galathea, is exceedingly common.
Common as it is, however, it is not very often seen, and
is not easy to catch, for it is a past master in the art of
playing ‘puss-in-the-corner” You may satisfy yourself
that a pool contains several specimens, and may succeed
in locating a particular specimen in a dark corner. But
while you are meditating your plan of campaign, there is
a sudden flash, and the Galathea is derisively twiddling his
whiskers at you from another more inaccessible corner.
Even if you make a lucky grab, and seize him by his great
claw, he is not a whit disconcerted, but forthwith shakes
off the claw and departs. If by patience and perseverance
you ultimately outwit him, and transfer him safe and
sound to your collecting bottle, you find that he is not
unlike a little lobster, the chief difference being that the
tail is kept permanently bent. Locomotion is chiefly
by walking, but the tail is used as a swimming organ
in the sudden darts across the pool. In several respects

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 147

Galathea approaches the crabs more nearly than the true
long-tailed forms. In the same pools, under stones or
clinging to weed, you will find a near ally of Galathea—the
minute porcelain crab, or crab-lobster. It is a little
creature of crab-like. shape, with a tail much more
sharply bent than that of Galathea. It uses its legs almost
exclusively for locomotion; but if you keep specimens
in confinement you will notice that occasionally, especially
if attacked by other crustacea, it unfolds the tail and
uses it aS a swimming organ. The strokes are feeble
and slow, and do not carry it any considerable distance,
but some trace of the swimming power still remains.
Now all these belong to the highest group of crustacea,
and of them there can be no doubt that the prawns and
their allies are the most primitive. When the others
forsook the deep water for the shore or the sea-floor
they ceased to require the power of swimming, and the
tail with its organs tended to be reduced. The lobster,
Galathea, and the porcelain crab show successive stages
in this reduction, and in the decrease of the swimming
power. But this reduction may take place in two ways.
The tail may be tucked in, as in crabs and porcelain crabs,
or it may undergo reduction without becoming in-turned.
This last is what has happened in the hermit crabs, who
are forced to appropriate molluse shells to cover their
soft defenceless tails. In them all power of swimming
is of course lost, and locomotion is entirely dependent on
the walking legs. The hermits, like the true crabs, can
thus not escape their enemies by sudden swift movements,
and to a greater extent even then the crabs have to depend
_ upon passive means of resistance. In fact, when alarmed,
they retract themselves suddenly into their burrowed
house, and there wait till the danger passes by. The
hermit crabs are interesting in many ways. They often
form partnerships with other animals, such as worms and
sea-anemones, with whom they live in mutual friendship,
Most curious of all, perhaps, is their habit of perpetual
flitting. Whether they change houses constantly, under
natural conditions, I don’t know; but in confinement they
are possessed of unlimited restlessness, and will go on

148 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

moving from shell to shell, utterly regardless of the
question whether the new shel] is more or less commodious
than the old.

Above the hermits we come to the true crabs, of which
there are many kinds. Most abundant is the common
shore crab, which lives anywhere and everywhere, is
indifferent to a considerable freshening of the water, and
will survive all other animals in confinement. When attacked
it will ‘sham dead’ with the utmost patience, and then
scuttle off with much more rapidity than one would expect.
Its relative, the edible crab, on the other hand, when
alarmed, tucks its legs under its broad shell, buries
itself in the sand, and offers to the enemy nothing but a
broad expanse of hard red carapace. It is a much shyer
form than the shore crab, and much less often seen, though
it also is very abundant. Then we have the spider crabs,
stupidest and slowest of creatures, who let the sea-grass
grow, not only under their feet but on their backs, and
trust to Providence that no one will see the living crab
beneath the flourishing forest of weed. In confinement they
behave like caddis-worms, and carefully decorate themselves
with any weed there happens to be in the tank in which
they are living. Many of them have extraordinarily long
lecs and move them with the utmost deliberation. They
all have eight legs, in addition to the great claws, so to get
all these legs moved is a work of considerable time. One
of the spider-crabs (Hyas araneus) is exceedingly common
on the shore, but its shy habits and its coat of weed,
zoophytes and sponges, prevent it being often seen except when
specially hunted for. The larger crustacea of the shore are,
to my mind, one of the most interesting of groups, not only
because they live so well in captivity, but also because
their structure is so easily made out and so well repays
study.

As to the fishes of the shore, besides those which come in-
shore to lay their eggs, there are not a few which are to be
found all the year round. Commonest among these is the
common Blenny, sometimes called the ‘miller’s thumb, a
pretty little fish with an unusually large head. In the
deeper pools the sea-scorpions, with their beautiful colouring

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 149

and strong spines, are nearly always to be found. Beautiful
creatures as they are, it is not wise to attempt to handle
them, for the spines are strong and sharp. Occasionally
stranded in the pools, one may find an Angler or Fishing
Frog, a curious, ugly creature, with dangling filaments or
lures on its head. Its proper home is the sandy bottom,
where it lies half buried, with the dangling lure only
exposed. The little fish come up to see what the strange
thing may be, then the great mouth opens, and the little
fish pay the penalty of rash curiosity, and are seen no more.
Much more common on the rocks are the flat-fish or soles,
which are also sand-loying forms, are marked so as to
closely resemble the sand, and curiously flattened from side
to side, so that the surface upon which they rest is not
really the lower but one of the sides. Another not un-
common shore form is the viviparous blenny, interesting
because it does not lay eggs, but gives birth to living
young.

3. All these forms live habitually about or among the
rocks, and constitute with many others what I have called
the floating population; but there are others which only
appear at certain seasons, often in vast numbers, and then
disappear again almost completely. These I call the
occasional visitors. For example, in the early part of the
year, in February and March, the rocks at various parts of
the Firth of Forth are literally whitened by countless
numbers of a little sea-slug (Doris bilamellata) and its
spawn. I do not say that it is entirely absent at other
seasons of the year, but it is certainly not abundant. It
must, therefore, be a migratory form, and live usually beyond
low-tide mark. Similarly, many other sea-slugs, and among
them the more delicate and beautiful forms, are only found
during their spawning seasons, and then apparently disappear
completely. The large cuttle Ommastrephes also appears
often in numbers in early spring, when it lays its eggs at
the margin of the rocks, and is then not found again till the
next spring. It is, however, perhaps the fishes which show
this phenomenon in the most striking way, for they are
often powerful swimmers, and the migrations may be ex-
tensive.

150 MISS MARION I. NEWBIGIN.

There is one very common fish whose movements always
seem to me of great interest. This is the lumpsucker

(Cyclopterus lwmpus), which appears in the rock pools in
- the spring, usually in March or April. There one often
finds the great unwieldy creature half uncovered by water,
with its nose pressed against a mass of bright orange eggs.
When I first beheld a lumpsucker in this uncomfortable
position I was seized with compassion, and, hastily conclud-
ing that it was a female left stranded by the tide, carefully
carried it out to the open water. But, mark the dangers
of unregulated humaunitarianism, I learnt afterwards that it
was the male and not the female, and that he had taken
upon himself the task of watching those eggs until they
hatched, while the thoughtless mother had taken her
departure to the open sea. Prof. M‘Intosh states that he
once watched a marked male for six weeks, and he seemed
to never leave his post, but was always to be found at every
low tide, often almost wholly uncovered by the water.
Now the breeding time is in spring, when gales are pre-
valent; and the lumpsucker, though it possesses considerable
power of attaching itself by means of a ventral sucker, is a
feeble swimmer. In consequence, it is not infrequently
swept from its situation by the storms of spring and cast
up to die on the beach. It is not uncommon, after a severe
March storm, to see hundreds of lumpsuckers on the beach,
so that the paternal devotion is paid for at a heavy price.
If we ask what good it is, and why such an instinct should
persist at the expense of so constant and so heavy an
elimination, I do not know what the answer is. The only
animals which I have seen to attack the eggs on the large
scale are the sea-gulls, who often break off and carry away
great masses of them, One cannot suppose that the lump-
sucker can defend the eggs against so powerful a foe,
Another set of fish in which the males have similar habits
are the sticklebacks, but their instincts, as is well known,
are more elaborate than those of the lumpsuckers, for they
actually weave a nest for the eggs. The fifteen-spined
stickleback is often found in rock pools, and is the largest
and handsomest of our British forms.

4, The last set of shore animals we shall consider are the

THE LIFE OF THE SEA-SHORE. 151

young or larval forms usually only to be found at certain
seasons of the year. These are often exceedingly minute,
and only to be seen with a lens, but others are quite visible
to the unaided eye. Of the larger forms the young fish are
perhaps the most interesting. During the summer months
young lumpsuckers are always to be found, and are both
prettier and more active than the adults. These are
prettily marked with a light streak of colour behind the
eye, while the end of the tail fin is perfectly transparent so
that the body has a curiously truncated appearance. They
swim about actively enough, but-every now and then attach
themselves by the sucker and then tuck their tails around
their large heads in a way which makes them difficult to
pick out among the weed. The effect is very curious.
One may watch a pool for some time, and note the little fish
swimming actively about, then suddenly they .seem to
disappear, for in the attached resting position with the
flexed tail they are very difficult to make out. The rock
pools in summer contain also shoals of young fish of other
species, often perfectly colourless and transparent so that
the heart can be seen quite clearly and its beating watched.
Then in their season one finds the young of the shore crabs,
curious little large-eyed, long-tailed creatures which swim
with their tails as did the ancestors of the crabs. Quite
as curious are the tadpole-like larve of the sessile sea-
squirts, and hosts of other forms of great interest to those
interested in problems of origins. It is, however, impossible
to discuss these in detail to-night, and if I have succeeded
in any degree in arousing your interest in the inhabitants
of the crowded shore area, I can only urge you in con-
clusion to allow that interest to induce you to make actual
excursions to the shore, and there you will find much more
than this slight sketch can suggest, of pleasure and in-
struction.

12 MR GOODCHILD.

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS.

By Mr GoopcuiLp, H.M. Geological Survey, F.G.S., F.ZS.,
Curator of the Collections of Scottish Geology and
Mineralogy in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and
Art, Past President of the Society.

(Read 4th May 1899.)

THERE are various prevalent misconceptions regarding the
nature and mode of origin of Agates. Foremost amongst
these is the common idea that they are of the same nature
as the stones in a conglomerate, an error which the title
“ Pebble,’ so commonly applied to them, has done much to
perpetuate. Next to that, perhaps the commonest miscon-
ception amongst those who realise something of the true
nature of an agate, is that they represent materials carried
into cavities through one or more small holes in their side.
A third idea of an erroneous nature in regard to agates is,
that they have been formed in somewhat the same way as
amber, except that they inclose fragments of moss or of
other plants, instead of flies.

Instead of making any further reference to these popular
fallacies, it may be as well to state here at once, that agates
are purely inorganic in origin; that they are not in any way
due to causes of a mechanical nature as true pebbles are;
that they are of later date than the rock in which they
occur; that they have been filled by materials in solution,
which have made their way into perfectly closed cavities
through the solid rock by which those cavities are
surrounded ; and lastly, that they never enclose organic
bodies.

Putting these statements in yet another form, it may be
said that agates consist of chalcedonic matter, derived from
the silica of rocks which formerly occurred above the point
where the agates are now. . The materials have been carried
into pre-existent cavities, which were formed by the libera-
tion of gases or vapours in a cooling eruptive rock, usually

a ae

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 153

in a lava; and the transporting agent has been, in all cases,
water, percolating through the rock from above downwards.
The aqueous solutions in all true agates have made their
way into the cavity through its stony walls, and not through
any chink or hole in the side. Lastly, the outer layers
of the agate are usually the older, and those nearest the
centre are those formed last.

Agates are generally confined to rocks of one or two
definite kinds. Asa rule, they occur in andesites, which
are lavas containing but little potash, usually almost none;
which, further, contain a fairly large percentage of felspar,
usually the lime-soda felspar known as Labradorite, in
association with which occurs a relatively small percentage of
the ferro-magnesian silicate Augite. I know at present of no
agate-bearing rock in which the mineral Olivine occurs, nor
of one in which Quartz is an original constituent. Referring
this to chemical composition, one may say that agates are
rare (or perhaps never occur) in rocks in which the percen-
tage of silica present in the unaltered rock rises about 50
per cent., or falls below 45. Furthermore, it is only under
special conditions, regarding the exact nature of which we
probably have yet much to learn, that agates are developed
even in the rocks of which the composition is suitable. As
illustrative of this may be mentioned the fact that agates
are of very rare occurrence, and, indeed, in their typical
form, are unknown, in the Ordovician andesites of the
English Lake District, Wales, and Scotland; nor do they
occur in that form in the numerous andesite lavas of
Carboniferous age in Scotland. Nor again, have they been
recorded from the many andesite lavas which form a large
number of the voleanic rocks now in process of formation
in many parts of the world. These facts appear to suggest
that there may be some factor concerned in the formation
of agates whose precise nature has not hitherto been sus-
pected, even by Dr Heddle, who did so much to advance our
knowledge upon this particular subject. As this address
proceeds, I hope to be able to indicate what the precise
nature of that particular factor may be. But for the present
there are several points which need a fuller explanation
before we can deal with theoretical considerations.

154 MR GOODCHILD.

The Shapes of Agates are determined by somewhat com-
plex causes—mainly by the degree of liquidity, or of vis-
cosity, of the lavas, the degree of pressure exerted at the
platform in which they are found, the rate of flow of
the lava, and by some few other causes. In a few in-
stances a forward movement of the rock has been made
after the enclosing walls of a cavity have consolidated. In
such cases the cavity may be sheared in two, with its sepa-
rated portions not quite conformable to their counterparts.
When such a cavity becomes filled with an agate this appears
to be faulted. Some very remarkable examples of these are
to be seen in the Scottish Mineral Collection in Edinburgh ;
while Mr Thoms of St Andrews, and Mr R. Miln of the
same city, possess examples equally good.

Taking it for granted that the chalcedonic materials of
agates represent silica which has been carried into the closed
vapour cavities of eruptive rocks by aqueous action, we
have next to inquire where that silica came from, and how
it found its way into solution.

The first point to remember is, that eruptive rocks
consist mostly of natural silicates, that is to say, of various
bases—alumina, magnesia, lime, soda, iron, etc., in combina-
tion with silica. Chemical action, which breught about the
union of these, is competent also to effect their liberation.
One of the most important agents concerned in bringing
about such changes of composition is water weakly charged
with various compounds. The solutions, being usually very
weak, take a correspondingly long time to act. Of these
solutions one of the most important originates in connec-
tion with the products of decomposition of organic matter
at the surface. Plants, under the stimulating action of
sunlight, extract carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere, and
eventually fix it as one or other of the carbon compounds in
the solid form of their own tissues. When the plants die,
they are at once attacked by bacteria, which end by con-
verting the plant tissues into other compounds of carbon, much
of which eventually goes back again into the atmosphere in
the original form of carbon-dioxide. At the intermediate
stage in the process of conversion, certain organic acids are
formed. These are the Humus Acids. They are readily

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 155

soluble in surface waters; so that when rain falls upon the
ground, it usually takes up these acids in some variable
but usually small proportion. Armed with these Humus
Acids the surface waters gradually percolate downward into
the rocks, slowly setting up important chemical changes as
they go. In this, and indeed in many other natural pro-
cesses with which the geologist has to deal, the essential
feature appears to be that the work shall be carried on with
the aid of very weak solutions, whose operation is prolonged
through very lengthy periods of time. The weak solutions
of Humus Acids in surface water slowly dissolve out certain
of the constituents of the rock, and gradually transfer them,
in very minute quantities at a time, to lower and lower levels
within the solid rock. One of the earliest substances to be
set free from the solid state is soda, which in an andesite
may form as much as 7 per cent. of the whole rock. Now,
even in domestic matters, it is well known that cut glass
which has been kept in contact with water containing soda,
for even a few days, becomes sensibly roughened. This is
only another way of stating the fact that the surface of the
glass has been slightly dissolved away by the soda solution.
Chemists, dealing with the same subject in another way, are
only too well aware of the fact of the solvent action of alka-
line water upon glass; and they know that there will always
be a certain quantity of silica in solution in alkaline water
which has been left even a short time in a glass vessel.

What happens to the artificial silicate, glass, when acted
upon by water containing an alkali, happens also with the
natural silicates, of which lavas mainly consist. It is true
that in the course of a human life-time the quantity of rock
dissolved by this means may be so small as to be almost
imperceptible ; yet, given time enough, these alkaline solu-
tions, originating through the action of bacteria, are competent
to bring about the decomposition of whole mountain masses.
As a matter of fact, they have been the chief agent con-
cerned in accomplishing that end many times over in the
world’s history.

One of the difficulties that will occur to most people in
thinking over this matter is how it comes about that water
can percolate through the solid mass of a hard and close-

‘

156 MR GOODCHILD.

grained rock. The explanation of this is, of course, that
every solid is more or less permeable. Nay, more; many
solids are permeable in different degrees, not only to gases,
or to fluids, but even to other solids. To illustrate this
general principle it is well to reflect upon what would happen
if one were to pack a box tightly full of golf balls, and
were then to pour, say, some peas upon it. With a little
jolting most of the peas would find their way down into the
spaces between the golf balls; and if one were afterwards to
shake a quantity of dry sand over the whole, the sand, in
its turn, would all go in out of sight too. After the box
was filled to the brim with all of these, one could still pour
in a large quantity of water. And even after the box was
apparently quite filled with the four it would still be possible to
introduce other fluids without causing the water to overflow.
Indeed, it would be difficult to state exactly when the ab-
solute limit had been reached. The illustration will serve
to show that the term “solid” is a relative term; and that
there are few, if any, substances, however compact to the eye,
that are not pervious to some extent by something else.

So these weak aqueous solutions of silica jelly gradually,
and with extreme slowness, make their way downward
through the hard and close-grained rock, working their way
to lower and lower levels as time goes on.

What happens when a cavity is met with can well be
illustrated by reference to a common and well-known fact :—
When rain water leaks through the slating of a roof it
usually carries with it more or less soot and dust in suspen-
sion, or, in other words, it is dirty. The dirty water soaks
into the back of the plaster of the ceiling, and, after a time,
oozes through. If it come in in small quantities at a time
the dirty water soaks into the ceiling right and left of the
place of entry; and when the water dries up it leaves a
dirty stain on the face of the plaster. Supposing now that
this process is repeated many times, and that the water
containing matter in suspension time after time makes its
way through the plaster and deposits its dirty matter, coat
upon coat, on the ceiling, it will be obvious that the last
coat deposited would be left nearest the floor of the room,
and the first one nearest the ceiling; and that if the process

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 157

is only continued long enough, quite a thick deposit may
accumulate, all of which may cling firmly to the ceiling.

Suppose, now, that the quantity of dirty rain water
leaking in on any one occasion may be enough to wet the
ceiling outward to the plaster of the walls. In that case
the stain will affect the plaster of the walls too. Note,
further, that unless the quantity exceeds a certain amount,
not a drop from the leak will descend to the floor—the
ceiling and the walls will hold it all up. The principle
upon which this depends is one of great importance in the
making of agates, as well as in numerous other departments
of Nature’s operations. It is customary now to refer to the
attractive force which makes the water cling to the plaster
instead of dropping on to the floor as Surface Energy or
Surface Tension. It is the same cause which makes it so
difficult to pour tea out of certain teapots without letting
that fluid fall outside the tea cups. Ladies, when pouring
out tea, have come, by force of habit, to give the teapot a
slight jerk at the instant of beginning to pour out the tea.
This gives Gravitation a little advantage at the outset, and
turns the balance against Surface Tension, which is doing its
best to make the fluid adhere to the surface of the teapot,
and therefore to flow in connection with it as far as the
shape of the surface permits. To put this into other words,
the surface energy between the tea on the one hand, and
the air and the surface of the teapot on the other, are
sufficient to overcome Gravitation. If a teapot of a
different kind were to be used it would probably be found
that the result varied. So, too, if a different fluid were
employed in the same teapot the result again would be
different. In other words, the degree of surface energy
between fluid and solid varies with the nature of each,
and is probably not quite alike in any two cases. The
principle thus illustrated is of the highest importance in
the process of making an agate.

In the actual process of agate growth it very commonly
happens that the first coat or priming received by an agate
consists of a film of one of the group of decomposition-

products arising from the alteration of Augite by the aetion
VOL. I. 13

158 MR GOODCHILD.

of percolating water. We may speak of these collectively
as the Green Earths, seeing that they are somewhat earthy
in character, are not quite definite in their chemical com-
position, and are usually green of some sort or other. A
common Scottish variety of these Green Earths was identi-
fied by Dr Heddle as Celadonite. In the case of most
(perhaps of all) Scottish agates, these Green Earths are the
first materials to be carried in. Usually they uniformly line
the whole of the interior of the cavity, but the priming
is of variable thickness in different cases, and it appears
to be reduced almost to nothing in some localities, while
elsewhere it may go on until the cavity is quite filled.

It commonly happens that the conditions for the formation
of the Green Earth Layer cease at that level within the
rock at an early period, by which time another kind of
solution, due probably to the decomposition of part of the
felspars, has worked its way down to the level just before
occupied by its predecessor. Then these solutions begin to
percolate through the rock, through the walls of the cavity,
and thence to the inner face of the Green Earth. Here a
second deposit takes place. Like its predecessor it may be
very thin or almost absent, or its deposition may be con-
tinued for a long time, or may even go on until the whole
cavity is filled. Usually this mineral differs from the Green
Earth in that it passes, at an early stage, into the crystalline
condition. Its nature varies within wide limits, but chemi-
cally it is always a hydrous non-magnesian silicate, and,
mineralogically it forms one of the family of Zeolites.
After a time the solution from which the Zeolite Layer
is deposited gradually follows its predecessor to a lower
level, and the conditions which gave rise to that special
kind of solution are hardly ever even temporarily repeated,
and then only to give rise to a sporadic deposit.

At this stage, the weak solutions of silica jelly which
have been slowly making their way down through the solid
rock in the rear of the former two begin to arrive at the
level just before occupied by the solution from which the
Zoolite layer was deposited. Then the jelly begins to trans-
fuse through the walls of the cavity, through the priming
of Green Earth, and through the Zeolite Layer, upon the

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 159

inner surface of which it begins to be deposited, coat upon
coat uniformly following all the ins and outs of the sur-
face, just in the same manner as the soot and dirt carried
in through the leak in the roof uniformly stains or coats
all the mouldings and irregularities of the plaster, in the
case above referred to. In course of time a deposit of
Chalcedony, also of uniform thickness, coats the inner face
of the Zeolite Layer. As in both of the former cases, the
deposition of the Chalcedony may go on without any im-
portant interruption until coat after coat is laid on, and the
whole cavity becomes completely filled. More often, in fact
usually, a change arises at an early stage in this part of the
process, and some new features of great interest arise.
These may now be noted in some detail.

One of these features is connected with the fact that
the Green Earth does not adhere very firmly to the walls of
the cavity. As a matter of fact, it is an easy matter
to scrape the whole of it from the surface upon which it
was deposited. This feeble adhesion sometimes leads to
the Green Earth being detached during the ingress of the
first Chalcedony solution. If we carry our illustration of
the effects of a leaky roof a step further, and imagine that the
plaster ceiling has been papered before the leak began, it will
serve very well to illustrate the point in question. The rain-
water soaking in gradually softens the paper of both the
ceiling and the walls, so that it becomes detached in places,
and hangs downward in tattered shreds and rags. Upon
these ragged and torn shreds of paper the dirty water
gradually makes its way down, eventually staining the paper
as the water dries up. Imagine that process repeated many
times, and it will be easy to understand how the rags of paper
would become coated on all sides with quite a measurable
thickness of the staining material. Indeed, if one could
conceive of this lately-added coat being strong enough to
bear its own weight, it would not be difficult to understand
how it might come, in the course of long time, to be entirely
coated with dirt. Instead of ragged strips of paper, spiders’
webs, hanging from the ceiling, would act just as well as
surfaces of attachment for the dirt brought in by the
leak.

160 MR GOODCHILD.

It is perhaps not difficult to extend the idea which the
foregoing paragraph is intended to elucidate in such a man-
ner that it should apply to the severance of any loosely-
attached material from the ceiling of a room, from the walls,
from the floor, or even from all three surfaces. It is only
necessary that they should have been originally all coated
with the saine material, and that they should be all acted
upon by the same impulse from without. If that idea is
properly grasped, we may now proceed to apply it to the
case specially under consideration.

The ingress of the solutions containing what is to become
Chalcedony seem to have taken place under an impulse of
a mechanical nature. As a result of this it has often
happened that parts of the earlier-formed layers, including
those of the Green Earth, have been detached and thrust
inward. When the ruder impulse has moderated down,
deposition of Chalcedony has gone on over the whole inner
surface, and equally over the rags and tattered shreds of
the green priming as over the other parts of the cavity.
Little by little all these irregularities have been smoothed
over by the deposits of Chalcedony, which envelops the
torn and ragged shreds of Green Earth in much the same
manner as amber surrounds and encloses the flies. By this
means some of the most beautiful and striking features of
agates are produced. Joss Agates are nothing more than
chalcedonic agates which enclose shreds and frayed-out rags
of Green Earth, whose resemblance to moss is merely of
a superficial nature, and is quite fortuitous, for in the great.
majority of cases the tattered shreds of Green Earth take
forms which bear little or no resemblance to the forms of
vegetable life from which the Moss Agates derive their
popular name. It will be noted that true Moss Agates are
formed at an early stage in the growth of an agate, in which
respect they differ from Mochas, to be noticed presently.

In other cases the deposition of Chalcedony has taken
place at a rate somewhat above the average, and then very
much the same kind of result has been caused as would
ensue if the leak in the roof, so often referred to, allowed
more rain-water to come in than just sufficed to keep the
ceiling moist. In this latter case, as we all know, the

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 161

rain-water would first gather into little spheroidal forms.
This shape they would naturally assume under the influence
of Surface Tension, under which impulse the water molecules
are led to arrange themselves in that form which offers the
least surface in proportion to the volume of the whole—that
is to say, they tend to group themselves as spheres. Now, if
the quantity of water leaking in is exactly equal to the
waste by evaporation, the spheroid remains unaltered. If
evaporation exceeds the supply, the spheroids spread more
and more over the adjoining surface, because that surface
attracts them more than their own molecules attract each other.
If the supply exceeds the waste, the size of the water globule
gradually increases, and then gravitation begins to outbalance
the force that held the molecules together in the spheroidal
form. In other words, the. drops of water begin to lengthen
out, and may continue to do so until gravitation overcomes
the force of cohesion and some of the water begins to drip.

Conceive, instead of pure water, some containing just
enough silica jelly to make it slightly cohere, just as it
would do if a very little soap were dissolved in it. Now,
if the ingress of silica jelly takes place, as it is here
assumed that it has done, at a rate sufficiently slow to
permit of a certain amount of coagulation of the deposits as
they are formed one after the other, it is obvious that the
drops, as they lengthened, would not necessarily break, but
would simply increase a little in diameter, and much more
in length. I may illustrate this rather important point
a little further by asking the reader to imagine a ceiling
being painted several times in succession with a few days’
interval between each coat, and that each coat is put on
rather thick, with paint of a somewhat more fluid kind than
usual. In this case some of it would begin to collect into
little globules, which, under the joint operation of gravitation
and the oxidation of the paint, would lengthen out into tear-
like drops. Repeat the process many times, and the whole
would result in a little group of stalactitic masses pendant
from the ceiling. Each fresh coat of paint over the hardened
surface of the one previously laid on would accumulate in
largest quantity at the base of each drop, because there
the Surface Energy exerts its fullest effect.

162 MR GOODCHILD.

This is nearly what has happened in the case of the
Stalactitic agates, of which those from a locality near Cupar
in Fife afford very beautiful examples. In these agates the
ingress of solutions tending to deposit Chalcedony has taken
place rather more freely than usual, and mainly from the
upper surface of the cavity. As a consequence, the material
has slowly gathered, first into drops, and then, as the quan-
tity increased concurrently with a partial coagulation of the
material, they have steadily lengthened out, and pendant
stalactites of very beautiful forms have resulted. Some of the
finest examples of these come from Firoe; and the Edinburgh
Museum can boast of specimens of the kind from both there
and Fife which are surpassed by none for both their beauty
and the instructive illustration they afford of the process
under description. I have lately got some fine examples from
the lower of the two upper lavas near the Giant’s Causeway.

In some few cases the stalactites have lengthened until
their free ends have nearly reached to the floor of the cavity.
In a few others the chalcedonic material has accumulated
faster than it has coagulated, and “stalagmites ” have resulted.
Such cases, however, are very rare.

It has occasionally happened that the ingress of chalce-
donic silica has continued without interruption until the
entire cavity not occupied by the stalactites has been filled.
In that case, what has happened may be readily understood
by taking notice of the effects of putting one’s hand, with the
fingers stretched slightly apart, into a strong solution of soap,
and then withdrawing it with the finger-ends downward.
It will be noticed that the soap solution clings in greatest
quantity to the hand at these points where the fingers come
into closest contact, and least so where they are widest
asunder. Surface Tension or Capillarity comes most power-
fully into action where two adjacent surfaces come most
nearly into contact, hence the result mentioned. Bearing
that illustration in mind, one can readily understand how it
happens in the case of a stalactitic agate that the largest
quantity of the chalcedonic solution is deposited at those
points where the bases of the stalactites are nearest to each
other. It will further be clear from the same that the con-
tinuance of the process must end with quite filling up the

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 163

interspaces between the pendant masses. A cross section of
two adjacent stalactites at an early stage in their growth
will show that they are at this stage two nearly cylindrical
bodies. As they increase in diameter, and so come each
more within the sphere of each other’s influence, the cross
section of the two becomes that of two ovoids with their
pointed ends directed toward each other. Eventually, with
further growth they unite, and their joint cross section is
that of an ellipse; and so on, until they become confiuent
with others, and all the spaces between thein are filled up.

Hitherto no mention has been made of the fact that
Chalcedony varies much in translucency, that is to say, in
purity. The earliest deposited layer in the agate is nearly
always translucent and colourless, hence Dr Heddle refers
to this as the Clear Chalcedony Layer. There seems evidence
to show that this was one of the first chalcedony layers to
coagulate and eventually to harden. But the layers that
succeed usually vary much in translucency and, to a certain
extent,also in colour. As a result, the fact that the Chalcedony
is deposited in very thin layers at a time is revealed by the
close alternations of bands of different tints. These range
from pearly-grey to almost chalky-white in one direction, and
to lavender, dove-colour, and slaty-grey in the other. The
chalky nature of these bands usually arises from an admixture
with some foreign substance, which Dr Heddle, who knew
more about agates than any one else, regarded as a zeolite
of some undetermined species.

Yet another modification calls for remark. At an early
period in the history of the agate, usually almost immediately
after the Clear Chalcedony Layer has been completed, there
seems, in many cases, to have been a temporary pause in the
deposition of the Chalcedony, and instead of that substance
there has been a sporadic deposition of minute tufts of some
mineral, which there are many reasons for regarding as one
of the tufted zeolites, such as Natrolite. Soon after this
episode the deposit of silica jelly went on again. This time,
however, the molecular constitution of the silica was liable
to certain important variations, to be noticed in more detail
presently. For the present we need only consider the
chalcedonic modification. In order to understand what

164 MR GOODCHILD.

ensues some little preliminary explanation is needed :—
Surface Energy operates proportionately to the area of the
surface exposed; where that area is small, the effect pro-
duced is small also; where the area is large, there also is
the result. To explain this more fully we need only refer
to the quantity, say, of soap solution that a ball of worsted
would take up and hold to itself, as compared with what a
solid ball of the same dimensions would do. In the case of
the ball of worsted, especially if loosely rolled, the quantity
of fluid taken in and held may be twenty times as great as
what a solid ball would hold. The volume of both is alike,
but the surface area presented by the ball of worsted is
obviously very much greater than that of the solid of the
same volume. The total surface area presented by the leaves
of a cabbage, for example, may well be a hundred times that
of a box in which that cabbage could easily be packed with-
out any squeezing. Furthermore, Surface Energy always
tends toa minimum. Hence, as the form of surface which
is the least in proportion to the volume is that of a sphere,
it follows that fluids, when their molecules are free to move
amongst themselves, always tend to assume the spherical form.
Putting that statement into another form in order to make its
bearing upon the present question somewhat clearer :—If we
take a small tuft, say of worsted, and dip it in a solution of
soap, the first layer of the solution will endeavour to fill up the
interspaces between the several fibres, and the outer layers
will tend more and more to level up the irregularities of the
surface, so as to convert the whole into a nearly spherical
drop. If we could manage to consolidate many such drops,
and were then to bring some of them together and get them
to take up still more of the soap solution, each two con-
tiguous beads would tend to unite into one with an ellipsoid
shape, and, if we continued the process, the whole bundle
would gradually enlarge from the ellipsoid in such a manner
as to build up a sphere of larger size still.

This is very much what happens with the tufts of zeolites.
Each chalcedonic coating tends to form a bead around the
tuft ; and the successive layers of which the bead is formed
may consist of Chalcedony of various shades of colour or
of translucency. If we were to take one of these beads,

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 165

made up of so many different layers, one outside the other,
and were to cut it across, the whole would present the ap-
pearance of a set of concentric rings. This is the mode of
origin of the remarkable structures known as “ Eyes,” which
give the distinguishing name to Hyed Agates,

With a further growth of chalcedonic material around the
eyes, the interspaces between two adjoining eyes gradually
becomes filled up as in the case of the stalactites already
described. The layers begin by conforming more or less to
the shape of the surface upon which they are deposited ; but
owing to the fact that more silica is deposited at those points
where two adjoining surfaces come nearest into contact, the
interspaces are gradually filled up. Now, if we examine a
cross section of an agate which has grown up in this way,
the variously-coloured layers show interesting patterns,
which follow all the ins and outs of the surface, and present
a series of sharp retiring angles on the side next the wall of
the agate, and show advancing curves on the sides facing
the centre. It will be noticed that after passing a certain
point in tracing these bands inward towards the centre of
the agate, the layers tend more and more to form regularly
concave surfaces towards the centre. The influence of the
outer irregularities may, however, be traceable almost up to
the centre of the agate. It is by this process that Fortifica-
tion Agates have been formed.

It was mentioned above that the molecular constitution
of the silica-jelly carried into the agate cavities in solution
is by no means always alike. Sometimes it contains a few
other substances in solution, and these may affect the colour
of the final product, and may also give rise to some modi-
fications in its comportment within the cavity in conformity
with the well-known behaviour of solutions of different com-
position in relation to Surface Energy. It is customary to
speak of the chalky forms of Chalcedony as Cacholong, though
the term is properly restricted to one of the forms of Opal.

The other principal form which may be assumed by the
silica jelly when it finally hardens is that known as Opal,
which differs from Chalcedony in somewhat the same man-
ner as Barley Sugar differs from Sugar Candy. The former

166 MR GOODCHILD.

is quite uncrystalline; the latter crystalline entirely. Light,
heat, electricity, ete., affect the non-crystalline form quite
alike in every direction, while in the case of the crystalline
form, these forms of energy act differently in accordance
with certain laws relating to the external form of the
erystal. There are other properties besides these which
need no more than a passing allusion here.

Now, Opal, in its original unmodified condition, consists of
non-crystalline (or colloid) Silica combined with a variable per-
centage of Water. Some non-essential constituents may also
be present without materially affecting its general properties.

Chalcedony, on the other hand, consists of a mixture of
opaline or colloid silica with one of the crystalline forms of
SiO,. The precise nature of this crystalline silica has not
yet been satisfactorily determined ; but, pending the results
of further investigations, this fibrous constituent of Chalce-
dony is termed Quartzine. Nobody knows yet what cause
determines whether a solution of silica jelly in water shall
consolidate as the hydrous colloid Opal, or shall eventually
become Chalcedony. Nor does it appear to be known with
certainty whether the colloid Opal may change in time into
the hemi-crystalline Chalcedony, though the fact that all
colloids tend to pass into their crystalline equivalents (just
as Barley Sugar cannot be prevented from becoming Sugar
Candy) would seem to point to some such conclusion.

What, however, seems to have happened has been this: as
the composition of the solutions varied, or, as the conditions
under which they were deposited changed, different degrees
of Surface Energy were set up between the solutions and the
surface upon which they were being deposited. Solutions
tending to consolidate as Chalcedony certainly were affected
more powerfully by Surface Energy than by Gravitation, as
is shown by the fact that in many cases they cling on in
larger quantities to the roof of the cavity than they do to
its sides, or even to the floor. Other solutions, which
appear to have been originally deposited as Opal, have con-
formed absolutely to Gravitational Energy, and have arranged
themselves in perfectly parallel layers and in an absolutely
horizontal position, without climbing the sides in the least.
The difference in comportment of the two layers is very

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 167

striking indeed, and especially where alternate Opal and
Chalcedony are deposited over an eye. At this distant
interval of time since they were formed the difference
between the two forms of silica cannot always be satis-
factorily made out by either optical or chemical analysis,
yet the well-known behaviour of solutions tending to deposit
crystalline matter, as compared with others destined to become
colloids, seems to confirm the view that the horizontal bands
were once the colloid Opal, and those which coat the roof
and sides equally with the floor were (as they still are) the
hemi-crystalline Chalcedony.

It occurs to me that there is just a bare possibility that
there may be another explanation of this interesting pheno-
menon. Most agates occur in andesites which were formed
during periods of exceptional aridity. It may, therefore,
be the case that the horizontal bands mark periods when
the solutions of silica jelly were somewhat more diluted than
usual, and the chalcedonie layers may have been deposited
during the periods of greater drought. This would be very
interesting, if it could be proved; but I must confess that
I have many reasons for doubting whether it is really the
case. So far as I can make out, the Scottish agates were
formed during a temporary period of humidity, after the
voleanoes had died out, and had already suffered much waste
by surface agencies. They were certainly mostly formed well
before the time when the Upper Old Red Sandstone was
being laid down. I should be inclined to refer the date of
most of them to that of the Orcadian Old Red, which is
intermediate in age between the Caledonian Old Red (to the
andesitic lavas of which agates are chiefly confined in Britain)
and the Upper Old Red. In the Cheviots and elsewhere
agates occur quite commonly in the conglomerate of the last-
named rocks; which, of course, determines their age very nearly.

In many agates there is a very remarkable alternation of
the Opaline layers and the bands of Chalcedony. It is custo-
mary to speak of all those which lie horizontally collectively
as Onyx. This term, thus employed, may embrace both
Chalcedony and Opal, but the former only when it conforms to
a surface already horizontal, as those of Opal invariably are.

These Onyx bands are of value to the geologist as indi-

168 MR GOODCHILD.

cations of the original lie of the rocks in which they have
been formed, as it must be obvious that any inclination
those layers now possess must mark the amount of tilt the
rocks have undergone since they were formed. There seems
to be no well-authenticated instance of onyx bands found
after the rocks have undergone any disturbance. This,
again, tends to confirm the conclusion that agates date from
an early period in the history of the parent rock.

It is generally considered that the process of filling the
cavity with the complex materials which go to form an
agate is largely due to the peculiar physical process known
as Osmosis. For this to act with its fullest effect a porous
septum or partition must have, on its opposite sides, two
fluids, each of which must be capable of exercising some
physical action upon that septum different from that of the
other in both degree and kind. The result is that an inter-
change arises, the substance in solution on either side passing
through the partition to the side opposite. Where the
chemical conditions are favourable the osmotic transfer may
go on through a partition or septum which to all appear-
ance is perfectly solid and compact. The general result is,
however, liable to considerable modifications arising from
variations in both the composition and the density of the
solutions (especially upon the percentage of the alkaline
carbonates present), upon the nature of the septum, upon the
pressure, and, lastly, upon the temperature existing there
while these actions are in progress.

There can be no doubt that it is to Osmosis that we have
to look for an explanation of the mode of entry of the
different substances which form an agate. But it must be
confessed that the subject is beset with many difficulties.
One of these relates to the fact that Chaleedony undoubtedly
consists of a mixture of both the colloid and the crystalloid
forms of silica. Perhaps the explanation of the anomaly
may lie in the fact that the solutions varied somewhat in
chemical composition at different times, and that sometimes,
perhaps, a small relative increase or decrease in the quantity
of alkaline carbonate present may have favoured the diffusion
of a larger or a smaller quantity than usual of silica in the
colloidal form. On the other hand, silica which had passed

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 169

the septum into the agate in the crystalloidal form may soon
after have become a second time a colloid, and have comported
itself within the agate cavity accordingly.

The whole subject still awaits further inquiries, notwith-
standing the numerous and prolonged investigations made by
Dr Heddle and others. The broad facts are clear enough,
explain them how one may :—A mixture of crystalloidal and
colloidal silica has been carried in somehow under one set
of conditions, and has formed the Chalcedony, while under
another set of a different kind, silica, which has com-
ported itself exactly as colloid silica would have done, has
been carried in and has formed the Opal layers. Probably,
as already stated, slight differences in the alkalinity of the
solutions have been the determining factor in the process
in the first instance ; while subsequent molecular changes may
serve to account for some of the anomalies of later date.

As a rule, the Opal layers in an agate are amongst those
earliest formed after the Clear Chalcedony Layer and the
Eyes, but there are, however, some few exceptions to this
rule. But it is quite clear that, in many instances, there
were repeated alternations of both forms of Silica; and, further,
that nearly the whole process of agate-formation has been
repeated within the same agate.

We have now to consider a feature present in many agates
whose origin and significance have given rise to considerable
difference of opinion. This is the so-called “tube of entry ”
of the earlier writers on agates, and the Tube of Escape of
Dr Heddle. Without entering into any discussion of the
respective merits of these various theories, I may state here
the explanation that appears to me to best accord with the
facts :—During the filling of an agate all the chalcedonic
Silica jelly carried in, except that which formed the Clear
Chalcedony Layer, remained in a coagulated, or at least, only
partially-consolidated condition. The process of filling was
continued in most cases until the entire chamber was quite full.
At that stage the greater part of the nascent agate appears to
have consisted of coagulated silica jelly—possibly with some
of the Quartzine already crystallised—and surrounded by
rock containing the same jelly in a highly diluted condition ;

170 MR GOODCHILD.

the two being separated by the septum formed of the three
first formed layers constituting the “Skin.” Osmosis continued
to act, but instead of the osmotic pressure being comparatively
feeble, as it was when the solutions inside and out were nearly
alike in density, the internal pressure increased in direct pro-
portion to the difference of density of the solutions on either
side of the septum ; so that when the solution outside the agate
had increased in concentration to double that of the desilicified
fluid within, the pressure increased to double that which was
exerted when the solutions were alike in degree of concentra-
tion; and so on, always in the same proportion. It may be
mentioned here that a rise of temperature of the solution within
the agate causes an expansion in the proportion of 1/273 of its
volume at 0° cent. for each degree ; and, if the volume be kept
constant, the increment of pressure with change of temperature
is also 1/273, in accordance with the same law (Charles’s Law)
which governs the relation between the temperature and the
pressure of gases.

It will, therefore, be evident from these considerations that,

arrived at a certain stage of growth, the osmotic pressure
exerted upon the coagulated silica jelly within a nascent
agate is liable to give rise to great pressure upon its walls.
In some eases this is a result of continued osmosis, in others
it is due to a rise of temperature consequent upon crystal-
lisation ; but usually the former cause is the chief factor.
As a consequence of this pressure some of the jelly begins
to squeeze out through any weak points that may occur, in
much the same manner as oil paint is squeezed out of its
tube. The material gives way first at a zone nearest the
bounding walls of the agate, and subsequently the zones, one
after another, from without inwards, participate in the dis-
turbance. This may go on until the pressure is relieved,
which does not appear to have happened, in some instances,
until perhaps as much as one-tenth of the original has been
forced out. Several Tubes of Escape usually occur together.
They may be at once recognised in an agate by the fact that
the different layers adjoining the tube are attenuated parallel
to its axis, and are also deflected in the direction of the
“ Point of Escape.” Usually there is a more or less flask-
shaped expansion of the tube at its outer extremity. I have

1

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 171

not yet seen any case in which the Tube of Escape affects
either the Clear Chalcedony Layer or any Opal bands. From
this we are probably justified in concluding that both of
these had consolidated before the expulsion of the silica
jelly destined to form the chalcedonic part of the agate.

In a few cases the cavity left by the expulsion of the
silica remains empty, or becomes a druse, lined with either
Quartz or Amethyst. But in most cases a later filling ensues,
and gives rise to a second agate within the first.

The factors then, which determine the arrangement of
the layers within an agate may be grouped in two primary
categories :—(1) Those which are contemporaneous with the
srowth of the agate; (2) those which are of subsequent date.
To the former belong Moss Agates, Eyed Agates, Stalactitic
Agates, and Fortification Agates ; to the latter must be re-
ferred all those disturbances which are caused in connection
with the formation of the Tube of Escape.

Amongst the later changes which affect agates a foremost
place must be given to the effects of molecular rearrange-
ment. Opal, and colloid substances in general, tend to pass
into the crystalline state, just as glass with age becomes
devitrified, or as the colloid Barley Sugar passes into the
erystalline Sugar Candy. As already mentioned, part of
the material of an agate which now behaves as Chalcedony
has very probably at one time been Opal. In the passage
from the one state to the other a certain amount of heat is
liberated, equivalent to the difference between the specific
heat in the colloid state as compared with that of the crystal-
line. This may have had some effect upon a full agate in
giving rise to the internal pressure above noted. But in
another way it affects the agate because during the molecular
rearrangement some of the impurities which may be present
are enabled to separate out in various forms—commonly in the
form of small ellipsoidal solids. Another result, arising at a
later period from the same cause, is a small diminution in
volume, consequent upon the loss of some of the water previously
existing in chemical combination in the Opal. This often
gives rise to short cracks transverse in direction to that of the
layers. The same cause often favours a more advanced change

2 MR GOODCHILD.

in places; so that what was originally Opal may locally pass
into crystalline Quartz, or into Amethyst. Excellent examples
of these modifications of Opal are exhibited in the fine Heddle
Collection of Scottish Agates presented to the Edinburgh
Museum of Science and Art by Mr A. Thoms of St
Andrews.

The natural colowrs of agates are usually tertiary colours
of some time, commonly slate-colour, or pearly-grey; less
commonly café aw lait, pale umber or wood-brown. Rarely
or never is a true agate originally bright yellow or red; and
only in the case of some exceptional mixtures of Chalcedony
and Green Earth is it green, as in the case of Heliotrope or
Bloodstone. Scottish agates come chiefly from the andesitic
lavas of the Caledonian Old Red, which was locally covered,
unconformably, by the Upper Old Red Sandstone. From the
lakes which occurred in Scotland during the time when
this rock was being found, there penetrated downward water
charged with unusually large percentages of iron in solution.
These ferriferous solutions have percolated through the rocks
and into the agates, staining them various shades of red,
ranging from pale Indian Red to almost vermilion, but leaving
them still translucent. Carnelian Agutes, such as occur in
the Cheviots, and at Carslogie, near Cupar, in Fife, have
attained their bright red coloration in this way; while in
other districts, where the colouring process has been less
regular, the agates are stained in a variety of other ways. It
will be observed, however, that certain layers have invariably
resisted the staining. Usually the iron takes the form of
minute spheroids of ferric oxide, as already noted, but in
some few cases ferric hydrate has been the colouring material,
and the agate then shows ochreous stains.

At some period late in the history of an agate, solutions
of manganese may percolate into cracks within the agates,
and there consolidate as the well-known dendrites (? Psilo-
melane). All true Mochas have been formed in this way.
Moss Agates are contemporaneous structures, as noted above.

Exposure to the influence of surface-water tends to
bleach agates and then to discharge the colouring matters
due to iron. Sea-water affects them differently, and tends

od

AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS. 173

to reduce the whole to a dull, chalky mass, almost like the
white outer rind of a chalk flint.

Exposure to extremes of temperature brings about a
separation of the various layers of an agate. At the same
time the same agent, probably co-operating with the effects
of surface-water, tends to devitrify the colloidal part. Both
of these causes help to bring about the disintegration of the
agate, and to aid in its final return to the state of solution.

True Agates, being formed in closed cavities, consist only of
such materials as can make their way in solution through the
inter-molecular spaces of the rock. No mechanically-sus-
pended materials can possibly find an entrance under such con-
ditions as these. Hence Jasper, which is Chalcedony rendered
opaque by ferruginous impurities, and which occurs in some
agate-like structures, is perhaps never found in a true agate.

Where fissures exist in the rock in which agates are in
process of formation, various substances may be carried in
suspension into the chink, and be there deposited. Thus
fine clay, often charged, too, with iron, may mingle in various
proportions with solutions which contain the materials of a
pure agate. Such mixed materials are, of course, deposited
in bands whose surfaces are parallel to the walls of the fissure.
Amongst such compounds are sure to be found every gradation
from pure Chalcedony, through Carnelian in one direction, to
Jasper ; and, in another direction, through impure Carnelian
into Chert. In a third direction the same materials may
incorporate with one or other of the Green Earths. No
better example of these Vein Agates can be found than the
beautiful specimens from Burn Anne near Galston, or from the
Campsie Fells, and also from the Garleton Hills, of which fine
specimens are exhibited in the Scottish Mineral Collection.

A word may be added regarding Onyx :—Agates are perme-
able in different degrees by various solutions which make their
way readily along certain bands, but cannot find an entrance
into others. Oil, solutions of sugar, honey, and other carbon
compounds, will soak into certain bands in agates, and if, after
being thus permeated, the agate is steeped in sulphuric acid,
charring will occur, and the onyx of jewellers is the result.

In conclusion, I may advise those readers who are desirous
VOL. I. 14

174 AGATES, CARNELIANS, AND JASPERS.

of studying these facts for themselves, to pay a few visits to
the Gallery devoted to Scottish Geology and Mineralogy in
the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, where they will
find the best collection of Scottish Agates in existence, made
by Dr Heddle and Mr R. Miln, presented to the Museum
by Mr Thoms, and arranged by the present writer, who has
written a guide for the use of visitors who come to study
the collection referred to.

APPENDIX, appED SEPTEMBER, 1900.

In Vol. I. of the Popular Science Review, pp. 23-28, is an
instructive article by Mr Rudler, entitled “ Agates and Agate
Working,” from which the following notes are taken :—
(1) Sir David Brewster (Phil. Mag. (3), vol. xxii. p. 213)
measured the thickness of some of the layers of an agate,
and found that they ranged from 1/17220 of an inch to
1/55760. (2) It was the late Professor Haidinger who sug-
gested that the materials of an agate did not come in through
the so-called tube of entry, but by a general exudation through -
the walls of the cavity. (3) Bischoff (Lehrbuch d. Chem.
Geol., vol. iii. p. 636) estimates that the deposition of a layer
of agate one line in thickness requires twenty-one years.
In order to form one pound of amethyst, at least 10,000 lbs.
of water must have been introduced into the cavity and
evaporated ; an action which has been estimated to occupy
the vast period of 1,296,000 years. [But agates many
pounds in weight were certainly formed in the interval of
time between the cessation of the Caledonian Old Red vol-
canic action and the commencement of the conditions to
which the Upper Old Red was due, seeing that large agates
derived from the older formation occur in the conglomerates
of the newer—J.G.G.] (4) Regarding the Tube of Escape :
Herr Von G. Lange, of Idar, in his “Die Halbedelsteine aus
der Familie der Quartze” (1868), p. 17, seems to have been
the first to recognise the true nature of these canals, which
he describes as channels of egress rather than of ingress.
(5) Mr Rudler’s paper also includes an interesting account
of the history of the agate industry at Oberstein, to which
the reader is referred for further details.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE HYMENOMYCETES. 175

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
HYMENOMYCETES.

By Rev. Davin Pav, LL.D.
(Read to Scottish Natwral History Society, 2nd November 1899.)

Funer belong to a division of plants which has recently
received the name of Thallophyta, and which embraces also
the Alge, Bacteriaand Diatoms. It practically includes all
plants which in complexity of organisation fall beneath the
Mosses and Liverworts. The characteristic of the Division
Thallophyta is, that they show no distinction between
the axis and appendages, ze, between the stem and
leaves. The groups of which the division is composed
are very divergent from one another, and it has been found
very hard to predicate any positive characteristics which
will apply to them all. They may be taken generally as
including all plants which stand below a certain line in
the scale of organisation.

Fungi, then, belong to one of the groups of this great but
low division of vegetable nature. They are characterised as
parasitic or saprophytic plants, destitute of chlorophyll,
and for the most part, possessing a mycelium. In one
class of them sexual reproduction is recognised and admitted.
In all the others reproduction is asexual, and is effected by
spores and conidia.

It is not my purpose to differentiate fungi into their
various classes or sub-classes. This evening we have to do
with the family of the Hymenomycetes alone, embracing the
greater part of the larger fungi with which we are familiar
on our meadows or in our woods. These plants are all
furnished with a hymenium or fertile surface, consisting of
basidia, elongated bodies, from the extremities of which arise
four little processes called sterigmata, bearing on each one
spore—four spores therefore on each basidium. The
basidia and spores can be seen with great ease under the ~

176 REV. DAVID PAUL.

microscope on the surface of the gills of any common Agaric
like the field-mushroom. But if you wish to see them to
the greatest advantage, you will select a Coprinus, such as
C. plicatilis, which is often very common on lawns ; or, still
better, C. radiatus, which is of frequent occurrence growing
on decaying straw on a hotbed or dunghill. This last is so
extremely tender and delicate that it can only be found in
the early morning, for the sun shrivels it up in a very short
time. In this little fungus, the structure of the hymenium
can be studied to great advantage owing to the transparent
thinness of all its parts, and, owing also to the fact that the
spores stand out very conspicuously, being black. But the
hymenium on which these basidia and spores rest is not
always spread out on the surface of a gill as in the Agar-
acini or Gilled-Fungi; you may have an arrangement of
pores as in the Polyporei, embracing the genera Boletus,
Polyporus, Deedalea, and so on, or an arrangement of spines
as in Hydnum and others. In the Clavarie, of which the
common Cl. rugosa or Cl. inwqualis may be taken as a type,
the hymenium covers the whole surface of the clubs. But
however varied the character and position of the hymenium
may be, all the Hymenomycetes agree in possessing those
basidia, each with its four sterigmata and four spores freely
exposed. Among the Gasteromycetes, on the other hand, the
basidia are inclosed in the structure of the fungus, and the
spores when mature form the internal dust of the puff-balls.
In the Ascomycetes again the spores, generally eight in
number, are contained in the leng cylindrical asci which are
familiar to every one who has viewed a thin section of a
Peziza through a microscope. I need not go farther into
detail; it is enough to give a general view of the system of
classification, according to which the different groups of
fungi are arranged.

Let us return then to the Hymenomycetes, and select out
of these the order Agaracini and the great genus Agaricus,
and this for the purpose of making some observations on
species which may be useful to the field botanist. Every-
one who has paid any attention to the subject knows the
difficulty there often is in identifying species of Agarics,
to say nothing of the greater difficulties that attach to the

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE HYMENOMYCETES. 177

Cortinarii and Russule. And one is not surprised at this when
he remembers that Fries in his Hymenomycetes Europe: de-
scribes 1200 spp.,of which some 800 have been found in Britain;
and remembers also that in the case of many of them, the
characteristic differences, though apparent enough to the
trained eye, are not very easy to set down ina verbal descrip-
tion. That the species are really distinct in the case of most of
those that have been described, and that they are as constant
as in flowering plants, becomes more and more evident as
one pursues his investigations. But in a fungus there are
comparatively few features to lay hold of in describing a
species—as a rule, only the stem and gills and pileus;
you have no leaf to describe, or bracts or sepals, or corolla
or seedpod—all so helpful in phanerogamous botany. If
the spores of all of them were of the same colour, the
difficulty would be vastly greater, but happily the spores
may be white, or black, or rosy, or brown, or purple, or
ferruginous, and these differences in colour are constant, so
that you can split up the Agarics into a corresponding
number of series, each of which is divided into subgenera,
dependent on differences in the veil, and in the attach-
ment of the gills to the stem. When the differences of
these subgenera have been mastered, it is not generally
difficult to assign a particular Agaric to one or other of them,
and then the determination of the particular species is a
matter of patience and practice. Fortunately, Fries’
descriptions of species are exceedingly good, and for those
who are not very familiar with Latin, they are reproduced
by Dr Stevenson in his British Fungi, an excellent Flora
which is accessible to all, I would therefore counsel those
who are beginning the study of the gilled-fungi not to be
discouraged by the initial difficulties, but to exercise a little
perseverance, and, as they gain increased skill in identifica-
tion, they will find the fascination of the pursuit take very
firm hold of them. Most of us who have long given atten-
tion to field botany are more or less familiar with almost
every phanerogamous plant we come across, and interest in
botanical excursions begins to fade, but here, in mycology,
we have a wide field that will take a great deal of exhausting.
I have never known anyone who has been patient and

178 REV. DAVID PAUL.

persevering at the outset, and who has thus managed to
follow the pursuit to a certain point, who has not gone on
with increasing zest in the study year after year. I know
that some of the happiest hours of my own life, hours freest
of care and trouble, have been associated with the despised
toadstools, which are generally kicked aside as being beneath
notice, and the students of which are commonly looked down
upon from the sublime heights of ignorance, with complacent
compassion as harmless lunatics.

I purposely gave as the title of my paper, “ Some
Observations on the Hymenomycetes,” that I might have
free scope to wander over the subject as I chose, and might
not be tied down too tightly to systematic treatment, for I
have little leisure time for the drawing up of a scientific
treatise, and I will only now make some remarks on certain
groups of fungi, or on some individual species that for any
reason iexteas, particular notice.

The first subgenus of Agaricus that finds a place in
Fungus Floras is that of Amanita, a white-spored agaric
with a universal veil which at first completely envelops
the young plant, and which is distinct from the epidermis
of the pileus. An Amanita is so distinct from other fungi
that it can be known at a glance, and they are among the
most beautiful of all our large fungi. The species of
Amanite that are commonest and most easily recognisable
are these four: phalloides, muscarius, rubescens and vaginatus.
But there are seventeen species occurring in Britain, and I
think the reason why one or two more are not familiar to
us, is simply because they are overlooked. There is one
very like phalloides, which is called mappa, and has much
the same appearance and colour. Phalloides itself is not
nearly so common as muscarius, or rubescens, or vaginatus,
and mappa seems less frequent than phalloides. I have
always been in doubt whether these two are entitled to
rank as distinct species. The distinction is said to lie
chiefly in the volva, and sometimes, I admit, it is well
marked, the volva of mappa being circularly-ruptured close
to the stem, so as to have little or nothing of a free lacerated
edge, while that of phalloides is ruptured very irregularly
with a lax, torn border. It is worth paying attention to

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE HYMENOMYCETES. 179

these two plants, that they may be more generally dis-
criminated, I may add that phalloides is one of the
most poisonous species, and mappa is probably equally
dangerous.

Everyone knows Amanita rubescens, one of our
commonest fungi in woods. But there is another that is
very like it and generally overlooked —Amanita spissus. For
several years I passed it over for rubescens, but the flesh
of spissus does not redden when broken, and the stem is
destitute of the reddish marks which the stem of rubescens
generally shows; it is harder and more solid, with a turnip-
shaped base, and the pileus is cinereous and warty from
the veil. It is not infrequent, and is easily recognised when
once it is known.

Another Amanita to be looked for is pantherinus, which
also is not unlike in general appearance to rubescens, but has
as its distinctive mark a volva with an obtuse edge, which
clasps the lower part of the stem like a greave or stocking.
I need say nothing more about these Amanitx, except that
there seems reason to regard the two forms of vaginatus-
livida and spadicea as both worthy of specific rank. It
would be worth while to take note of these and to compare
them together.

We may pass over the subgenus Zepiota, several species
of which are frequent, as procerus and rachodes, and a few
very common, as eristatus, granulosus, carcharias and amian-
thinus, while most of them are rare. We may pass over
the Armillariz too, only one of which—melleus—is common,
though I have seen at Inveraray mucidus growing in great
profusion and beauty, running up the branches of old beech-
trees, of an exquisite pellucid whiteness, a sight never to be
forgotten. There are only nine British Armillaria altogether ;
and these two with the rare bulbosus and robustus are the
only ones I am acquainted with.

Coming to the Tricholomata, we find in that subgenus
about 70 spp., mostly large and handsome, all growing on
the ground. I can mention here only a few of them. The
very first on the list—equestris—is rare in England, and in the
west of Scotland too, so far as my experience goes, but I
used to find it every year in some quantity in Roxburgh-

180 REV. DAVID PAUL

shire in pine woods. It is a beautiful plant with a sulphur
yellow stem, and gills of the same colour, and a yellowish,
reddish pileus, very easy to recognise at all times. Another
that grows in Roxburghshire with equestris is portentosus,
very distinct and handsome, but not generally common.
Still another is resplendeus, wholly white, and of very striking
appearance, the pileus often marked with hyaline streaks
and spots. Then there are flavobrunneus and albobrunneus,
both fairly common. One very handsome Tricholoma is
rutilans, generally on stumps, the stem light yellow with
purple fiocci, the gills golden, and the pileus covered with a
thick, reddish down: a common fungus, but never to be passed
over unadmired. Then you have imbricatus and vaceinus,
both common at Roxburgh, and both large and fine, especially
vaceinus. I need hardly mention ¢erreus, which at times is
plentiful, and arrests the eye like so many of this group,
but I want in connection with it to speak of another—
virgatus—which has much the same appearance, and yet is
a wholly different plant. The pileus of virgatus is perfectly
smooth, and is streaked with fine black lines, that of terreus
is quite floccose or villous, Both like to grow under beech,
and virgatus is probably not uncommon, for I have fre-
quently found both in the north and south of Scotland.
Saponaceus, another fir-wood fungus, I used to find plentifully
in one Roxburghshire wood, always the variety with the scaly
stem. It has a remarkable scent something like that of soap,
but not very strong. There is one small group of Tricholomata
characterised by a very offensive smell, of which sulphureus
is the best known, the others being bufonius, lascivus, and
inamenus. Sulphwreus has, like equestris, stem and gills
of a beautiful shade of bright yellow, and the pileus is
nearly of the same colour, but a little darker ; unfortunately,
the smell is dreadful. Bufonius I have never seen, but
lascivus and inameznus I have occasionally found; they have
the smell of swlphwreus without the beauty. But the smell
is very welcome for purposes of identification. I hope some
of you know gambosus, the St George’s mushroom which
grows by road-sides in spring, a large, compact, solid fungus,
with a whitish-tan pileus and very crowded whitish gills.
It has a strong smell of new meal, and is delicious to eat;

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE HYMENOMYCETES. 181

and you get it when no other edible fungus is to be had
except the morel, and 7 is too rare in Scotland to count. It
cannot be mistaken, and it will repay you to cultivate its
acquaintance. Pity we cannot cultivate itself like the
mushroom. Another fine Tricholoma is albus, a large hand-
some fungus, which I used to find in considerable quantity
at times. It is not unlike a Clitocybe, but the gills are
emarginate. When several specimens are growing together
in the shade, so that the sun cannot get at them to spoil
the white colour of the pileus, they have a very handsome
appearance. There is a pair of Z’richolomata that are worth
mentioning—personatus and nudus. They are both remark-
able for the violet colour of the stem and gills, but nudus
has also a violet pileus, and is the most beautiful of the
Tricholomata. They are both striking fungi, nudus not so
common, but personatus often plentiful. Personatus is an
edible fungus, called “ Blewitt” in England; I have eaten
it, and can recommend it. I shall mention only one more
of the larger and finer Tricholomata, viz.: grammopodius,
which I have found both in woods and pastures, and which
is not uncommon. Some years it used to grow abundantly
in one of my glebe fields at Roxburgh. It is easily identitied
by the stem being longitudinally marked by fine blackish
fibrous lines, from which character it derives its name.
Now, I am aware that to some of you, all this may be
little more than a catalogue of names, but I have not
serupled to go over them, as I wished to make you realise
how many large handsome fungi may easily be found. Here
are nineteen species out of the one subgenus Z7richoloma,
every one of which is remarkable, and every one of which is
easy of identification. We are apt to think of fungi as
mainly inconspicuous and uninteresting, so like each other
as to be very hard to make out. But I might take up one
subgenus after another, and pick out from each a consider-
able number of very distinct and noteworthy plants. Many
of the Colybix are fine and common; the Mycenx, though
they are small, are exceedingly elegant, and so with other
subgenera. Indeed the wealth of fine fungi is so great,
that one hardly knows what to mention, and what to pass
over. Let me speak for a moment of just one other sub-

182 REV. DAVID PAUL.

genus, that of Pholiota, as containing many handsome forms
which are easily separated from one another.

A Pholiota is a brownspored Agaric, and its characteristic
is, that when the partial veil is ruptured, part of it remains
on the stem in the shape of a ring. If you find a fungus,
then, which deposits brown spores from the gills, and has a
ring on the stem, you know that you have a Pholiota. I
shall mention only a few.

The finest of them all is awreus. Unfortunately it is a
rare fungus, but I have had the good fortune to find it. It
is surpassed in beauty by no other fungus whatever. The
pileus may be 6 or 8 inches in diameter and the stem as tall,
with a large, spreading ring, and the colour of the whole is
a fine golden-tawny. I saw it at first at a fungus show,
organised by the Cryptogamic Society at Dumfries some ten
years ago, and I discovered it afterwards in two successive
years at Stichill in Roxburghshire. There are only six
British species of Pholiote that grow on the ground, and this
is one of them. Another is evebiuvs, which is said to grow
in woods, but I have found it only among the short grass of
a lawn. The pileus is very dark, and the ring is set close up
to the gills. It is not a large fungus, nor very remarkable
in appearance. Another terrestrial Pholiota is togularis,
which I have found among short grass on the banks of the
Tweed. As the illustration will show, it is a beautiful little
plant, with a finely developed medial ring. Durus and
precox are other two terrestrial fungi which may both be
found in early summer, but they are not remarkable.

Among the Pholiote that grow on wood there are some
fine species. Every tyro in mycology knows sqguwarrosus,
common about the roots of ash trees, of a saffron ferruginous
colour, covered both on stem and pileus with thick-set,
darker, revolute scales. It is generally very cespitose, and
a large clump of it has a very handsome appearance. Then
there is spectabilis, which approaches awrews in colour and
beauty, with a golden-tawny pileus and a sulphur-yellow
stem. It is not so large as aureus, but is almost as
distinguished in appearance, and catches the eye even ata
distance. It generally grows on beech stumps, but also on
oak, and cannot be confounded with any other fungus,

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE HYMENOMYCETES. 183

except perhaps with adiposus, which has the colour of a ripe
pine-apple, but is a rare plant in Scotland. Another of
these brilliantly coloured Pholiot# is flammans which is not
uncommon in our woods, growing on fir-stumps. It is of
very rare occurrence in England, and when the English
‘mycologists come to this side of the Border, one of our fungi
they are particularly anxious to see is this fammans. It is
of a beautiful yellow-tawny colour, not very large; the
pileus and stem covered with sulphur-yellow, squarrose
or curly scales; the gills also are at first of a bright
sulphur-yellow, and the appearance of the whole is very
striking.

Mutabilis, again, is a common Pholiota, one of the hygro-
phanous ones, which change colour as the moisture leaves
the pileus. When moist, it is of a fine cinnamon colour, -
and is common, growing on stumps in great cespitose
masses, the stems scaly and blackish up to the ring, I will
mention only two more. A beautiful little Pholiota is
marginatus, which I have found in great abundance among
fallen pine leaves, growing on the leaves themselves. It is
one of the neatest of our fungi, a fairy plant with its little
pileus and ring. There are larger forms of it, some of
which are not easy to distinguish from wnicolor. Lastly,
there is a pretty little Pholiota, which I have often found
on the sod-coping of a stone dyke, growing there among
Polytrichwm, I mean Pholiota pumilus, of an ochraceous
colour, with a hemispherical pileus and tiny ring, one of those
fungi which would be very difficult to identify were it
not for the presence of the ring. The stem is hardly an
inch high, and the pileus only three or four lines broad. The
ring is often indistinct, and then you might easily take
it for a little nawcoria.

One might go on in this way for a long time, but it
would not be for edification. My object, as I have already
indicated, is to bring out prominently the fact that the study
of fungi is not nearly so uninteresting as is generally
supposed, and that the plants themselves are often attractive
and beautiful iu their own way. And I could, to make
good my point, have culled examples from other genera of the
Hymenomycetes besides that of Agaricus. The Cortinarii,

184 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE HYMENOMYCETES.

the Marasmii, the Hygrophori, the Russulz, the Boleti, the
Polypori, the Hydna might all be cited, to show what hand-
some species may be found in this department of Botany ;
not that the interest of a plant depends on its beauty, but
no doubt beauty is an additional attraction. And I confess
I am trying to induce more workers in the field of Botany
to turn their attention to this interesting province. Those
of you who already know the plants I have been
describing, will have followed with interest the account I
have given of them, because the mere mention of the
different names will have carried you in spirit to various
meadows, and road-sides, and tree-trunks, and stumps, where
on fine antumn days you first made the acquaintance of this
fine Pholiota or that handsome TZ'richoloma. And those of
- you who may not as yet have made their acquaintance, but
have made a beginning in the study of mycology, will, I
trust, be able to see, from what I have said, that it is not
so very dry a subject as at first it appeared, and they may
be encouraged to persevere. We have the great disadvan-
tage of living in a town, but I know several excellent mycolo-
gists, who, in spite of this disadvantage, manage to pursue the
study with success; and, of course, the same disadvantage
applies to flowering plants also. Interest in the study of
these Hymenomycetes is slowly growing, and, after some
experience in various departments of Botany, I can commend
the subject as one the fascination of which is hardly second
to any.

CHROMOSOMES IN RESTING NUCLEI.
By Miss L. H. HUIE.

In various accounts of recent cyclological researches, especi-
ally in several that have appeared on the function of the
nucleus in specialised cells, descriptions have been given of
nuclei which, although in the resting state, exhibit a
segmentation of their chromatin which resembles the seg-

CHROMOSOMES IN RESTING NUCLEI. 185

mentation of mitotic nuclear division. These are notably
nuclei of cells which contain a quantity of other matter in
addition to the usual cell-plasm—such as the nuclei of
gland cells, and cells which function as storages of food
material.

It would be premature to put forward any theory appli-
cable to the described cases, which as yet are not numerous,
but it may be worth while to call attention to the facts.

Some examples of these nuclei, copied from recently
published work, are shown in the plate.

With regard to gland cells, it is noteworthy that secretive
activity seems to have the effect of altering the quantitative
relations of chromatin and nucleolar matter.

Fig. 1 is a nucleus from a leaf of Primula sinensis,
The leaf is charged with a poisonous fluid, and covered with
glandular hairs which secrete it.

Fig. 2.—Nuclei from milk-secreting cells of guinea-pig.
(Szabo, J., “‘ Die Milchdriise im Ruhezustande, und wahrend
ihrer Thitigkeit,” Arch. f. Anat. u. Phys. 1896.) In the
inactive state (a), there is much nucleolar matter, forming
several nucleoli. As soon as secretion begins (6), only one
nucleolus is present, but chromatin bodies appear at the
periphery of the nucleus.

Fig. 3.—Nucleus from the spinning gland of a caterpillar,
Pieris rape. (Menes, Dr F., “ Zur Struktur der Kerne in den
Spinndriisen der Raupen,” Arch. f. Mik. Anat., 1896, Bd.
48.) The author considers the large bodies to be nucleolar
matter, and the small granules chromatin.

Fig. 4. a, 6, c.—Nuclei from the spinning gland of a cater-
pillar, Pieris brassicw. (Korschelt, E., “ Ueber die Struktur
der Kerne in den Spinndriisen der Raupen,” Arch. f. Mik.
Anat.,1896, Bd. 47.) This author considers the large bodies
to be chromatin, and the granules nucleolar. The figures
represent nuclei of cells in different stages of secretive
activity, and show the quantitative changes in the nuclear
elements.

Fig. 5.—Nuclei from gland cell of Drosera rotundifolia.
(Huie, L., “Changes in the Cell-organs of Drosera rotundi-
folia, produced by feeding with Egg-albumen,” Quart.
Journ. Mic. Sci., vol. 39, N.S., 1897.) (a) Inactive condition.

186 CHROMOSOMES IN RESTING NUCLEI.

(b) After two days’ secretive activity. The extremely large
size of the chromosomes may be due to the fact that these
cells not only secrete, but also absorb food. At this stage
absorption is at its height, and the cells may be regarded as
temporary depots of nutrition.

Fig. 6—Nucleus of “granular cell” in the ovotestis of
Helix pomatia. (Bolles Lee, “Les Cinéses Spermatogénétiques
chez l’Helix pomatia,’ Za Cellule, xiii.) These cells con-
tain an immense amount of fatty matter, which seems to
serve as a kind of vitellus to the spermatogonies. The
author says :—‘“ Encore un mot sur la structure particulicre
des noyaux des cellules basales (granular cells): j’admets
que cette structure particulicre des noyaux des cellules
basales est en rapport avec la fonction de ces éléments.
Mais pourquoi, se demande-t-on, une cellule ayant telle
ou telle fonction, mais étant essentiellement une cellule de
repos, aurait elle son noyau contenant des chromosomes
indépendants, au lieu d’un élement chromatique continu ?
Il serait impossible de donner aujourd’hui une réponse
satisfaisante & cette demande.” But he cites two of the
examples given above, those of the nuclei of Drosera rotwndi-
folia and of the spinning glands of caterpillars, as facts of
“perhaps essentially the same order,’ which may help to
throw light on the question.

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA.

By W. B. Drummonp, M.B., C.M., M.R.C.P.E.
(Read 7th December 1899.)

WE sometimes speak of our earth as clad in a living gar-
ment, and the phrase calls forth a mental image of the
moorlands and the forests, of immense grass-covered prairies,
of the heathery slopes of the hills, of innumerable flowers
arrayed in a beauty greater than that of Solomon in his
glory. Of these we naturally and rightly think, for on

Trans. Sco. Nat. Hist. Soc.] (Vou. I. Parr II.

Fig l. Fig. 2.

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LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA. 187

these, the green things of the world, all other life depends.
Directly or indirectly it is true, not only metaphorically but
literally, that all flesh is grass.* The great wealth of its
vegetable life, wealth not only of individuals but also of
species, is one of the most striking characteristics of the
life of the land surface of the globe.

But to-night we are to consider the great and wide sea.
We are to learn that the living garment of the earth is not
confined to the land surface alone, but that the meshes of
the web of life are not less intricately and closely woven in
the waters that cover the deep. These meshes of the
living network do not indeed, at many points, come into
close relationship with human life. Nevertheless, at all
times, the mysterious life of the sea has attracted human
interest. To a very early writer the sea appeared as a
place wherein were things creeping innumerable, and to-day
we cannot forget the vast army of toilers to whom the deep
yields day by day their daily bread. Perhaps the great
richness of life of the once unharvested sea comes home to
us most readily by consideration of the fishing industry ; but
it does require some consideration to realise what is implied
when it is said that in 1898 the fish landed at British
fishery ports amounted to 154 million cwt., exclusive of
shell-fish. The value of this quantity of food, added to the
value of shell-fish, is stated to be 84 millions sterling, and
this is only the first price at the port of landing. The
number of men and boys employed constantly and occasion-
ally in the same year amounted to 41,329 for England,
38,484 for Scotland, and 25,818 for Ireland. In the
Zuyderzee, it is said, 250,000,000 anchovies are captured
annually. The city of Amsterdam is said to be founded on
the heads of herrings.

In Norway, in 1884, 6000 large boats were solely em-

* Since writing the above I have found the following in Sir Thomas
Browne’s Religio Medici:—‘‘ All flesh is grass, is not only metaphorically,
but literally, true ; for all those creatures we behold are but the herbs of thie
field, digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified in ourselves,
Nay, further, we are what we all abhor, Anthropophagi and cannibals,
devourers not only of men, but of ourselves; and that not in an allegory
but a positive truth: for all this mass of flesh which we behold came in at
our mouths ; this frame we look upon hath been upon our trenchers; in
brief, we have devoured ourselves.”

188 DR W. B. DRUMMOND ON

ployed in capturing cod, of which 75,000,000 were said to be
taken. Off Newfoundland myriads of cod have been
captured annually for three hundred years without the
numbers seeming to diminish.

These figures may be taken as a sample to indicate some-
thing of the abundance of a few well-known species in a
small area of the ocean. What are we to say of the lower
and smaller forms of life on which these to a great extent
depend for food. Let me speak of two phenomena which
illustrate the abundance of minute forms.

The first is the so-called Milky Sea (Mer de Lait), which
has often been observed by sailors in the Indian Ocean.
The sea is described as appearing during the night of a
milky-white colour, or as resembling a vast snowfield seen
by the light of the moon. If a bucket of water is drawn
up it is found to contain hundreds of minute luminous
bodies, which shine more brightly when shaken up. The
sea loses its milky appearance during the day, but the
phenomenon reappears at night. This milky sea may
continue for 600 or 700 miles.

Allied to this is the beautiful phosphorescence often to be
seen round our own coasts. Off the west coast of Scotland
on a warm summer evening, one can often see the wake of
the boat glowing with a golden yellow light far behind,
while the water drips from the oars in a golden stream.
In warmer latitudes the phosphorescence may be so brilliant
that some writers speak of having been able to read by the
light given off from the wake of a ship. This phosphor-
escence is known to be due to innumerable minute organisms,
and it is an interesting fact that almost all the forms of
life which float about as Plankton are luminous, and emit
light when stimulated. What particular benefit is derived
from the photogenic power is doubtful, nor is much known
as to the chemistry of light-production. One thing seems
certain, that it has nothing to do with phosphorus. Phos-
phorus and its photogenic compounds are poisonous sub-
stances, and incompatible with cell life. Animal phosphor-
escence is, however, always associated with the absorption of
oxygen, and hence must be regarded, like the shining of
phosphorus itself, as due to slow combustion (oxidation)

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA. 189

processes. Some light is thrown on the process by recent
investigations of Radziszewski, who finds that many fats,
hydrocarbons, and alcohols exhibit phosphorescence when
combining with oxygen in an alkaline medium. It seems
very probable that the luminosity of living substances may
depend on similar processes. Fats and oils are widely
spread, and light occurs only in the presence of oxidation
(see Verworn, General Physiology). “Here,” says Pfliiger,
“in the wonderful spectacle of animal phosphorescence,
nature has given us an example that shows us where the
taper burns that we call life. It is certainly no rare
exception, but only the special expression of the general law
that all cells are burning continually, although with our
corporeal eyes we cannot see the light.”

THE VARIETY OF LIFE.

While the sea is thus rich to prodigality in the abun-
dance in which certain species of floating and swimming
things occur, it is rich, very rich, also, especially near the
shores, in variety of life. Most of the truly pelagic species
tend to occur in great schools or shoals, and this is true
both of the stronger living things which are able to make
their way against the ocean currents, and to which the name
of Necton has been applied, and to the weaker floating
things which are carried passively by tide and current, and
which I have already spoken of as Plankton.

Amongst the swimming things we must give the first
place to the whales, which include the very largest of living
animals, The whales are divided by naturalists into two
great groups: the toothed whales, such as the porpoise and the
grampus, which subsist largely on fish; and the whalebone
whales, which, in spite of their enormous bulk, some of them
measuring 80 to 100 feet in length, live upon the small sur-
face animals which are caught in myriads as the water
filters through the plates of whalebone which fringe the
gigantic mouth like a sieve. “The Greenland whale,” says
Darwin, ‘‘is one of the most wonderful animals in the
world, and the baleen, or whalebone, one of its greatest

peculiarities. The baleen consists of a row, on each side of
VOL. I. 5

190 DR W. B. DRUMMOND ON

the upper jaw, of about 300 plates or lamine, which stand
close together transversely to the long axis of the mouth.
Within the main row there are some subsidiary rows. The
extremities and inner margins of the plates are fringed with
stiff bristles which clothe the whole gigantic palate, and serve
to strain or sift the water, and thus secure the minute prey
on which these great animals subsist. The middle and
longest lamina in the Greenland whale is 10, 12, or even 15
feet in length; but in the different species of cetaceans
there are gradations in length; the middle lamina being in
one species, according te Scorsby, 4 feet, in another 3, in
another 18 inches, and in the Balenoptera rostrata only
about 9 inches in length.” The whales are probably de-
rived from the same primitive stock as the Ungulata; and
you will observe that they differ from them, not only in
their very perfect adaptation to a marine life, but also in
the nature of their food, for, like the overwhelming majority
of marine animals, they are carnivorous in their habits.
Another point of importance, common among pelagic animals,
is that many of the species have a very wide distribution.
Examples of both groups are found in practically every sea.

Seals.—The seals and walruses form another group of
animals which have become adapted to an aquatic life, but
which are, nevertheless, closely related to the true Carnivora,
of which they form a sub-order, They are purely car-
nivorous in their habits, and subsist on fishes, crustacea, and
mollusea, of which they consume enormous numbers.

Birds.—One is tempted to mention a few birds, such as
the penguin, as entitled to a place amongst the pelagic
fauna.

Fishes.—The great majority of marine fishes, including
those most familiar to us, must be considered as shore-
frequenting. Many of the genera are almost world-wide in
their distribution. Most of the genera, for example, which
frequent British seas are represented on both coasts of
America, in the Mediterranean, and in the Japanese district.
Truly pelagic fishes which pass their lives on the free
expanse of the ocean are less numerous. Among them are
many bony fishes, such as mackerels, flying-fish, sunfish ; but
the cartilaginous fishes bulk largely here, and include some

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA. 191

of the largest fishes known. Thus the basking shark of the
Atlantic may measure 30 feet in length. The eggs and
larvee of most of our marketable marine fishes are to be
found floating near the surface, often in great abundance,
and I am able to show you drawings of a number of these.

Enormous numbers of these floating eggs, and of the young
larval fish hatched from them, are devoured by larger fish
and other creatures.

Ascidians—Some of the Ascidians (Salpa, Pyrosoma)
live in the surface waters, and the curious tadpole-shaped
Appendicularia may be captured in abundance off our coasts
with the tow-net. It may be so abundant, especially off the
east coast, as to discolour the ocean. The tadpole larve
of many of the fixed Ascidians spend a portion of their exist-
ence swimming freely at the surface.

Mollusca.—The Mollusea are not very numerously repre-
sented at the ocean surface, but the Pteropods, the Heteropods,
and a limited number of Gasteropods (Atlanta, Janthina,
Glaucus) are surface forms. Limacina and Clione form an
important part of the food of the right whale. The pearly
Nautilus, whose beautiful shell is so well known, occasionally
appears on the surface. It is remarkable as being the only
living Cephalopod that possesses an external shell serving as
a house. Most of the extinct forms were so provided, the
Ammonites, for example, having coiled shells divided by
partitions into chambers. Most molluses pass through two
larval stages. The first of these, which is called a trocho-
sphere, is a pear-shaped form with a bent gut and a ring of
cilia in front of the mouth. In the second stage, the head
bears a ciliated area often lobed, which is called the
“velum,” and the larva is called a “veliger.” Swarms of
these veliger larve may be found at the surface in the
neighbourhood, for example, of mussel beds. They are con-
sumed in great numbers by the larval and post-larval fishes.

Crustacea,—The Crustacea are represented especially by
the Schizopoda and Copepoda, which occur in enormous
swarms. Thus Darwin (Voyage of the Beagle, p. 16) says :—
“In the sea around Tierra del Fuego, at no great distance
from the land, I have seen narrow lines of water of a bright
red colour from the number of Crustacea, which somewhat

192 DR W. B. DRUMMOND ON

resemble in form large prawns. The sealers call them
whale-food. Whether the whales feed on them or not I do
not know; but terns, cormorants, and great unwieldy seals.
derive, on some parts of the coast, their chief sustenance:
from these swimming crabs.” Of the Schizopods, a very
interesting form is Nyctiphanes, which is about as large as
a shrimp, and is found swimming in great numbers off our
own coasts, usually at some distance above the bottom. It is
a luminous form, the light coming from a number of little
bull’s-eye lanterns which it carries with it. The Copepods.
are small Crustacea which are exceedingly abundant, and
which have been found off our own coasts to form an
important part of the food of the larger larval fishes. Very
many of the Crustacea, even of those which do not appear at
the surface, pass through a free-swimming stage A
common type of the Crustacean larva is the Nauplius, which
has a rounded body, three pairs of limbs, and a median eye.
The barnacles which often encrust the rocks so thickly pass.
through a Nauplius stage. These Nauplii are preyed on by
the larval fishes.

LEchinodermata.—The curious larve of the Echinodermata
occur in great abundance at the surface in summer. One
of the most common forms resembles in its general
appearance a six-legged easel.

The Celenterata are represented by immense swarms of
Hydromedusee, many of which are comparatively active
swimmers, and which may be so abundant as almost to
render the water thick for many miles.

Protozoa.—Of the Protozoa, the true ciliate forms are not
very abundant, but flagellate forms are numerous enough.
Ceratium and Peridinium are abundant off our own coasts
at all seasons of the year. The most characteristic of the
oceanic Protozoa are the Foraminifera and Radiolaria, which
form the food of the smaller Crustacea. These are so
abundant that, as they die, their shells fall like a continuous
rain to the bottom of the ocean. Large areas of the ocean
bottom, of depths less than 2200 fathoms, are covered by the
famous Globigerina ooze, in which shells of these Protozoa are
so abundant that carbonate of lime forms 95 per cent. of
the ooze.

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA, 193

The Pteropod ooze, which is found in tropical and sub-
tropical regions at depths of less than 1500 fathoms, is
composed of the shells of Pteropods, Heteropods, and
Foraminifera, and of the siliceous skeletons of Radiolaria.

We see, then, that the surface of the sea, not only near the
coasts, but over the vast expanses of the oceans, swarms with
life. We have seen that the fauna of the surface is a highly
representative one, including examples of some of the highest
and most specialised species, as well as of the lowest and
most primitive. We have seen also that many species
and some classes of animals, which in adult life never appear
a surface, may yet pass through one or more free-
swinming larval stages. Nearly all pelagic animals tend to
occur in enormous swarms, even microscopic species being so
abundant as to discolour the water for miles. Then, again,
another very characteristic feature amongst the smaller
animals is their transparency. Nerves, muscles, skin may
all be quite transparent, the eyes alone in some instances
being pigmented. The larger animals, instead of being
transparent, are often of a blue colour on the upper surface,
and white or pale underneath. We have also noted that
the majority of the animals of the Plankton are phospho-
rescent. Even amongst the fishes we sometimes find
photogenic organs. Most of the Planktonic forms, again, are
nocturnal in their habits; or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say that they seem to love the darkness rather
than the light, for during the day they sink into deeper
water, to appear again at the surface after dark. It is an
interesting and important fact that sunlight penetrates
only for a short distance into the water, so that, at the
comparatively slight depth of 50 fathoms, it is practically
quite dark even during the brightest sunshine. Recent
observations with very sensitive plates, however, show that
some rays of light do penetrate to considerably greater
depths.

The very wide distribution of many of the pelagic species
has been referred to, but perhaps it should be specifically
stated that certain groups are characteristically abundant in
certain areas. In the Arctic regions, for example, one finds
especially vast numbers of free-swimming Crustacea, and of

194 DR W. B. DRUMMOND ON

the whales and other animals that feed upon them. Meduse
and Tunicata are abundant in the warmer regions; while
the larve of bottom-loving forms are naturally found in
greatest abundance in the surface water near the coasts.

A very marked contrast between the terrestrial fauna and
the fauna of the sea must now be referred to. This is, that
practically all the surface animals—practically all marine
animals, I may say—lead a predatory existence, the larger
preying upon the smaller from the top to the bottom of the
series. The right whales devour myriads of Crustacea and
Mollusca; the toothed whales and the seals live largely upon
fish ; the larger fishes devour the smaller and consume also
crustaceans, shell-fish, urchins, and star-fish ; the larval and
post-larval fishes, as we have seen, subsist chietly upon the
Copepods and upon free-swimming larve of other forms; the
Infusoria not only supply food to the Copepods and smaller
larve, but are sometimes so abundant that they may be
found in masses in the stomachs of comparatively large
animals, such as sardines.

The fauna of the sea, in this respect, presents a marked
contrast to the fauna of the land, which is so obviously
dependent on vegetation. Yet in the sea, as on the land, it
is given to the plant alone to feed upon inorganic material ;
to raise the inorganic into the organic. The entire animal
life of the sea is, and must be, dependent upon plant life.
Yet we have said nothing hitherto about plant life. The
existence of plant life has not been obvious. Here, then, is
one of Nature’s secrets. Sunlight can penetrate but a slight
way into the water, and without sunlight, plant life cannot
flourish. The Algze and seaweeds which fringe the rocks
around the coasts extend but a short way over the bottom.
In the famous Sargasso Sea we find a large area crowded
with the floating Alge, yet this covers but a trifling area of
the ocean’s surface. Something else is required to explain
the development and maintenance of the pelagic fauna.
This is found in the development over the entire surface of
the ocean of a comparatively small number of species of
microscopic plants, for the most part Diatoms and Oscil-

latoriz. What these lack in number of species they make.

up for in the number of individuals produced. It has been

ee

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA. 195

estimated that in some parts of the Baltic there are
140,000,000 microscopic plants in every ten cubic metres of
water. In the Atlantic the Challenger passed for days
through water full of minute Algz (Trichodesmium), gleaming
in the water like particles of mica! Off our own coasts
these minute forms may be so abundant as to coat the
fishermen’s nets with an odoriferous layer. This plant life
is especially rich in April and May, just when the. young
post-larval fishes are most abundant in inshore waters.
Immense numbers of Foraminifera and Radiolaria feed on the
Diatoms, and form food for the smaller Crustacea, and for the
smaller larval fishes.

This wonderful abundance of a lowly form of plant life is
a fact of fundamental importance in the history of life in the
waters of our globe. But for this all other life would cease,
and the sea would be an uninhabited waste. Animals have
no power of maintaining themselves upon ar inorganic diet,
and obviously could not go on living upon each other
indefinitely. This abundant plant life is believed to be
confined to a comparatively shallow surface zone. Sunlight
penetrates a comparatively short distance through the water,
and although a very small amount of light suffices for the
production of chlorophyll, Regnard, in some careful experi-
ments, could find no evidence of the breaking up of CO,
by chlorophyll at a depth of 10 metres.

It has, however, been suggested that even at considerable
depths some Algz might continue to live by the light given
off from phosphorescent animals. The animals belonging to
the surface fauna no doubt continue abundant at consider-
ably greater depths than those in which plants are able to
flourish,

THE ORIGIN OF THE PELAGIC FAUNA.

The consideration of these simple living beings leads
us on to another question—the origin of the fauna of the
surface. Whence came this wondrously rich and diverse
life? Most naturalists now believe that it is at least highly
probable that life originated in the sea, and the simple single-
celled plants and animals of which I have just been speaking
carry us back in imagination to an immensely distant past,

196 DR W. B. DRUMMOND ON

when they, or simple things like them, alone constituted the
fauna of the sea. For the maintenance of such a fauna the
sea is peculiarly favourable. The land surface of the earth,
with its extreme diversity of soil, of altitude, of climate, of
heat and cold, of rain and drought, presents all the condi-
tions around which, in their struggle for existence, animals
and plants have slowly diverged through successive
modifications and adaptations into the varied fauna and
flora that exists to-day. The struggle for existence has
been a struggle not only with competitors for place, and
food, and air, and light, but, in a different sense, with the
inorganic surroundings which in their diversity have allowed
the most diverse modifications to find a place for growth
and development,

In the sea, however, the inorganic surroundings, instead
of being strikingly diverse, are strikingly uniform. The
water of the sea, with its abundant saline constituents, is
practically a nutritive medium containing all the elements
necessary for the existence of plant life. All day the sur-
face waters are exposed to the sunlight. But a little below
the surface the stormiest winds do not disturb the prevail-
ing calm. The temperature is remarkably uniform over
enormous areas. The marine currents carry the Planktonic
forms about, without their being otherwise affected than if
they were in perfectly still water. Moreover, in the sea
there is an absence of those natural barriers which, on the
land surface, favour the segregation of diverging species.

A fauna, therefore, composed of single cells would in the
sea be practically free from all those conditions under which
the fauna of the land has developed into its present form ;
and such cells, growing in bulk in a medium which bathed
them on all sides, would evidently find the most favourable
conditions for their continued increase by parting the one
part from the other every time they underwent division.
The reason for the appearance of the many-celled from the
single-celled forms has been a fruitful subject for discussion.
Theoretically, at any rate, it would seem that the answer
is not to be found in the surface waters of the sea. Let us
then for a little leave these simple forms alone and consider
again the surface fauna of our own day.

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA. 197

In trying to read the ancestral history of a species, two
lines of evidence are open to us. Firstly, there is the
embryological or developmental evidence. In the history
of the development of the individual animal we frequently
find strange phases of growth which have no reference to
the present adult form, and which are only explicable on
the recapitulation theory, the theory, that is to say, that the
development of the individual is a brief epitome of the
development of the race. Even in the adult there may be
found structures and organs whose existence has no refer-
ence to present needs, but points back to some ancestral form.
Secondly, there is the geological evidence, the evidence
preserved in the rocks of far-back time, in the fossil remains
of the ancestors of living forms.

Both these forms of evidence will assist us in obtaining
some answers to our present question. Bearing these facts
in mind, let us look again at the pelagic fauna and ask our
question, “ Whence came these?” At once we are struck
by the fact that many of the pelagic animals, admirably
adapted though they are for a marine life, must be modified
descendants of shore or land animals. The Polar bears, the
seals, and walruses, even the more extremely modified
whales, and all the sea birds are obviously simply land ani-
mals which have become secondarily adapted to a marine
life. Yet a very strange fact is that when we attempt to
go further back still, we find in the embryological history of
birds and mammals unmistakable evidence that these, in
turn, were descended from some ancestors which were not
mammals or birds at all, but which lived an aquatic life and
breathed by means of gills.

Among the invertebrata, again, we find some, such as the
marine insect Halobates, which have obviously taken to a
pelagic life at a comparatively recent period.

Something of the ancestral history of fishes can be made
out from the testimony of the rocks, The higher fishes of
our own day, the bony fishes, appear first in the Secondary
Period ; their ancestors are to be sought in a much earlier
period; and as far back as the Silurian age, before the
famous Old Red Sandstone was laid down, we find that
Ganoids and Elasmobranchs were abundant. It is surely a

198 DR W. B. DRUMMOND ON

very interesting and striking fact that in our own day,
amongst the most highly developed fishes, examples of these
ancient families should be able to maintain a place. When,
however, we try to go further back, and ask whence these
primitive fishes came, and whence the great backboned
family, we find that our knowledge is still very incomplete.
Hints, indeed, we get in the structure of the lowest verte-
brates, in the life-history of the Ascidians, in the structure
of some strange forms, such as Balanoglossus; but, on the
whole, all we can safely affirm is that there has been no
break between the vertebrate and the invertebrate series.
We have already noted in the pelagic fauna examples of
nearly all the great groups of invertebrate animals. When
we ask what the geological record has to say as to the origin of
these, we come upon one of the most interesting facts that
geological research has made known to us. We find that
in the oldest fossiliferous rocks known to us, the lowest
rocks of the primary or palezoic series, the Cambrian, all
the chief classes of the invertebrata are already represented.
The corals, the crinoids, the asteroids, the arthropods, the
cephalopods of the Cambrian series are just as distinct from
each other as are their modified descendants of our own day.
This is, as I have said, a remarkable fact, and one reason
why it is remarkable is the light it throws on the immense
antiquity of life on the earth, for the existence of these
varied types of invertebrate forms postulates a period before
the oldest fossiliferous beds were laid sufficiently long for
their development.

Here, then, the geological record fails us, and we have
to turn to our other book. The embryological history
of these groups points plainly to a time when star-fish,
molluscs, arthropods did not exist as such, but were
represented by free-swimming forms. We have already
noted among the surface fauna numerous larval forms,
free-swimming creatures, as transparent as glass, which
differ so greatly from the adult type that it may be
impossible on examining them to decide even the class to
which they belong. The abundance of free-swimming
larvee among marine animals plays an important part in the
diffusion of the species, and when we examine these larval

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA. 199

forms in order to gain information as to ancestral history,
we have carefully to distinguish between characters which
are ancestral, and characters which are secondary or adap-
tive, and fit the larvee for their present life. It is unneces-
sary at present to describe the different forms which are
recognised by naturalists. Although these differ consider-
ably among themselves, yet, if we except the Celenterata
and the Crustacea, the larve of all other groups, worms,
molluscs, brachiopods, echinoderms, and so on, may be
reduced to a common type which somewhat resembles a
medusa, which has a flattened or concave ventral surface,
which contains the opening of the mouth, and a dorsal dome-
shaped surface, which is continued in front of the mouth as
a pre-oral lobe. The alimentary canal has the form of a
bent tube with a ventral concavity. There is present also
either a uniform covering of cilia or definite ciliated bands,
by means of which locomotion is effected.

Among the Celenterata we find a still simpler type of
larva which is called the Planula.

These pelagic larve, then, plainly tell us of a prolonged
period before the Cambrian rocks were formed, during which
the earliest molluscs, crinoids, asteroids were gradually
evolved, probably upon the shores of a continent, or upon
the bottom, it is supposed, of friths and straits, from some
very simple swimming forms. To what then do all these
various facts, gleaned from the fossiliferous rocks, from
embryology, from the structure of living forms, point ?
How do they help us to answer our question as to the origin
of the pelagic fauna? The end of the whole matter is, I
think, something like this. The plant life of the ocean, so
simple in structure and so abundant in individuals, may be
regarded as primitive. Such primitive plants, along with a
few forms of Protozoa, may for a long period have constituted
the entire fauna of the sea, and even down to our own day
they continue to constitute the most important element of
marine life. All the higher animals which are now found
constituting part of the pelagic fauna have developed else-
where. Their ancestors lived on the bottom, or along the
shore, or upon the land, where the conditions of existence
are harder and more varied, and gave opportunity for

200 DR W. B. DRUMMOND ON

gradual improvement of structure, and for the evolution of
higher and higher types. As the struggle for existence
became more keen, some forms sought salvation by a return
to a free-swimming life; and so the bottom, and the shore,
and the land have all at various times given contributions
to the pelagic fauna. The types first to return to a surface
life must have been such as were able to subsist on the
minute plants and animals of the surface, but they in turn
were fated to serve as food for yet higher forms that sought
safety in the surface waters. The evolution of these shore
and bottom forms that thus by degrees contributed to the
pelagic fauna must, as we have seen, have taken place in
pre-Cambrian times. Mr W. K. Brooks (to whose writings
I am indebted for many hints on this subject) believes that
when colonisation began on the bottom and the shore, the
evolution of metazoan types may have proceeded for a time
with comparatively great rapidity, on account of the diver-
sity of the conditions of existence, and the greater “ hardness ”
of these conditions as compared with the surface, and that
in this way we may be helped to understand the very early
appearance of the principal invertebrate types.

Thus, then, we see that all classes of the animal kingdom
have contributed their quota to the fauna of the surface.
These as they increased in numbers gradually effected an
important alteration in the conditions of existence at the
surface. The inorganic conditions are, as we have seen,
of remarkable uniformity, but the appearance of numerous
competing types of organisms introduced a new element, and
served to bring about further evolution and specialisation.

Of the many larval forms which abound in the surface
waters, a few may be regarded as secondary in character.
That is to say, they are the modified young of more or less
sedentary bottom-loving forms which have acquired motile
powers for the purpose (to make use of a teleological
expression) of diffusing the species. Most of the free-
swimming larve may rather be regarded as representing
primitive types, which have been retained on account of the
benefit to the species of the wider diffusion thus brought
about. Even so, most of them have undergone secondary
adaptive changes.

LIFE AT THE SURFACE OF THE SEA. 201

Here I must bring to a close my present paper. I have
been able to lay before you only a very few facts concerning
the wonderful life of the sea. But for those who have seen
even a little, the sea can never be a mere waste of waters,
but always the home of countless living things, of which,
from the smallest to the greatest, none liveth to itself alone,
but everywhere the lives of all are mysteriously intertwined
in a living network, whence the creative energy to-day, as in
the beginning, ever calls forth countless forms of wondrous
beauty to a world which is indeed a world of struggle, and
toil, and travail, but which, we may well believe, is also, for
them as for us, much more than this. I have had to speak
of the struggle for existence, but have done so always
bearing in mind that, as our President * has expressed it,
“The struggle for existence is far more than an internecine
struggle at the margin of subsistence; that it includes all
the multitudinous efforts for self and for others between the
poles of love and hunger; that it comprises all the endeavours
of mate for mate, of parent for offspring, of kin for kin;
that love and life are factors in progress as well as pain and
death; that life for many an animal means the well-being
of a socially-bound or kin-bound organism in a social maliew ;
that egoism is not satisfied until it becomes altruistic.”

Rererences. — Brooks, W. K., Foundations of Zoology, ete. ;
Cunningham, Marketable Marine Fishes, etc.; Deschamps,.
E., La Vie Mystérieuse des Mers; M‘Intosh, W., Resources
of the Sea, etc.; Regnard, La Vie dans les Eaux; Scottish
Fishery Board Reports (various); Thomson, J. Arthur, The
Science of Life, ete.; Verworn, Allgemeine Physiologie ; etc.

* Professor J. Arthur Thomson.

202 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

FINGER-PRINTS—THEIR EVOLUTION AND
SIGNIFICANCE.

By Davin Heppurn, M.D., F.RS.E., V.-P.R.P.S., Lecturer
on Regional Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh.

(Read 18th January 1900.)

Introduction.—The expression “ finger-print ” has become one
of the every-day phrases of the anthropologist, and also of
those who are concerned in establishing the identity of people
suspected of, or convicted of, crime. In such associations
the phrase means, an impression obtained from the palmar
surface of the last phalanx of any one of the five digits.
The term, however, may be made to bear a much more
extensive significance, for it may apply to similar impres-
sions derived from the entire palmar surface of the hand, as
well as to impressions from the sole of the foot and plantar
surfaces of the toes. The recognition of the fact that such
impressions are specially characteristic of the individual is
no new or recent discovery, for, in Western mining com-
munities, it is recorded that the imprint of the thumb of
an illiterate man has been accepted as the satisfactory
equivalent of his signature in connection with pecuniary
transactions. Again, certain ancient Chinese coins bear an
incised depression, which is interpreted as typifying the
mark of a finger-nail, thereby embodying the idea of a
finger-print, and showing that the Chinese have for long
appreciated the personal value of a finger-print. Further,
among the modern methods adopted for the identification of
the habitual criminal, or for the certain recognition of the
person who has once passed through the hands of the prison
authorities, scarcely any method provides safer or more
easily acquired and applied facts than the examination of
“ finger-prints.”

Methods,—Finger-prints are so easily obtained that it is
scarcely possible to avoid leaving some traces of them upon
such a surface as glass, but, for purposes of their systematic

FINGER-PRINTS—THEIR EVOLUTION AND SIGNIFICANCE. 203

study and examination, various methods have been adopted.
Thus, wax of a suitable consistence has been used for
receiving the impression, which in this: manner practically
leaves a mould of the surface pressed upon the wax. A
somewhat similar result, comparable to a photograph, is
obtained by receiving the impressions upon a plate of glass
which has previously been coated with a layer of fine soot
from a smoky flame. Much better impressions may be
made upon glass which has been coated with a smooth film
of printer’s ink, as may easily be done by spreading the ink
with a gelatine roller. (I have found this method of great
service in taking impressions of the hands and feet of living
monkeys and apes when no other method would have been
of the slightest use owing to their varying conditions of
terror, timidity, or temper !)

The best impressions are those obtained by applying a
smooth coating of printer’s ink to the part, and then
transferring the ink to paper or a clean plate of glass. The
ink is first smoothly spread upon a slab of porcelain, marble,
glass, or metal, by means of a gelatine roller. Thereafter
the digit or hand is applied to the ink, which is then
transferred to a sheet of white paper or a plate of clean
glass. My own experience is that impressions obtained on
glass plates, if possible upon a size suitable for the lantern,
are of enormous value in the labour of interpreting the
prints, since they are so easily and comfortably enlarged on
a screen, which may be of paper to facilitate drawing.

The Skin. —From what has already been said, it will be
evident that “finger-prints ” record certain appearances pre-
sented by the skin. Now, on the palm of the hand and sole
of the foot, the skin possesses two sets of distinctive and
highly characteristic appearances. First, it shows a series of
transverse and oblique grooves or foldings which affect the
entire thickness of the skin, and are due to the action of the
various muscles connected with the hand and foot. These
are named integumentary grooves, and they are nothing
more than the creases which result from frequently repeated
folding of the skin along very definite and precise lines,
following upon the repeated contraction of muscles whose
positions and attachments admit of no uncertainty in their

204 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

mode of action. They are the easily understood effect
which results from an equally evident cause. (My apprecia-
tion of the good sense of this audience compels me to refrain
from even a passing criticism of what is called palmistry ;
but we may as well look for hints of the future from
these skin foldings as consult the creases in the table-cloth
for the number and names of the expected guests.) Second,
the skin of the palm and sole presents an infinite number of
very tine ridges separated from each other by fine intervening
furrows. This ridge and furrow appearance is due to
the arrangement of the papilla, which are everywhere
characteristic elements in the structure of the true skin,
in rows which are separated by intervening furrows. This
arrangement is entirely independent of muscular action ; but,
being dependent upon the essential structure of the true
skin, it is as permanent as, and can only be removed by, the
destruction of the true skin. Now, it is a remarkable fact
that while papillary ridges are found everywhere upon the
palm and sole, yet in certain areas the ridges are collected
together to form definite designs or “patterns,” hence we
distinguish “pattern areas” in the general non-pattern
expanse of the palm and sole. In the hand, “ pattern”
areas occur in the following positions :—(1) the palmar
surface of each terminal phalanx; (2) in the palm close to
the clefts between the four inner digits; (3) on the elevated
muscle masses known as the ball of the thumb and ball of
the little finger. In the sole of the foot, “pattern” areas
are found in corresponding positions.

[The author here gave a short account of the manner
in which finger-print patterns are interpreted and
classified for the purpose of personal identification. ]

It must be abundantly evident, that however valuable
these patterns may be asa means of establishing identity by
reason of the permanence of the papillary ridges which form
them, yet it would be quite absurd to suppose that Nature
evolved them either as an aid to the detective, a property
for the novelist, or an interesting field of speculation for the
anthropologist ! Hence, how have they been evolved, and
what is their significance ?

FINGER-PRINTS—THEIR EVOLUTION AND SIGNIFICANCE. 205

Their Evolution—Like the majority of mammals, man is
provided with five digits, ie, he is pentadactylous; but at
first sight it appears asif the hands and feet of man presented
no trace of the elevated “pads” which are such charac-
teristic features of the tips of the toes and soles of the feet
in mammals. A closer examination, however, will show that
without exception a “pattern” area occurs in each of the
localities which correspond to the “pads” of an animal’s
foot. Now, while these “pattern” areas are always
somewhat elevated, they do not attain the proportions of
“pads” separated from each other by deep grooves, because
the purposes which are served by the hand and foot of man
are attained by the sacrifice of resilient elastic pads, and the
adoption of length and breadth associated with comparative
flatness of their general surface. An examination of the
“pads” in the hand and foot of a very young fcetus
reveals the fact that they are projecting, somewhat
cylindrical or conical, elevations, but as growth advances, the
Shape of each “pad” undergoes more or less extensive
modification. In consequence of this pointed, cylindrical, or
almost conical character of the “pads,” it follows as a
matter of course that the papillary ridges of the true skin
assume the form of circles surrounding a central point, and
that the gradual increase in the size of the “ pads” permits
the production of additional circles until the “pad” is
completely formed. Hence it is that the development of a
“pad,” which begins with the elevation of a point and whose
area of extension is restricted, determines the presence of a
“pattern,” the primary design of which is a series of
concentric circles. Nevertheless the designs undergo an
infinite variety of modifications, due simply to the equally
great variation in the rate of growth of the “pad” area, as
well as to the variability of the extent of its surface area.

The careful examination of large numbers of “ patterns ”
has led me to regard the concentric circles as the primary
design out of which “whorls,” “ loops,” and “tents” are
readily evolved according to the rate of growth and the area
available, Moreover, “ whorls” are more nearly allied to
the primary circle designs than loops and tents; and while

as yet no racial character has been associated with either of
VOL. I. 16

206 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

the fundamental patterns, yet I believe that I have sufficient
ground for stating that “whorl” patterns predominate
among the negro races, and that “loop ” and “ tent” patterns
are equally characteristic of the white races. Certainly
“whorl” patterns are remarkably constant among the apes,
and the presence of this pattern merely indicates the
existence of a more symmetrical “ pad” area for the basis of
the “whorl.” The frequence of “loops” and “tents,” on
the other hand, merely expresses considerable deviation from
the primitive symmetry of the “ pad” area.

The entire area of the palm and sole of man and apes,
not occupied by patterns, is covered by papillary ridges,
which are arranged in a direction transverse or obliquely
transverse to the long axis of the hand or foot.

Their Significance—Having now discussed the presence,
the classification, and the evolution of papillary ridges in
connection with pattern areas and non-pattern areas, it is
necessary to find some explanation of the presence of
papille in the skin, as well as the arrangement of these
papille in the form of ridges, no less than the arrangement
of the ridges in patterns and in non-pattern areas.

In order that my argument as to the function performed
by those papillary ridges, whether in the form of patterns or
as parallel ridges, may proceed intelligently, it is necessary
for me to premise that papille are everywhere characteristic
structures in the true skin, but that they are very numerous
on the palms and soles, and that it is only in these places that
they arrange themselves in patterns and rows. Further, all
over the surface of the skin the mouths of sweat ducts may
be found discharging the secretion from the sweat glands,
which are situated in the deeper levels of the skin substance ;
but wherever papillary ridges occur the sweat ducts
invariably open on the summits of the ridges, and never by
any chance into the bottom of the furrow which intervenes
between two ridges. It seems to me that the constancy of
this arrangement indicates a fundamental truth and cannot
be regarded as a mere coincidence. As everyone knows, the
skin contains the peripheral end-organs which are associated
with the sense of touch. These touch-bodies are contained
within a certain number of papille, and it has been

FINGER-PRINTS—THEIR EVOLUTION AND SIGNIFICANCE. 207

suggested by Galton that one of the probable uses of the
papillary ridges is to elevate the mouths of the sweat ducts,
and so enable them to discharge their contents in a
favourable position for moistening the skin in connection
with the sense of touch. Even if this suggestion be
accepted, it does not explain why, in some parts of the palm
and sole, the ridges assume the form of designs, or why many
sensitive parts of the skin do not show papillary ridges. It
is a well-known fact that the sensibility of the sole is much
less than that of the palm, and yet, in spite of its greatly
thickened cuticle, the papillary ridges and patterns are equally
distinct in both. Further, the tip of the nose, the red part
of the lips, and the back of the third phalanges are two or
three times more sensitive than the plantar surface of the great
toe, and yet only the papille of the latter are arranged in ridges.
But it is sometimes argued that the increased sensibility of
those parts which have no papillary ridges may be due to a
thinner covering of cuticle; and, while making all allowance
for this condition, nevertheless it does not meet the whole
case, nor does it provide any explanation of the presence of
ridges and patterns. Indeed, as regards the palm itself, it
has been shown that touch-bodies are most numerous on
the tips of the digits, somewhat diminished in number on
the three eminences which occupy the palm immediately
above the clefts between the fingers, and still further
reduced in number on the ball of the thumb and ball of the
little finger, while, lastly, their number is greatly reduced in
other parts of the palm. You will observe that the areas
where touch-bodies are most numerous correspond exactly to
the positions where patterns are found, or, in other words, to
the position of “ pads ”; and, moreover, that there is no diminu-
tion in the number of papillary ridges, or in the complexity
of the patterns simultaneously with the diminished number of
touch-bodies and consequently diminished sensibility. These
facts only show that although very varying degrees of
sensibility are associated with papillary ridges and pattern
areas, yet these special arrangements are not essential to the
highest development of the sense of touch, besides occurring
with very varying degrees of sensibility. It has also been
Supposed that papillary ridges endowed the skin so provided

208 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

with a frictional sensibility or power of discriminating the
texture and quality of the surface over which they may be
rubbed. Undoubtedly the palm and the sole possess this.
discriminating faculty, but in this respect they are no better
endowed than other parts of the skin which possess no
papillary ridges ; and, besides, the presence of a discriminating
quality will not account fora pattern in one position and
its absence in another.

Returning now to the question of the sweat glands, the
mouths of whose ducts always open on the summits of
papillary ridges when they are found together, I have to add
that sweat glands are not only more numerous to the square
inch in the palm and sole than in any other part, but that, as.
between palm and sole, there is no very material difference
in their numbers. Now, although sweat glands are always.
more numerous in regions devoid of hair, and although
moisture favours the sense of touch, yet neither of these
reasons fully accounts for their great numbers, nor for the
regularity. with which the mouths of the ducts open upon
the summits of the ridges and not in the intervening
furrows. So far, therefore, while a variety of functions may
be credited to the papillary ridges and their associated
sweat glands, yet neither singly nor in combination do these
functions necessitate the arrangement of papille in ridges,
nor the arrangement of ridges in patterns, together with the
elevation of the mouths of sweat ducts to the summits of
the ridges.

Before entering upon the discussion of what I apprehend
to be the real function of papillary ridges, I wish to recall
attention to the series of pronounced integumentary grooves.
which channel the skin of the palm and sole, distinct from
those almost invisible furrows which intervene between
papillary ridges. These grooves are foldings of the skin
which result from the action of definite groups of muscles,
so that they merely indicate the nature of the closing
movement of the hand and foot when these members grasp:
or close upon an object.

In the apes the main direction of these grooves is trans-
verse to the long axis of the hand and foot, and they express
a closing movement which utilises the hand as a hook in

‘FINGER-PRINTS—THEIR EVOLUTION AND SIGNIFICANCE. 209

swinging from one cylindrical branch to another. In man’s
hand the integumentary grooves are for the most part
obliquely transverse, since the closure of his hand in the act
of grasping is associated with a much more powerful and
freely movable thumb, whereby it is possible for the hand
to close upon and almost to envelop a spherical object.

Now, wherever papillary ridges occur, except in the
pattern areas, they follow, in their main lines of development,
those transverse or obliquely transverse integumentary
grooves which express the degree and nature of the grasping
power of the hand and foot.

My contention therefore is, that papillary ridges are speci-
ally developed aids to the power of prehension, whether it be
such as is required by the ape in his rapid and safe progress
from branch to branch, or, as in the case of man, for the
effective and secure handling of a weapon or a tool. If we
compare the foot of a cat with that of a dog, we see that
each possesses a set of well-developed “ pads,” but yet only
the cat can climb freely in virtue of its sharp and effective
hook-like claws. So it is in the case of many other climbing
animals, They do not really grasp the object upon which
they climb in the true sense of the term; nevertheless, the
skin covering their pads is not devoid of papille although
they do not form ridges, nor are the papille devoid of
tactile sensibility.

In the hands and feet of apes and men, grasping is not
assisted by claws, but is performed by the disposition of the
hand or foot with its digits upon the object laid hold of,
the security of the grasp being augmented by the general
development and arrangement of the papillary ridges, whose
direction, except in the “ pad” areas, in the main corresponds
to the foldings produced by muscular action.

By applying oil or water to the skin of the palm or sole,
Wwe may give it the equivalent of a perfectly smooth surface,
but no condition less fitted for secure grasping could be
imagined, notwithstanding the fact that sensibility to touch
is not similarly impaired.

A certain amount of moisture is certainly advantageous to
effective grasping; and the palms and soles of apes are
always exquisitely soft and velvety, for they avoid all risk of

210 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

hardening them by walking on their knuckles and the outer
margin of the foot. We now see why the sweat ducts open
upon the summits of the papillary ridges; it is for the
purpose of moistening them as the pressure of the grasping
force becomes operative. A very dry hand is almost as ineffec-
tive as a very wet one, and we constantly see illustrations of
the need for artificially moistening the palm when a specially
secure grip is desired. Now, if the sweat ducts had opened
at the bottom of the furrows, the pressure upon the ridges
would have occluded their mouths and prevented the escape
of their contents; but as it is, pressure assists the outflow of
the sweat, which moistens the resilient elastic ridge, and gives:
the hand or foot an enormously augmented security of grasp.

Another important application of papillary ridges is seen
in the manner in which those which are arranged more or
less transversely lie parallel to the long axis of a cylindrical
object, such as a branch when it is grasped. In this position
they prevent slipping exactly after the manner of the pattern
upon the tyre of a bicycle.

Certain monkeys possess prehensile tails, and whatever
may be the value of such a tail as an aid to the sense of
touch, it is undoubtedly relied upon as a grasping orgam
whose non-slipping qualities are outstanding. Now the
under or ventral side of a prehensile tail is invariably
covered with papillary ridges, which are arranged in an
obliquely transverse direction on each side of the mesial
line.

In conclusion, I think that the evidence is sufficiently
strong to warrant the belief that, wherever papillary ridges
occur, they are invaluable additions towards perfecting the
security of the prehensile apparatus without in any way
interfering with the value of the skin as an organ associated
with touch. Since, however, prehension is most highly
developed among anthropoids and men, among them we
also find the fullest specialisation of the papillary ridge; but
the very diverse functions performed by the hands and feet
of the Bimana and the Quadrumana have resulted in an
infinite variety of size and shape of the “pad” areas, with
corresponding variation in the patterns which adorn them.
Lastly, the value of these patterns as aids to the identi-

FINGER-PRINTS—THEIR EVOLUTION AND SIGNIFICANCE. 211

fication of the individual lies in the possibility of infinite
variation capable of classification, coupled with the fact that,
short of total destruction of the skin, these ridge and furrow
patterns cannot be obliterated, because the papillary ridges
having once appeared are not subject either to an increase
or a diminution of their number.

INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION ON THE GEOGRA-
PHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE MAMMALIA
IN EUROPE DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY.

By Rev. G. 8. Dopsiz, M.A.

(Read 5th October 1899.)

THE geographical distribution of the Mammalia, though
doubtless based upon perfectly consistent principles, exhibits
at the present day aspects which are generally considered
anomalous. Why the habitat of one form should occupy a
very small area restricted by no serious natural barriers,
whilst that of a closely allied form extends through all the
degrees of longitude which traverse the land surface of the
Eastern Hemisphere; why the family Centetide should in-
habit exclusively Madagascar and the larger West India
Islands; why the tapirs should have survived only in
tropical America and the remote Malayan Region; why
the genus Myogale should not occur in favourable localities
between the Carpathians and the Pyrenees; why the species
Cynopithecus niger should live so far apart from its nearest —
kindred, are questions which have long perplexed the student
of zoology.

But although the principles upon which the geographical
distribution of animals originally proceeded may never be
discovered, it is obvious that the introduction, preservation,
or extinction of species within prescribed areas, depends
primarily upon certain extrinsic physical conditions, as well
as upon inherent qualities which enable the species in ques-

212 ~=REY. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

tion to adapt themselves to the particular situations in
which they are placed. Momentous changes in the climate
of a region, together with important modifications of the
earth’s surface dependent upon certain geological pheno-
mena, have, even in Kainozoic ages, materially affected
animal life; but the civilizing influence of the human race
promises results in comparison with which those achieved
by the forces of nature sink into insignificance. Man,
though he claims the right of disposing of the lower animals
for any object which may increase his own happiness, acknow-
ledges no obligation to suffer the slightest inconvenience for
their sake. His very existence depends upon the preserva-
tion of certain species of mammals; but the food which
nourishes these, in common with himself, is of equal import-
ance to an incomparably greater number of species in whose
economy he has no friendly interest.

With uncivilized man the wild beast may long dispute
possession of the desert; for the wants of the savage are
few, and the weapons at his disposal barely sufficient to
enable him to maintain his precarious proletariat; but
before the irrepressible advance of civilized society, the
strongest and fiercest of the Carnivora retire slowly and
sullenly to less accessible solitudes. In physical strength
and agility the human being is far inferior to the vast
majority of the larger mammals, and, if unarmed and alone,
would be quite at their mercy—“the steer of the meadow
tosses him like a waste rag.” Yet the number of species
from whose attacks his life is in danger is surprisingly
small. In India, where there is a greater variety of carni-
vorous animals than in any other region, and where many
hundreds of persons are said to be killed annually by them,
according to the unquestionable testimony of Sir Joseph
Fayrer, the fatalities may, almost without exception, be laid
to the charge of two species of Felide, the Tiger and Leopard.
The proportion, appalling as it may appear, is in reality
incredibly small, only about five in a million.

In India, however, as in other parts of the world into
which civilization has penetrated, the number of wild
animals is rapidly diminishing. The impossibility of obtain-
ing even an approximate census of such a population is, of

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 213

course, self-evident. For the majority of wild animals there
is little or no demand in the market; their increase or
decrease is, therefore, a matter of indifference except to
naturalists and those whose personal property is directly
concerned. Besides, the number of specimens annually
killed or captured alive furnishes us with no correct esti-
mate of the proportion which still survives. It frequently
happens that a species suddenly reappears in a locality in
which it was supposed to be extinct. It is, therefore,
evident that even in Europe, where the opportunities for
scientific observation are incomparably greater than in any
other quarter of the globe, an exact account of the distribu-
tion of the Mammalia cannot be given.

It is scarcely necessary to call attention to the fact that
no distinct faunal region is enclosed within the arbitrary
boundaries of our little continent. Considered geographi-
cally, Europe, notwithstanding its paramount political
importance, is but a remote corner of Asia; considered
zoographically, it does not even constitute an independent
division of the great Palearctic Region. The Palearctic
Region includes not only the whole of Europe, but Northern
and Central Asia, as well as Africa as far south as the
Sahara and the first cataract of the Nile. This immense
territory, stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Tropic of
Cancer, and from Ireland to the eastern extremities of
Continental Asia and Japan, naturally possesses a vast
diversity of climate and soil, and among its mammals
appear the ape and the lemming, the hyena and the
wolverine, the lion and the polar bear, the camel and the
reindeer. On its south-western frontier the gazelle trips
over the red sand, and its skin, like that of the enemies it
dreads—the Arab, the lion, the caracal, the jackal—wears the ~
very tint of the burning desert ; on its remote eastern shore
the hirsute savage of the Hokkaido stands shivering in the
sleet, lurking for the sea-otter as it comes to seek shelter
under the ice-bound cliffs which resist the tempest-tossed
breakers of the North Pacific.

But by far the most remarkable characteristic of this
region is the distribution of the human race within its
bounds. At one extremity lies China, with its unnumbered

214 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

millions of spiritless barbarians, still to-day, as they were
two thousand years ago, enslaved and debased by irrefrag-
able caste; at the opposite extremity lies Europe with its
rapidly increasing populations, divided in race and in
language, and estranged by national prejudice and ethical
tendency, but united in desire to obtain the mastery over
the arts and sciences on which depend the civilization and
education of the world. But between China and Europe
there is a boundless expanse of imperfectly explored, uncul-
tivated, thinly-peopled territory, which stretches from the
inhospitable precincts of the loftiest mountains on the
globe, to the desolate tundras of the frigid zone, and
which consists of rainless desert and irreclaimable swamp,
of impenetrable forest and sterile steppe-land, containing
vast areas which never can be made fit for the habitation
of man.

The Palearctic Region is most conveniently divided into
three fairly well detined sub-regions——the Europasian, the
Eremian, and the Chinese. The first of these includes
nearly the whole of Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and
Elburz countries, Siberia north of the Altai. the Island of
Saghalien, and perhaps Yesso in Japan. A small portion
of south-eastern Russia falls within the limits of the Eremian
sub-region, which is composed of Africa north of the Atlas
and the greater part of Western and Central Asia. The
third sub-region consists of China with Manchuria and
nearly the whole of Japan.

Though the Palearctic is by far the largest of the six
creat regions into which the land surface of the earth has
been divided, its mammalian fauna is relatively poor. As
the differentiation of form diminishes almost commensurately
with the distance from the South Pole, it is not to be expected
that, so far as the variety of its mammals is concerned, the
Palearctic Region, in its high northern latitude, should take
rank with the Indian, Ethiopian, and Neotropical regions.
In a work recently published, Geography of Mammals, by
Messrs W. L. and P. L. Sclater, the number of genera is
stated to be 103, of which only 25 are endemic,—i.¢., absolutely
confined within its bounds. Fifty-seven of these belong to
the Europasian sub-region, and of these only 4 are endemic.

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 215

But the exact number of mammals to be found within the
political limits of the Continent of Europe is to a great
extent determined by the systematist’s penchant for differen-
tiation. Keyserling and Blasius recognise 149 species in 56
genera, but in this list are included some species which have
been imported from distant regions, others which can only
be regarded as stragglers from the conterminous parts of
Asia, and others again whose claim to segregation is by no
means universally admitted. Even if all questionable cases
be subtracted, the number, small as it may appear, is in
reality large in proportion to the conditions implied by the
habitat ; for here the struggle for existence has been more
vehemently maintained than in any other quarter of the
world. In density of population, Europe, with 38 inhabitants
to the square kilometre, far surpasses all the other continents.
Asia, which ranks next to it in this respect, has only 18 or
19; Africa is supposed to have about 5; America has barely
3, and Oceania not even 1. And this difference becomes
more conspicuous when the political divisions of each con-
tinent are separately considered ; for within the states of
Western and Central Europe is compressed a sixth part of
the entire population of the earth. Of these, Belgium con-
tains 218 inhabitants to the square kilometre, Great Britain
120, Italy 109, Germany 100. The United States of America,
the one civilized country which can be brought into com-
parison with Europe in this connection, has scarcely 8. The
great Empire State, New York, has not the population of
Belgium though its area is more than four times as large;
and if Rhode Island and Massachusetts, with a density of
106 and 104 respectively, rank with the most thickly-peopled
parts of our continent, there are, on the other hand, states
and territories in the Far West in comparison with which
even Norway, the poorest country in Europe, would present
a crowded aspect. Within the present century the popula-
tion of almost all the European States has greatly increased.
In 1801 England had only 9 million inhabitants; in 1851
the number was found to have doubled; in 1891 it had
increased to nearly 314 millions. The progress of Germany
has been even more remarkable. Not only in these prosper-
ous countries, but in France and Spain, where the growth of

216 ~=REYV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

population has been slow, there has long existed a tendency
to enlarge great cities; but the consequent depopulation of
rural districts has by no means diminished the encroachments
upon the freedom of the wild beasts of the field. The greater
a social community becomes, the more numerous and diversi-
fied are its wants; and as the cultivation of the waste land,
the clearing of the forest or the draining of the swamp, is
followed by the growing scarcity or total disappearance of
the wild animals which formerly found safety in such retreats,
the price put on the heads of the wretched outlaws is con-
stantly increased.

Under such dire conditions, it is not surprising that scarcely
a single indigenous species is at present extending its range
of geographical distribution ; that, on the contrary, the major-
ity of interesting species are becoming rarer year by year,
and that several of them are rapidly approaching extinction.
Such a crisis could not but arrive eventually, but its progress
has been immensely accelerated by the revolutions which
have taken place in the domain of mechanical science within
the last hundred years. The modern sportsman finds himself
in a few days transported safely to hunting-grounds on which,
had he lived less than a century ago, he durst not have set
his foot; he arms himself with weapons which enable him
to dismiss the thought of personal danger, and can pursue
his despicable pleasure without being required to sacrifice the
comforts and luxuries of home life. Pari passu with the
advance of mechanical science march the influences by which
the best protected of the lower animals are hurried to their
end. The crafty wolverine and the wary fox are deceived
by the artfully-laid spring trap, and the wolf itself can be
lured to eat the poisoned bait. By means of the repeating
rifle the long-sighted ibex is laid low before it is aware of the
position of its enemy; the strong-boned wild boar is stopped
in its impetuous course ; the very limmergeyer, as it wheels
about its awful eyrie, receives the mortal wound and must
drop into the abyss.

It must not be supposed that the wild animals of mone
are more easily exterminated than their analogues in other
continents, Observation has shown that the bear clings toa
locality with a tenacity possessed by none'of the more highly

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 217

specialized Carnivora. In the United States it still main-
tains its ground in many districts from which the agile puma
and the resourceful wolf have long been banished. In South
America it is still to be found in its restricted habitat, while
the once widely-diffused jaguar, the powerful and ferocious
monster which commanded so much respect from Humboldt
and Azara, and which, not so long ago, interrupted the
researches of our own Darwin, has already become so rare
that such an authority as Heck, the Director of the Zoolo-
gical Gardens at Berlin, has declared his suspicion that a
full-grown example no longer exists in a state of freedom.
Besides, it must not be forgotten that two of the most for-
midable of the Felide, the Lion and Leopard, inhabited Europe
within historic times, probably as recently as the beginning
of the Christian era.

In the following sketch of the geographical distribution of
the wild mammals of Europe, special notice is given to the
history of a few of the most important species during the
present century.

The first three Orders do not demand particular attention.
If the occurrence of Macacus inwus, the solitary representa-
tive of the Primates in Europe, be not an accidental circum-
stance, the preservation of the species to the present day
unquestionably is; and there is no historical evidence that
its habitat was ever extended north of the rock of Gibraltar.

In consequence of favourable climatic conditions, the
Europasian sub-region is comparatively rich in Chiroptera,
but on account of their nocturnal habits, their general simi-
larity in external appearance, and their peculiar powers of
locomotion, the exact definition of the geographical range of
the members of this Order cannot be given. The bats, how-
ever, are, in the Old World at least, of all predatory animals
at once the most useful and the least injurious to man; and
since there is no demand for their capture, it is probable that
they have suffered comparatively little from the various effects
of civilization.

The Znsectivora are also well distributed over Europe. The
animals which comprise this little Order are surpassed only
by the bats in point of economic utility, but the services
which they render to the forester and the agriculturist are

218 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

by no means universally appreciated. The typical forms are
characterized by a general rodent-like aspect, in consequence
of which they frequently pay the penalty of death, though
the urinary odour which proceeds from secretions in their
hinder parts makes their flesh unpalatable to cats and certain
other carnivora which have mistaken them for totally dif-
ferent prey. This disgust, however, is not shared by weasels,
buzzards, and owls. Two forms of this order, which in
structure as well as in habits differ widely from each other,
the Hedgehog and the Mole, are mercilessly persecuted by
man, and the former is now becoming rare in many districts
of England where a few years ago it abounded. The absence
of the latter in Ireland is remarkable, as the little creature
ranges from the Tagus to the Lena. The habitat of the genus
Myogale, which consists of the slopes of the Pyrenees and the
region lying to the north-west of the Black Sea, is still more
extraordinary.

Of the seven families which constitute the great Order
Carnivora, six are represented in the Palearctic Region and
five in Europe. From their predaceous habits and ferocious
dispositions the Carnivora are, of all mammals, the most
liable to incur the enmity of man. They are essentially
robbers and murderers, and the physical powers of the larger
forms render them so dangerous to man’s life and property
that their existence is incompatible with civilization. Of the
Felide or Cat family—the Carnivora pur excelience—which
include at once the most formidable and the most beautiful
of the class Mammalia, no species of the first rank is now to
be found in Europe, although, strange to say, all the four
giant cats of the Old World—the Lion, Tiger, Leopard or
Panther, and Ounce or Irbis,* together with the Cheetah,
the Chaus, the Desert Cat, and the Caracal—inhabit the
adjacent parts of Asia. The largest of the European Felidae
is the Lynx, of which there are three distinct forms, if not
three separate species. The largest of these, the Silver Lynx
(Felis borealis), has a circumpolar distribution ; but as its fur
is held in high esteem, and as it does not inhabit the extreme

* Snow Leopard’ of sportsmen, not the Latin ‘ Uncia,’ or the ‘ Ounce’ of
Milton and other early English poets.
+ ‘Gepard,’ or so-called Hunting Leopard (Cynailurus jubatus).

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 219

north, it has now become rare in Europe. The smallest and
most beautiful form, the Southern Lynx (Felis pardina), is
still to be found in Spain and Sardinia, if not in Sicily and
the southern parts of the Balkan Peninsula, but nothing is
known either of its habits or of its precise habitat. The
typical form, Felis lynx, was once diffused over the greater
part of the Continent, but now lingers only in the mountains
of the great central system and in the vast forests of Scan-
dinavia and Russia. According to Langkavel, the Lynx dis-
appeared in Central Germany about the year 1820. One
was killed in the Gotha district of the Thiiringerwald in
1819, but stragglers from Russia occasionally appeared in
East and West Prussia until fifty years after this date. In
Germany, as elsewhere, ignorant sportsmen have often con-
founded the Lynx with the Wild Cat; but a real example of
Felis lynz was recorded from Wiirttemberg in 1846. About
the beginning of the century these animals were far from
uncommon in Southern Bavaria. Two foresters, father and
son, killed thirty between the years 1790 and 1838, but the
examples captured in Bavaria in 1852 and 1872 are generally
believed to have been stragglers from Austria. Lynxes may
still linger in the Fichtelgebirge and the Bohmerwald ; one
was killed in the last-mentioned region as recently as 1890,
and the animal’s name still occurs in the game-lists of the
Tyrol. In 1865 a fine specimen was killed in the Department
Puy de Dome in the Auvergne region; but records from
the Abruzzi and other parts of the Apennines are difficult to
obtain and not always reliable. Statistics recently published
show that lynxes are still rather common in Austria. In
the Cis-leithan provinces alone 31 were taken in 1892, 30 in
1893, 32 in 1894, 45 in 1895, and again 45 in 1896. In
Transylvania, where exceptionally fine specimens are reported
to exist, from 6 to 8 are regularly killed annually; but in
Hungary, as in Russia, their occurrence is too common to
require mention. In some parts of Austria the Lynx, like
all other important beasts of prey with the fortunate excep-
tion of the wolf, would seem to be at least holding its
ground; for in 1898, 30 head were killed in Galicia and 9 in
Bukowina. In Norway lynxes are less frequently encoun-

220 REY. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

tered than bears; nevertheless the game-lists of that country
show them to be fairly abundant. In Sweden, however,
where they were very destructive in the early part of the
century, they are becoming scarcer year by year. In 1894
only 35 were killed in all the twenty-five Lins of that great
forest-clad country. The protracted existence of this animal
in civilized lands affords strong evidence of its cunning and
powers of concealment; for although it is considered a less
formidable antagonist than its smaller relative, the Desert
Lynx (Felis caracal), the ravages which it commits on game
and on the smaller domestic animals are so great that within
this century the Bavarian Government offered a hundred
marks for every skin.

The Wild Cat (felis catus), though it appears never to
have existed in Ireland, was found in England until recently,
but is now confined to the wildest districts of the Scottish
Highlands, so far as its distribution in the British Islands is
concerned. There it is not so rare as is generally supposed ;
but it is hard to believe that the extension of deer-forests—
no matter how benevolent the proprietors of these may be—
will long preserve its existence ; for even if it were nota
terrible enemy to grouse, it is far too tempting a prize to be
spared by the ambitious sportsman or even by the game-
keeper. On the Continent its range is sporadic and difficult
to define ; for in almost every quarter of its habitat this
species is confounded with Felis domestica. It does not occur
in Scandinavia, and in Russia it is rare except in the Caucasus.
In the Ural Mountains and eastward its place is taken by a
closely-allied species, F. manul. It is spread over all the
forest regions of Southern Europe, and a few years ago 5 were
killed in the small state of Luxembourg. In many parts of
Germany it is fairly common, and in Austria-Hungary it is
so abundant that in the year 1896 the number destroyed
amounted to 117. Of these an extraordinary proportion
belonged to the comparatively small province of Styria,
where the Lynx is now rare. There are strong grounds for
believing that the Wild Cat occasionally becomes the prey
of its larger relative. In the year 1898, 17 Wild Cats were
captured in the Austrian province of Salzburg, 755 in Styria,
23 in Carniola, 42 in the Adriatic Provinces, 75 in the Tyrol,

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 221

8 in Moravia, 81 in Austrian Silesia, 4 in Galicia, and 30 in
Bukowina.

The family Viverridw is represented in Europe by two:
species, which belong to different genera, but one of these
(Herpestes ichnewmon) was most likely introduced from Africa
in the early days of Greek civilization. The other (Vwerra
genetia) is rather widely diffused throughout Spain and
Southern France, though it appears to be nowhere abundant.
In the latter country its range extends farther north than is
generally believed two were recently killed in the Depart-
ment of Allier, and other two in that of Puy de Dome.

The family Canide is represented in every country on
the Continent of Europe, as well as in Great Britain, Ireland,
Iceland, and the larger Mediterranean islands. Its most
powerful member, the Wolf (Canis lupus), still ranges over
the greater part of the Palearctic Region; but within the
present century its distribution has been greatly narrowed
in the western parts of its habitat. In Germany wolves
are virtually extinct. A few descend from time to time
from the forests of the Vosges into the Imperial territory
of Elsass-Lothringen, and quite recently a straggler from
Russia was killed in the remote Rominter Heide, but from
the interior of the country they have long ago been
banished. One was killed in the Thiiringerwald in 1859,
and another in the Erzgebirge in 1884, both of which had
doubtless wandered across the Austrian frontier. In 1866
one was killed in the Odenwald, and during the war in
1871 no fewer than 26 were destroyed in the neighbour-
hood of Trier. In 1856 wolves were rather numerous in
the Grisons Canton, but they are now rare in the Alps.
In 1892, 63 were killed in the Cis-leithan provinces of
Austria, 71 were killed in 1893, 68 in 1894, 49 in 1895,
49 in 1896, 51 in 1897. Of 45 killed in 1898, 20 came
from Galicia and 25 from Bukowina. Though wolves were
very destructive in Apulia and Calabria within the latter
half of this century, and though Mr Abel Chapman speaks
of the exceptional size of those which inhabit the Sierra
Nevada, little has been heard of their ravages in either
Italy or Spain within the last few years. In the south,
where the climate is warm, and where vegetable food

VOL. I. 17

222 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

constitutes a considerable portion of their diet, wolves are
less likely to form packs, and are consequently much less
dreaded than in the north. In the Scandinavian peninsula
they are still numerous, and are said to be extending their
range southwards. In Russia they will long maintain their
ground; for even if they were exterminated in the European
provinces, no natural barrier exists to prevent fresh im-
portations from Asia. In 1875, 161 persons were killed
by wolves in European Russia. Still, in many parts of
that vast territory, especially in Livonia, great progress
towards their extermination has been made by the use of
strychnine. A sporting writer deplores the fact; for while
the result has been favourable to the elk, the fox, in the
absence of its mortal enemy, has increased to such an
extent that the extinction of the Hare * in this region appears
to be imminent. But the triumph which man has recently
achieved over this fierce natural foe is most conspicuous in
France. At the beginning of the century thousands of
wolves were captured there annually; but the following
statistics will show that their annihilation is rapidly
approaching :—

In 1883, 1316 were captured. In 1890, 401 were captured.
», 1884, 1035 by 5, 1891, 404 a
» 1885, 900 ‘ »» 1892, 327 ts
» 1886, 760 3 », 1893, 261 ‘
» 1887, 701 2 5, 1894, 245 *
»» 1888, 505 A » 1895, 249 2
», 1889, 515 . », 1896, 171 +

The arrangement of their distribution in France is some-
what remarkable. Of 171 killed in 19 Departments in
1896, 34 were claimed by Charente, 23 by Dordogne, 20
by Meuse, 13 by Corréze, 12 by Vosges, and 12 by Haute
Marne.

The Jackal (Canis dalmatinus, Wagn.) still lingers in
Dalmatia and the south-eastern provinces of the Balkan
Peninsula, as well as in the Caucasus, but it is an exotic
even in the warmest parts of Europe.

The family Mustelide comprises the vast majority of the
European Carnivora. Its members are of comparatively

* The Alpine or Mountain Hare (Lepus variabilis, Pall.)

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. Dy

small size, but their rapacity is extraordinary, and though
they render invaluable service to the forester and the agri-
culturist, they suffer relentless persecution. Within the
present century, the Sable (Mustela zibellina) was found to
the west of the Ural Mountains; but the demand for its
fur has been so great that few specimens are now taken on
this side of the Lena.

The universal use of spring traps has already driven the
Polecat (Mustela putorius) to its last retreat in Great Britain ;
and, like the Otter and the Pine- and Beech-Martens, it is
now becoming scarce in the more populous regions of the
Continent. Truculent as it is, and guilty as it may be of
the death of children in certain parts of Europe, the Pole-
cat is unquestionably one of the most useful of all the
beasts of prey, since it is the rat’s deadliest enemy.*

The Nerz, Norz or Marsh Otter (Mustela lutreola)—
the animal to which the stupid name “European Mink”
has been given—is supposed to have within recent years
become extinct in Germany, though its nocturnal habits,
along with the inaccessible character of its habitat, may
prove this conclusion to be premature. Though banished
from the Hartz and the Thiiringerwald about the beginning
of the century, it long continued to frequent the reedy pools
and rivers of the districts round the south-western shores
of the Baltic; but the last captures, near Biitzow, were made
in the winter of 1891 and 1892. About the same time one
was killed in the province of Posen. The same authority
who has furnished us with these particulars, tells us that
Marsh Otters are still fairly common in the north of
Russia, and even in the extreme south of Austria; but a
Livonian sportsman who wantonly shot a pair in 1899,
chronicles his exploit as if it were of exceptional occur-
rence,

* We need hardly call attention here to the circumstance that the Ferret
(Mustela Jwro) is now admitted to be the domesticated Polecat. It is not
generally known, however, that all the rodents found in Britain, with the
exception of the genus Lepus, have more or less carnivorous propensities,
Not only rats, but voles, mice, dormice, and squirrels are apt to eat not
only birds’ eggs, but the young of vertebrate animals when they are able to
overpower them ; and we are convinced that on account of its ubiquitous
distribution the common Rat (Jus decwmanus) is more destructive to game
than any native beast or bird of prey.

224 REV. G. S. DUBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

The formidable weasel (Gulo borealis), the Wolverine (for
some reason, which is not manifest, called “Glutton” by the
people of every country it inhabits), was found in Kurland
as recently as 1816, but has gradually vanished from all
the forests south of Archangel, so that European examples
are seldom seen even in the best zoological gardens.

The family Urside has two representatives in Europe.*
The common so-called Brown Beart became extinct in
Germany before the beginning of the present century, but
it is still abundant in many parts of Europe. It has
already been mentioned that this animal clings tenaciously
to its habitat; and it often suddenly reappears in localities
from which all suspicion of its presence has fled. The
preservation of so large and formidable a creature in such
regions as the Alps and Pyrenees may be explained by two
circumstances. In the first place, the bear subsists chiefly
on vegetable food, and, consequently, savage and unreliable as
it always is, it is much less aggressive than the wolf and the
majority of the Carnivora; in the second place, though it
does not actually hybernate, it keeps itself concealed during
the greater part of the winter, the season in which wild beasts
are most easily destroyed. As early as the beginning of
the eighteenth century, bears were rare in Germany, and
the Saxon princes, who employed them for sports of a more
or less serious nature, had to import them from other coun-
tries, chiefly from Poland. In the Grisons Canton they
committed great ravages in 1837. In 1857 they were again
troublesome in the same region. In 1856 three large bears.
and two smaller ones killed a hundred sheep there in a single
week. In 1858 the flocks of the Grisons again suffered
severely, and 8 bears were killed in 1861, 4 in 1862,
4 again in 1863, and only 1 in 1864. There is, however,
good reason to believe that bears still haunt lonely spots in
the Southern Alps, for as recently as 1896 two were killed
in the Brenta district of the Tyrol.

In 1856 one was captured in the Bohmerwald; and in

* We agree with those naturalists who distinguish the Arctic fauna as.
inhabiting a region not strictly included in Continental Europe.

+ In certain districts of Russia it is commonly black ; and in Western and.
Central Asia yellow and nearly white varieties occur.

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 225

the Carpathians, the Abruzzi and the Balkan Mountains,
bears are still to be found. In the Cis-leithan provinces of
Austria, 33 were killed in 1892, 41 in 1893, 45 in 1894,
18 in 1895, and 18 in 1896. In 1897 only 23 were killed
in the Crown lands of Austria. On the other hand, in
1898, 3 were killed in Carniola, 1 in the Tyrol, 16 in
Galicia, and 9 in Bukowina. Tradition fortunately describes
the bears of the Carpathians as being of a specially good-
natured type.* In Russia and Scandinavia bears are still
numerous, and in the Caucasus specially constructed huts
are required to protect the peasants who keep nightly
watch. .

The large and heterogeneous Order Rodentia is well repre-
sented in the Europasian sub-region; but it were useless to
attempt a definition of the habitat of even the most interest-
ing species. Many forms are characterized by a remarkable
power of adapting themselves to changed conditions, as well
as by a tendency to migrate to more or less remote dis-
tances. By some nations almost all rodents are used as
food, though in the north-western countries of Europe the
flesh of the vast majority is despised. The members of this
Order are all more or less destructive to forestry or agricul-
ture; but their powers of reproduction and preservation are
so great, that all man’s efforts to extinguish several of the
most obnoxious species have hitherto been attended with
little success. Yet the engaging Marmot becomes year by
year less frequently observed by the Alpine traveller, and
the still more curious porcupine is too destructive to be
preserved much longer in Italy.

But the most interesting of the rare European mammals
is the Beaver. As this animal is noxious when living, and
in several respects valuable when dead, its chances of sur-
viving much longer, even in places where it is protected,
appear to be desperate; and yet, within the last quarter of
the present century, its flesh was regularly sold as a delicacy
in the markets of Vienna and Buda-Pest. In the far north,
where the superior quality of its fur exposed it to special
persecution, it has already been brought to the very verge

* Attention may be called to the large proportion of wild animals reported
from the little province of Bukowina.

226 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

of extermination. In Russia it is reported still to exist in
certain reaches of the Dnjepr, the Volga, and the Vistula;
but the information concerning its settlements on those
rivers is at once scanty and indefinite. A few years ago
5 were captured in the Camarene region at the mouth of
the Rhone. In Central Germany, on the Elbe and its
tributary the Mulde, stricter protection has favoured the
preservation of those shy animals to such an extent that
a careful observer recently estimated their numbers in this,
the most populous quarter of their habitat, at about 150.

Few members of the large and important Order Ungulata
are now found wild in Europe. In their valuable work, Die
Sdugetiere Transkuspiens, Radde and Walter give an interest-
ing comparison of the Mammalia of three different provinces
of the Eremian sub-region,—Persia, Transcaspia, and the
Turcoman Territory. The most remarkable fact they exhibit
is the almost total absence of ruminants in the country
between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral. Here only
three species now appear to exist. One of these, the strange-
looking antelope, Saiga tarturica, inhabits the steppes of
Southern Russia; according to Professor A. Nehring it once
ranged as far west as the Pyrenees. It is a slow-paced,
timid, stupid antelope, and becomes an easy prey not only to
wolves, but to the Tartars of the Steppes, who do not disdain
its musky flesh; and though it is often domesticated, it is
being rapidly driven to the eastward of the Caspian. Indeed,
the existence of the Saiga, like that of several interesting
members of the last Order which inhabit the debatable land
of the Europasian and Eremian sub-regions, is subject to
conditions which preclude all hope of its name appearing
much longer in the list of the mammals of Europe.

The only other antelope now found in Europe, the Chamois
(Rupicapra tragus), is, like its more robust companion, the
magnificent Ibex or Rock-goat (Steinbock), Capra ibex, being
gradually driven to loftier altitudes in its restricted habitat,
where the increasing scarcity of food, the greater severity of
the climate, together with the storm, the crevasse, and the
avalanche, conspire to precipitate its extermination.

The graceful Mouftlon or Wild Sheep of Corsica and
Sardinia has recently become so rare that more than 50 are

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 227

never killed in a season, while in 1838 Della Marmora saw
more than 100 in a single herd.

The preservation of the various species of deer depends
upon the protection of man. These animals commit sacrilege
in forests and cultivated districts ; and except in the marshes
and moorland wastes, where the value of the trees and shrubs
is insignificant, they are out of place. It is interesting to
learn that the largest living deer, the Elk (Cervus alces), is
gradually extending its range of distribution in some parts of
Europe. In Russia, Herr C. Grevé of Moscow has given a
most elaborate account of its habitat, but it is too exhaustive
and too minute to be detailed here. In order to comprehend
it thoroughly, one would require an intimate knowledge of the
political and physical geography of the vast Russian Empire,
and this the best informed among us would hardly venture
to profess.**

Shortly before the middle of the nineteenth century this
species seems to have left its chief strongholds in Central
Russia, and to have made a migratory movement towards
the South, with the result that it is now to be found in
certain Governments in which it was formerly unknown.
Some idea of its abundance at the present time may be got
from the fact that the Zoological Gardens at Moscow have
within recent years regularly exhibited specimens which had,
when hunted, fled for refuge within the precincts of that
huge city, surrounded as it is by large and noisy manufac-
turing suburbs.t

The southern limit of the elks distribution in Europe can-
not be exactly determined, but it may be approximately stated
as about 50° N. lat. It does not occur, as Middendorf and
others have supposed, in the Caucasus or in the valley of the
Terek, nor have even its remains been discovered in that
remote corner of European Russia. { Northwards in isolated

“Those who are specially interested in this subject ought to study M.
Greveé’s articles in Der Zoologische Garten, 1898 :— ‘* Die Geographische Ver-
breitung des Elens einst und jetzt,” pp. 300 and 329,

+ The population of Moscow was given last census at nearly a million.

t Middendorf seems to have been misled by the report of an unscientific
English traveller named Clarke, who mistook Saiga antelopes for young elks.
It may also be mentioned en passant that Khamtschatka and the island of
Saghalien are occasionally given by ill-informed writers as being inhabited by
this animal. In both cases confusion with the reindeer must have taken place.

228 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

localities it seems to range as far as the limits of forest
growth.

As Norway is now a popular resort of Scotch holiday-
makers, we may do well to translate M. Grevé’s account of
the elk’s recent history in that country and in other parts
of Scandinavia.

‘Let us now turn to another territory, Scandinavia. Here
the elk does not cross the 66th parallel N. lat., and goes as
far south as the 58th. In the year 1757, elks were to be
found here and there in Skane, and till 1836 they maintained
their ground in Dalekarlia, Herjeidalen, Oesterdalen, Hede-
marken, Gulbrandsdalen, and Waldersdalen. In this year
the peasants of Skane began to wage against the elk a war
of utter extermination, and in 1847 but few were left in
Dalekarlia, Herjeidalen, Oesterdalen, Hedemarken, and,
speaking generally, in Southern Norway. In 1890, elks
appeared in Westergotland, Wermland, in the neighbourhood
of Lake Wener, in Smaland, and in Kronoberg, in all which
localities they multiplied, since a prohibition was forthwith
issued which absolutely debarred their pursuit till the year
1900. At the present moment the best localities for elks
in Sweden are in the Hunneberg district, in the province of
Smiland, and in the neighbourhood of Goteborg, though
these forests are not so well stocked as those of Akershus,
Kristians, Namsos (in the districts of Grong, Overhalden,
Snaasen, Lie, Namdalseidet, Finwold, Linsedmoen, and M6),
Grimelit Berg Gorgalten, Drontheim ‘ Amt, Hedemarken,
and Buskerud. Those which have appeared in Swedish
Lapland may always be considered stragglers ; this is plainly
shown by the records which have existed since 1675.”

In Sweden 1550 elks were killed in 1896, while in 1894
1252 fell in Norway; but since these dates their numbers
have in both countries visibly decreased. In Finland the
elk appears never to have been abundant; but it still occurs
in isolated localities, and here it extends as far north as
lat. 62°.

Before the river Niemen enters the Kurisches Haff, it divides
into two main branches, the Gilge and the Russ, and forms
a delta of considerable size. The swampy ground, treach-
erous and at all times difficult of access, is in wet seasons

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 229

quite impassable by human beings, but is covered with shrubs
and trees of stunted growth, whose timber is of little value.
Here is the so-called Forest of Ibenhorst, now the elk’s sole
asylum within the confines of the German Empire. Such a
retreat, where no formidable beast of prey exists, and where
it is protected from man, its deadliest enemy, might seem
specially conducive to its preservation; but the fact is that
in this narrowly-restricted area, so deleterious have been the
effects of inbreeding that, had not fresh blood been from
time to time imported from Russia and Scandinavia, the
stock must long ago have become extinct.*

The same conditions will sooner or later cause the exter-
mination of the largest of the land mammals of Europe-—
the mighty Wisent or European Bison, erroneously but most
commonly called Auerochs (Bison ewropeus).t This mag-
nificent Ox, which in the Middle Ages was found throughout
the greater part of Central Europe, and which survived
in Prussia till the beginning of the latter half of the
eighteenth century, is now preserved only in two widely-
separated districts of European Russia,—the Bjelowjesha
Forest in the Government of Grodno in Lithuania, on the
borders of the province of West Prussia, and in the Kuban
region on the north-west slopes of the Caucasus.{ Out of
Europe it does not exist. It was introduced into its Grodno
home by August III. of Poland, who was fond of hunting it,
and who for its preservation enclosed part of the Bjelowjesha
Forest, which is surrounded by vast steppes. Herr Langkavel
(“Verbreitung europiischer und Kaukasischer Auerochsen,”
Der Zooloyische Garten, 1894) has given a very interesting
account of its history and distribution, but he considers that
the statistical reports which have from time to time been
published by Russian officials are not strictly reliable. It
appears that its numbers were seriously diminished by
poachers until comparatively recent years, while those who
Were entrusted to watch the enclosure retained their situa-
tions by periodically reporting visits of the various epidemic

* In 1895 there were not quite 100 elks in the Ibenhorst Forest.

+ The real Auerochs (Bos primigenius), the ‘‘Ur” of the Nibelungenlied,
and “Thur” of the Hungarians, probably became extinct not earlier than the
beginning of the sixteenth century.

¥ It lingered in Transylvania till 1814.

230 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION

diseases to which domestic cattle and large game are liable.
Stricter vigilance has been enforced within the last few years,
however, and at the present day the Bjelowjesha herd is
reported to be several hundred strong.

In the Caucasus the bison will probably maintain its
existence much longer than in Lithuania; but while its
southern domain is less restricted and less accessible, it is
relatively difficult to guard, and poachers still succeed in
eluding the foresters and helping themselves to this invalu-
able property of the Czar. About a thousand head were
recently supposed to inhabit the Kuban valley; but there
the animals are extremely shy and difficult to approach, so
that the estimates of their numbers furnished by Russian
officials are most likely exaggerated. At all events, while
the elk, whose range of distribution extends in the Old
World from the Atlantic eastward to the Pacific, and in
North America from the Pacific eastward to the Atlantic,
may survive till an indefinite period in districts remote from
civilization, the date of the bison’s utter extinction cannot
be far distant. Indeed, of all wild ruminants it may be
safely predicated, that in regions inhabited by civilized man
their presence will be tolerated only when the food which
they consume is counterbalanced by the value of their
carcasses, or by the pleasure which their slaughter affords
the wealthy sportsman.

The same stern conditions are imposed upon the Wild
Boar (Sus scrofa), the ‘‘Monarch of the Marshes,” the last
animal we have now to mention. In his own kingdom he
has a right to the roots and truffles on which he subsists ;
but the devastation which his invasions bring upon the culti-
vated land is too dreadful to go unavenged ; and though the
enormous area of his habitat precludes all possibility of his
extermination being accomplished in the immediate future,
the territory which he has lost in Europe in modern times
is truly startling. Nowhere in the middle of the Continent
can he be said to enjoy a state of real freedom ; and even in
Russia, whose vast swamps and forests he can still traverse
for hundreds of miles with little interruption, his increase
has been checked to such a degree that in spite of his for-
midable character, his reputed longevity, his gregarious ten-

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. 231

dencies, and his abundant resources, his situation has already
begun to assume a precarious aspect.*

There is an element of sadness in the fact that the
beings to whom the sovereignty of the desert was entrusted
are quickly passing away. Nothing but the legislature of
the most important civilized states can prevent some of the
noblest works of nature from disappearing from our sight
for ever. A little assistance has already been received
from this source, but to Africa and Australia, if not to
Europe, it has come too late.

It is the manifest duty of such a Society as this to
endeavour, by every possible means, to preserve the exist-
ence of those forms of life whose sad history we have traced,
and to keep in mind the fact that they are the monuments
of the infinite Power, Wisdom, and Love from which they
sprang. “No direct effort of man,” says Jules Michelet,
“has done so much for the welfare of the world as has been
accomplished by those humble auxiliaries of human toil.”

The same eloquent writer considers that the amelioration
of their condition implies a moral gravity, a refinement, a
delicacy of appreciation which are as yet scarcely under-
stood, and which shall exist, perhaps, only when woman
undertakes those scientific studies from which she has
hitherto been excluded.

The obstacle to which he has alluded is being rapidly
removed, and nowhere so successfully as in Great Britain.
Let us hope that the admission of woman to our universities
and learned societies will give wider scope for the exercise
of that tenderness which is the noblest characteristic of her
nature, and which constitutes her sole claim to sexual
superiority. It is a quality which Goethe, in the greatest
of his prose works, Wilhelm Meister, has dignified with all
the enthusiasm of his splendid genius, and which our greatest
poetess has distinguished in softer strains—

“Peruse the sacred volume—Him who died
Her kiss betrayed not, nor her tongue denied,

While even the apostle left him to his doom,
She lingered round his cross, and watched his tomb.”

* The Wild Boar, according to Lenz (Siiugetiere), attains the age of thirty
years,

232 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON MAMMALIA IN EUROPE.

The fiercest denizens of the wilderness have their
functions and their destinies; and the sportsman who, for
the mere sake of pleasure, destroys but one of them, may
call himself a naturalist, but a true lover of nature he
cannot be. Their increase must be checked; and the
world is certainly happier to-day than it was when they
were captured by thousands to tear other species to pieces,
or to contend with the bestiarii on the blood-stained arena
of the heathen amphitheatre; but they are the acknow-
ledged property of Him for whose eternal purposes they are
and were created: and if the present generation do not
exert itself to save from extinction the vast majority of
existing forms, it will lose the last opportunity of avoiding
a calamity which its progeny will bitterly deplore.*

* Pompey exhibited at Rome 600 lions; Cesar 400, other generals at
different times from 100 to 200. Commodus is reported to have killed 100
lions with 100 darts. The most ferocious of the Roman Emperors—e.g.,
Nero, Caracalla, Elagabalus, Maximin—kept large numbers of wild beasts in
confinement for cruel purposes.

Leopards were also brought from Africa and Asia in vast numbers to take
part in the combats which delighted the Roman public. Augustus presented
420 of these animals, Pompey 410, Probus 200, and Scaurus 150.

Bears, wolves, and other animals then abundant in Europe were of too
common occurrence to be recorded here. Making all allowance for the great
abundance of wild beasts in the days of the Western Empire, we cannot but
believe that institutions existed at various convenient places where they were
collected and even bred, so that the continuous demand for them might be
conveniently supplied.

It may here be mentioned that, notwithstanding the opinion of certain
modern historians and romancers, there is no substantial proof of the Tiger
(Felis tigris) ever having appeared in considerable numbers on the Roman
amphitheatre. The animal was probably first exhibited in Europe by
Pompey, so that it is by no means likely that the word ‘ tigris’ mentioned
by Virgil and other classical writers can refer to this species. Indeed, it
can hardly be supposed that the tiger, since it was to be found nowhere
nearer Rome than the shores of the Caspian Sea, could ever have been a
familiar object to the inhabitants of the capital. An exceptionally large
variety of the leopard, though now rarely exhibited in Europe, still inhabits
the Western Atlas, and was most likely the ‘Tigris’ of the ancients. The
confusion caused by the different names, ‘ Tigris,’ ‘Pardus,’ ‘ Pardalis,’
* Panthera,’ ‘Uncia,’ ete., is by no means surprising when we remember that,
in our own day, leopards in Africa, and jaguars in South America, are
usually mentioned as tigers, At the same time, it must not be forgotten
that several classical writers were perfectly familiar with the true, striped

. tiger of the East.

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE. De

THE CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE REGARDED AS
AN EXACT SCIENCE.

By J. B. Dossiz, F.R.S.E., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U.

(Read 4th January 1900.)

THE study of Oology is one which has not received from
students of Natural History the amount of attention which
it deserves. In Germany, it is true, its claims to be
regarded as an exact science have at last been fully admitted ;
but in England the recognised authorities on Ornithology,
with a very few notable exceptions, still give the subject little
or no serious consideration. That a knowledge of oology is
absolutely necessary for taxonomic purposes is, however, a
mere truism, which no responsible ornithologist of the
present day will dare to gainsay. ‘True it is that, as yet,
the achievements which have been attained in this direc-
tion by scientific oologists have fallen far short of what had
been expected. Yet for this seeming failure at least two
causes might be assigned: Firstly, the inevitable reaction
caused by the disappointment of those who cherished wild
hopes that the brilliant discoveries, such as the affinity of
the Limicole and Gavie, made by the votaries of oology,
would be maintained. Secondly, the apathy of the great.
majority of our recognised authorities. But, notwithstand-
ing all this, there can be no doubt that the study of Ornitho-
Oology will amply repay the serious and inquiring student
of nature. In proof of this assertion, let me quote from
two competent authorities. Professor Newton, the most
distinguished ornithologist of our time, says: “ Oology, taken
alone, proves to be a guide as misleading as any other
arbitrary method of classification, but combined with the
evidence afforded by the study of other particularities,
whether superficial or deep-seated, it can scarcely fail in
time to conduct us to an ornithological arrangement as
nearly true to nature as we may expect to achieve.” And
again, Dr Eugéne Rey, a brilliant German specialist, in the

234 MR J. B. DOBBIE ON

preface to his work on oology just being published (Die
Ever der Vogel Mittelewropas), writes as follows: “ Oology,
in its strictest sense, which is exclusively concerned with
the external properties of eggs, and which was formerly
regarded by scientific collectors merely as an idle amuse-
ment, has rapidly risen to the rank of an exact science,
since it has shown that the external characteristics of the
ego-shell are not the results of accident, but are a by no
means to be depreciated criterion of the respective rela-
tions of the various groups of birds, while it also furnishes
us with the means of discovering how the characteristics to
which we have alluded, and which distinguish the individual
bird, have become difficult to trace, or have completely
vanished, owing to adaptation to changed conditions of life.
For these reasons it has become, at the present day, almost
indispensable to the systematologist. We do not mean to
say that it would be possible to pursue systematology
purely from an oologist’s point of view, but we do say that
a system which would seek to establish itself without the
aid of oology is by no means adequate to the advanced state
of science.”

It is clear, therefore, that the apathy or prejudice of the
present school of ornithologists—it is only fair to add of
British ornithologists—is unfortunate and deplorable. For
the many attempts made during recent years to forraulate a
satisfactory classification of birds, whether founded on in-
ternal or external characters, have all proved unsatisfactory.
Indeed, the researches of the morphologist seem only to
have made the chaos greater than ever. Linnzus, as every
one knows, placed the Raptores at the head of the Class;
but in the system adopted by the three great ornitholo-
gical bodies of the world—the Ornithologists’ Unions of
England, Germany, and America—the royal Eagle has had
to give place to the lowly Thrush. But this classification,
too, has become effete; and such authors as feel loyally
bound to conform to it, usually apologise for doing so, In
the more recent and more scientific taxonomic system,
elaborated chiefly by Professor Newton, Music has had to
give way to Wisdom, and we find the Thrush supplanted
by the Crow. But even this classification, based as it is

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE. 235

upon morphological reasoning, is by no means univer-
sally followed. The author of a standard work just being
issued places the Ant Thrushes at the head of the Class,
whereas these have hitherto been regarded as belonging to a
low and aberrant group of Passerine birds. But the con-
troversy is not restricted to the discussion of that family
which has attained the highest stage of avine development.
Mr Eugene W. Oates, who is deservedly recognised as one
of the foremost ornithologists of the day, insists upon the
near relation of the Tits to the Crows; yet, as Professor
Newton points out, “beyond having a few carnivorous pro-
pensities in common, it is ditficult to define the analogy.”
In justice to Mr Oates, however, it must be remembered
that in the Tits, as well as in the Crows, the adult plumage
is attained without the bird having to pass through any
pronounced transitional change—a taxonomic point of such
importance that it is seized upon by Professor Newton as
one of the chief reasons why the Crows should be placed at
the top of the avine tree. Quite recently Professor Mivart
published a classification, for which, as he admits, he is con-
siderably indebted to Dr Bowdler Sharpe; yet the latter,
who is at present engaged in writing a standard and autho-
ritative work on the systematic classification of birds, has, in
the only volume yet published, materially altered the opinions
which, presumably, he held a year or two ago. I could give
numerous other instances of the wide differences of belief
which, even at the present day, exist among authors regard-
ing the classification of birds ; but, lest I weary you, I shall
content myself with quoting but one more example. A certain
accomplished Fellow of this Society, in a contribution given
by her to the Zoological Society of London, boldly took it
for granted that the near affinity of the Swifts to the
Humming-birds was a subject about which there could pos-
sibly be no dispute. Now, while this assumption is hardly
likely to be challenged by the oologist, it is one which is
far from being admitted by the ornithologist. In Professor
Mivart’s classification, to which I have already alluded, the
Humming-birds are placed among the Passeres, that is to
say, in a different Order from the Swifts; and the distin-
guished American ornithologist, Dr Shufeldt, severely criti-

236 MR J. B. DOBBIE ON

cises a compatriot who insists upon the relationship. It is
clear, therefore, that as yet all attempts—no matter on
what grounds they have been based—to formulate a satis-
factory classification of birds have signally failed. I am far
from saying that it is possible to create order out of chaos
by means of oology alone, for that is impossible; but I do
say, with Professor Newton, that it is absolutely necessary
to take oology into account when investigating the classifi-
cation of birds; and with Dr Rey, that any attempt to
establish a system of classification without the aid of oology
is a certain sign that its author is not abreast of the present
advanced state of science.

It seems to me, therefore, that few subjects offer so pro-
mising a field to the serious and inquiring student of
Natural History as Oology. The fact that, for purposes of
research, possession of, or complete access to a large collec-
tion is absolutely indispensable, may possibly prove dis-
couraging to the beginner. For all attempts at systemato-
logy based upon small or incomprehensive collections—e.7.,
upon a collection of eggs of British birds—must, though
never so ably made, result in failure. But while its import-
ance as a guide to the systematologist may justly be regarded
as the chief inducement to its study, oology presents
to the biologist numerous difficult and complex problems.
Some few years ago, an educational collection of birds’ eggs
was placed in the South Kensington Museum by the autho-
rities there; and with the object I have in view, I do not
think I could do better than give a sketch of its plan. The
series has been divided into six sections: (1) Structure ;
(2) Number; (3) Form; (4) Size; (5) Texture of Surface ;
and (6) Colour; and each of these distinctions has been so
admirably arranged that no visitor can fail to recognise the
points to which attention is called.

1. THE STRUCTURE OF THE SHELL.
This is, in the main, a matter more for the consideration

of the embryologist and the chemist than for the oologist.
Professor Sorby has, by means of the spectroscope, discovered

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE. 237

that at least seven well-marked substances exist in the
colouring matter of eggs, to the admixture of which, in
certain proportions, all their tints are due (Newton,
Dictionary of Birds). But absolutely nothing is known
about these substances, their investigation being attended
with extreme difficulty. It is highly interesting, however,
to note that Professor Newton believes that one of the seven
may possibly be due to the growth of minute fungi. The
relative strength of the shell also demands the serious con-
sideration of the oologist. Dr Rey has invented a remark-
ably clever and reliable means of testing the strength of the
shell; and he has also elaborated a very scientific process
by which the combined values of the size and weight of the
egg may be ascertained; but in such a paper as this, it
would be out of place to describe them. As a rule, those
eggs which are laid in exposed situations, as, for example,
on the bare ground, have strong shells; while, conversely,
such as are laid in holes or crevices have thin shells. The
thickest egg-shell known to Dr Rey is that of Francolinus
granti, Hartl., whose nest is a mere hollow scraped in the
ground. The learned Doctor tells us that an egg of this
species is nearly six times the weight of a pigeon’s egg of
exactly the same dimensions. But there are many excep-
tions to the rule. The egg of the Albatross is laid on the
ground, yet its shell is relatively extremely fragile; while
the ege of the Cuckoo is notably remarkable for its strength
of shell, and is so irrespective of the circumstance whether
it is placed in a nest made in a hole or not. The egg of
the Woodcock, though placed on the ground, is, as every-
one who has blown one can testify, possessed of a very
thin shell, and so affords a marked contrast to that of the
Pheasant, though the nesting sites of the two birds are
practically identical.

2. THE NUMBER OF THE CLUTCH.

This is a matter which, though of considerable import-
ance to the oologist, intimately concerns the ornithologist.
It is interesting, however, to note that the number of eggs

VOL. I. 18

238 MR J. B. DOBBIE ON

laid by different species of birds—and even by some which
are nearly related—varies greatly. Many birds, chiefly sea
birds, lay only one egg, while others, such as the Pheasant
and Partridge, occasionally lay twenty or more. The common
Cuckoo is still more prolific, for it has been proved that each
female lays not fewer than twenty eggs annually; but even
this fecundity is far surpassed in the case of the Silky Cow-
bird (Molothrus bonariensis), for, according to the valuable
testimony of Mr W. H. Hudson, each female certainly lays
thirty-two eggs, and probably double that number, during the
season.

3. THe Form OF THE EGG.

That the shape of the egg varies greatly is at once obvious
to any one who glances at the contents of a moderate collec-
tion. Still following the South Kensington model, the egg
may be either elliptical or oval, but both these figures are
subject to considerable modification. Thus we have spheroi-
dal (Bee-eater), elliptical (Sand Grouse), long ellipse (Shag),
biconical (Sclavonian Grebe), true oval (Partridge), conical
(Water Pheasant), and elongated conical (Guillemot). But
while, as a rule, the eggs of each family at least closely
resemble each other in shape, there are some striking ex-
ceptions. Among Passerine birds, for example, the eggs of
the genus AXgithalus (Penduline Tits) are in shape not only
widely different from those of the other members of the
Family, but also from the normal type of eggs of birds
belonging to the same Order. On the other hand, they are
strikingly like eggs of certain species of Swifts and Wood-
peckers, birds which belong to totally different Orders. So far
as individual species are concerned, the greatest variation in
the shape of the egg is to be found among the Galliformes ;
but the reason for this must be obvious. It is by no means,
however, so easy to tell why the eggs of the Alucine (Barn
Owls) should differ so markedly in shape from those of all
other Owls. But that the Owls are divided into two widely
divergent groups is known from anatomical and pterylological
as well as from oological research. Many other instances
might be adduced to show how greatly the eggs of birds

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE. 239

differ in shape. But it would be beyond the scope of the
present paper to go more deeply into this subject, and I
shall therefore merely point out that in the case of indi-
vidual aberration the cause is pathological, and that in the
case of specific aberration it is structural.

4, SIZE.

As in the birds themselves, so also in their eggs is there
great disparity in size. The largest egg of all existing birds
is that of the Ostrich, and the smallest that of the Humming-
bird. But while this is commonly the case, it by no means
follows that the size of the egg is proportionate to the
dimensions of the bird which lays it. To quote the usual
stereotyped examples, “the Raven, Curlew, and Guillemot
are of about equal size, while their eggs vary as ten to one.”
“The Snipe and the Blackbird,” says Professor Newton,
“differ but slightly in weight, their eggs remarkably.” The
egg of the Capercaillie is very small in comparison to the
size of the bird, that of the Fulmar very large. And in
individual species, such as the Spotted Flycatcher, the Water
Rail, and the Sardinian Warbler, not to mention the Cuckoo,
there is great disparity in the size of the eggs. For com-
parative purposes, the weight of the bird alone must be taken
into account; and this renders the task of the oologist the
more difficult, as the requisite information is, so far as I am
aware, not obtainable in any English work. Hewitson’s
solution of the problem is that “the eggs of all birds which
quit the nest soon after they are hatched, and which are
consequently more fully developed at their birth, are very
large.” But the exceptions to this statement are so numer-
ous, and the division of the Nidifuge from the Nidicole so
artificial, that it is obvious that other and deeper causes
must be taken into account. Prof. Arthur-Thomson has an
ingenious theory, that those birds which are lazy and inordi-
nately greedy lay proportionally large eggs, while those
which are very active in their habits lay relatively small
ones. But this, too, is not borne out by facts. The smallest
eggs in proportion to the size of the bird are those of the

240 MR J, B. DOBBIE ON

parasitic Cuckoos, that of Cuculus canorus being an out-
standing example. This is just what might be expected, for
our Cuckoo is a parasite upon birds much smaller than itself.
But, strangely enough, in the case of another parasite, Molo-
thrus bonariensis, we meet with diametrically opposite results.
Here we have a bird whose egg is relatively very large indeed,
and yet its dupes are, with hardly an exception, even smaller
than itself! How are we to explain an anomaly so striking
as this? Had the parasitical habits acquired by the bird
rendered necessary any modification in the size of the egg,
we should naturally have expected, as has occurred in the
case of Cuculus canorus, a slight decrease rather than a
remarkable increase. Mr W. H. Hudson, who has so carefully
studied and so ably described the procreant habits of this
and other South American Cowbirds, affirms that the egg of
Molothrus bonariensis, despite its comparatively large size,
hatches in 114 days, while the eggs of other small birds,
such as those of its dupes, require fourteen to sixteen days,
and by this means, therefore, it would appear, the species is
preserved.

5. TEXTURE OF SURFACE.

The texture of shell, as Dr Rey has pointed out, depends
upon structural conditions. “It stands in direct relation
to the forms and abundance of certain glands in the womb,
the so-called uterine glands, and is in its complicated form
a criterion of the exact differentiation of many genera and
families—even of those whose eggs are in other respects
similar.” By the texture alone it is possible for the oologist
to identify eggs which are, in other external respects,
indistinguishable. For example, it is quite a simple matter
to distinguish, with the aid of a lens, between eggs of an
Owl and those of a Roller, though both are of an uniform
white, so strikingly unlike are they in texture. Most
wonderful is the remarkable fact, as recorded by Prof.
Newton, that the eggs of the Carrion and Hooded Crows are
readily distinguishable under the microscope by the struc-
ture of the shell; and more wonderful still is “the general
conclusion that the egg laid by a bird mated with a male of

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE. 241

a different species is recognisable from one laid by the same
bird when paired with a male of her own.” And Mr Howard
Saunders tells us that nests of the Orphean Warbler, obtained
by him near Malaga, sometimes contained one or even two
eggs which were much larger than the normal eggs of that
bird, though identical in colour. He submitted these large
eggs to Prof. Sorby, who by microscopic investigation of the
texture discovered that they belonged to Cuculus canorus.
But our knowledge of the causes which affect the texture of
birds’ eggs is extremely imperfect. All that we do know is
that the texture is rough or smooth according to the number,
position, and size of the pores. But this goes only a small
way to explain the marvellous gloss of the egg of the Tina-
mou, the calcareous coating of that of the Guira Cuckoo, or
why the egg of a duck of the genus Dendrocygna should be
as smooth as that of one of the genus Erismatura is rough.

6. CoLourR.

The widely varied coloration of eggs is the most complex,
as it is the most interesting, of all the problems which the
oologist has to solve. No one who looks at a collection of
birds’ eggs can fail to be struck by the remarkable beauty
of many of the specimens. For, as Prof. Newton has said,
“hardly a shade known to the colourist is not exhibited by
one or more, and some of these tints have their beauty
enhanced by the glossy surface on which they are displayed,
by their harmonious blending, or by the pleasing contrasts
of the pigments which form markings as often of the most
irregular as of regular shape.” Now, what is the reason for
all this varied and beautiful colouring? For, believing as we
all, of course, do, that birds have been evolved from a lizard-
like ancestor, and knowing that the eggs of all reptiles are
white, we are pretty safe in assuming that the eggs of all
birds, too, were originally of an uniform white colour. The
author of the standard work on British Oology says the
purpose served by the beautiful and varied colours lavished
so abundantly on the eggs of various species of birds is to
minister delight unto man and to beautify the earth. He

242 MR J. B. DOBBIE ON

then, in support of his argument, goes on to say that the
eggs of all birds which build in holes are white because
there is, in such situations, no necessity for glowing colours;
but this is not literally true, because the eggs of many birds
which build in holes are not white, but are richly coloured
—for instance, those of the Kestrels, Tree-Sparrow, and Nut-
hatch; and we may be tempted to ask why the egg of the
Falcon should not be white instead of that blood-red tint
which makes it so conspicuously beautiful; because if we
apply the foregoing argument, there is as little need for
glowing colours in the inaccessible precipice as there is for
them in holes in trees. According to a well-known German
naturalist, the coloration of birds’ eggs is for protective
purposes. And there can be no doubt that the majority of
eggs deposited on the bare ground afford strong proof in
favour of his hypothesis. It is, for example, impossible to
conceive protective coloration more perfect than that exhibited
by the eggs of the Ringed Plover or Lesser Tern, for so closely
do they resemble the shingle on which they are laid that
they almost defy discovery. Yet it is obvious that in the
vast majority of cases the resemblance of the eggs to their
surroundings would, for protective purposes, be superfluous,
for if the nests were discovered, what further security would
be afforded by the eggs? Then we have the theory of Dr
M‘Aldowie, that the use of colour is primarily to protect the
egg, or rather the embryo within it, from the solar rays.
But this hypothesis, too, clever as it is, utterly fails in many
cases to solve the difficulty. If time had permitted, an
extensive list of eggs could have been prepared which are of
a pure white colour even when exposed to the full force of
the sun’s rays, and of brightly coloured eggs placed where
no sunlight can ever penetrate. Widely different is the
verdict pronounced by recent research. “Whence, then,”
says Wickmann, “ proceed all these differences? Why are
different pigments secreted in the organisms of different birds ?
My answer is: The only source of all egg-colouring is the
blood.” The eggs of the different species of a well-defined
genus,such as Hypolais and Oriolus, bear a striking resemblance
to each other, though here I may say that the selection of
Emberiza as a typical case by the South Kensington authorities

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE. 243

is, as the genus is at present constituted, an unfortunate one.
Where, on the other hand, we meet with a genus in which
there is a marked difference in colour in the eggs of one or
more species, we are justified in assuming that that genus
has not been properly diagnosed. It is, for example, impos-
sible for an oologist to believe that the Song Thrush, Redwing,
and Fieldfare belong to one and the same genus, or that the
most recent revision of such genera as Caprimulgus or Cryp-
turus is satisfactory. The internal colouring of birds’ eggs
—that is, the ground colour of the inner shell substance—
is often of great importance as a guide to the oologist. For
example, the eggs of the White and Black Stork are both
white and of about the same size, yet they can easily be dis-
tinguished by the innermost pigments, which in the former is
yellow and in the latter very dark green. Examples of the
Kestrel’s egg sometimes very closely resemble those of the
Sparrow Hawk, yet they can at once be detected, for the inner
membrane of the egg of the Falcon always shows yellow, and
that of the Hawk green. The egg of Hieracidea, thoroughly
falcon-like in its appearance, is hawk-like in the colour of
the inner shell-substance. The eggs of the Griffon and Black
Vultures, and those of many Owls, may also be determined
by the same means. This is not, in coloured eggs, due to
the external coloration, for the inner membrane reveals its
normal pigments after the outer one has been removed by
acid. While the eggs of birds exhibit almost every colour
known, white and blue, as may be supposed, are by far the
most common, and on the other hand, black and yellow are
extremely rare. Eggs of one and the same species of bird
not unfrequently differ greatly, while others again are remark-
ably constant in their coloration. Every novice knows that
there is seemingly no limit to the variation in the colouring
of the eggs of such birds as the Guillemot and the Tree Pipit.
But there are far more striking cases than these: for example,
that of the Fantail Warbler, whose eggs are well known for
the extent to which they differ in colour. According to the
Swiss naturalist M. Lunel, the extraordinary variation is due
to the temperature at the time when the eggs were laid. In
other words, he adopts, or rather he anticipates, M‘Aldowie’s
theory that coloration is in due ratio to the amount of light

244 MR J. B. DOBBIE ON

to which the eggs are exposed. But, as Prof. Newton has
pointed out, “even if Lunel’s observations were correct, it
matters not, for the ark-like structure of the nest remains
constant.” It is impossible to discuss the question here,
but it seems to me that a more reasonable solution of the
difficulty is that this little bird, which, be it remembered,
has an enormous geographical range, has sprung from a
common ancestor with birds of the genus Cettia. Granting
this, it is comparatively easy to account for the marvellous
variability in the eggs, not only of the genus Cisticola, but
also of those of closely-allied genera such as Orthotomus. A
very much more difficult problem is, to my mind, furnished
by the Sardinian Warbler, Sylvia melanocephala. This bird
lays two totally distinct types of eggs, differing not only in
colour but in size. The two varieties, which never seem to
intergrade, are found commonly in the same districts, and
with our present knowledge of the bird it is impossible even
to guess the cause of this extraordinary variability. But we
find variation in colouring most pronounced in the eggs of
parasitical species, especially in those birds, such as Cuculus
canorus, which place their eggs in the nests of a great many
different species of birds. In the case of those parasites,
such as Coccystes glandarius and Molothrus rufoaxillaris, whose
dupes are confined to a few closely allied species, we invari-
ably find that the eggs of both parasite and dupe closely
resemble each other. On the other hand, the eggs of Cuculus
canorus, Which “ exercises an indiscriminate choice in the
selection of foster-parents for its young,” show in only two
cases, according to the unique experience of Rey, any adap-
tive similarity in colour to those of the dupe. This is, of
course, strong proof of the soundness of Wickmann’s recent
research. I have recently been forcibly struck by two eggs
of parasitical birds, one of which is in my own collection, and
the other in that of our distinguished member, Mr Davidson.
The former, though a well-known authority thinks it belongs
to Cuculus canorus, is probably that of Hierococeya spar-
veroides, In any case it is that of a Cuckoo, and yet it
strikingly resembles, even in the characteristic scribblings,
the eggs of the rightful owner of the nest (Zmberiza ciopsis)
from which it was taken. The other is the egg of Pentho-

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE. 245

ceryx sonnerati (Banded Bay Cuckoo). Although, according
to Mr Blanford, the eggs of this bird are supposed to have
been found in the nest of Otocompsa fuscicaudata, nothing,
so far as I am aware, is known of the procreant habits of this
Cuckoo. Yet Mr Davidson took the egg to which I have
referred from the oviduct of a female which he had shot, so
that its identity is beyond dispute. When I saw the egg
I was struck dumb with astonishment, for it so closely re-
sembles the egg of a Bulbul that by its external appearance
alone it would be impossible to doubt that it belonged to a
member of that family. And yet the egg of the Bulbul is
one of the most highly specialised known to me. These
specimens clearly demonstrate that parasitism — “ that
monstrous outrage on nature ”—is, even in birds, of great
antiquity ; for before such marvellous mimicry was possible,
structural changes were, in the former case at least, im-
perative.

There is, therefore, abundant evidence to show that the
eggs from which the young of so large a proportion of animals
are hatched demand at least a share of the scientitic investi-
gation which has been so liberally bestowed on the parents
by whom they have been produced. These remarks have
been compiled far too hurriedly to excite the interest which,
we are persuaded, the study deserves. To some of you it
may seem strange that I should have altogether avoided
the discussion of the obviously much more important claims
of the subject to be studied in relation to its embryological
aspect—the microscopic appearance of the protoplasm, the
chemical composition of the egg, the phases of its develop-
ment during the process of incubation ; that I should have
‘confined my attention solely to the treatment of the form
and colour which these beautiful objects present to the
intellectual eye of man, as if the shell or case which Nature
employs to protect a vital germ were of higher value than
the being which will burst its flimsy envelopment, and
trample under foot and scatter to the winds its wasted
fragments. My answer must be, that at present it has been
my feeble endeavour only to show the analogy which exists
between the egg and the species with which it is identified ;
and if by form, or colour, or inherent property, or accidental

246 MR J. B. DOBBIE ON

circumstance such analogy should in any way or to any
extent add to the knowledge which aids us in the determina-
tion of the permanent qualities of genera and species, it is
a mere truism to say that the subject has the highest claims
to careful scientific observation. There is a reason for every
irregularity ; and it is indubitable that the beautiful and fan-
tastic variegations which frequently adorn the shells of eggs.
depend on some cause or series of causes as yet unexplained.
Hewitson, whom we have already quoted, considers that such
decoration has no direct function in the economy of Nature,
and that it is only an accidental property designed by a
beneficent Creator for the purpose of gladdening and beauti-
fying the earth.

“ The beauties of the wilderness are His,
That makes so gay the solitary place,
Where no eye sees them.”

There they are! “ born to blush unseen” till man finds.
access to their remote and neglected habitat. By the orthodox
savants of the past no further explanation was thought
necessary ; but the Darwinian naturalists are not so easily
satisfied, and to them the phenomena of colour in the organic
world has been the subject of much speculation. It is the
business of the chemist and of the physicist to investigate
the principles upon which the law of refraction and reflec-
tion, and the general photographic action of light, come to:
exert an influence upon the adaptive parts of an animal
system ; it is the business of the physiologist to examine the
relations which may exist between the action and the modi-
fications or changes to which such organisms may be liable.
An intimate connection between light and colour there cer-
tainly is, and the great exuberance of life in the Tropics has
led many to accept the theory that colour is wholly dependent
upon the influence of the solar rays. Thus Mr Ruskin, with
all the vividness of his beautifully poetic mind, has pictured
the gradual decrease of colouring in Nature when viewed in
proportion to its distance from the Torrid Zone. “ Such,”
according to him, “ would be the aspect of the earth if, rising
higher than the Stork or the Swallow as they lean upon the
wind, we could gaze down upon the variegated mosaic of

CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE, 247

the earth’s surface—the Alpine pastures blue with gentians,
the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake,
with Syria, and Greece, and Italy, and Spain all sleeping in
the sun. Northward, the orient colours fading away into a
broad belt of rainy green, and northwards still, into mountain
rock and purple moor, and bleak islands of stormy seas, till
at last the wall of ice sets, death-like, its white teeth against
us out of the polar twilight—and the same variations
repeated with manifold diversity southward, from the glow
and glories of the broad tropical girdle of the globe down to
where the volcanoes of the Antarctic continent darken the
- awful desolation with their grim canopy of smoke, ever south-
ward to the unknown latitudes where the ruddy southern
lights encarnadine the solitudes of everlasting snow.” But
Weismann has argued that evolution by natural selection
tends to the ultimate preservation of uniformity of colouring ;
and Mr Russel Wallace, the English exponent of his views,
has declared, as the result of his valuable experience, that the
greater variety of colouring in the fauna and flora of the
Tropics as contrasted with that of northern latitudes is by
no means proportionate to the vastly superior number of the
species which there exist. The flowers matured in the dull
light of our rainy temperate zone are, according to him,
superior in brilliance to any he has seen during twelve years’
experience of tropical life; and in the case of birds, it is a
fact that whole genera of those inhabiting the Torrid Zone
are frequently of a dull dusky hue, while their analogues
in northern climes often exhibit the most gorgeous tints.
Besides, the gaudy Macaws and Parrots, Toucans, and
Humming-birds, as a rule, pass their lives in dark um-
brageous forests, where they are little exposed to the rays
of the burning sun. Such phenomena must depend, partly
at least, on other causes, and we know that other causes
exist. The protective use of colouring, whether as a
mode of concealment or as a means of attraction, is well
known; and Bates and Wallace and others have shown to
how large an extent mimicry has thus assisted in the pro-
cess of Natural Selection. These causes, it is true, affect
the birds rather than their eggs, but the essential connec-
tion which exists between the two must, directly or indirectly,

248 CLAIMS OF OOLOGY TO BE AN EXACT SCIENCE.

concern the latter as wellas the former. Sorby discovered
in the shell no fewer than seven constituents found in the body
of the bird analogous to the composition of blood and bile; and
Wickmann maintains that colour originates from the ovary
itself, and that the very source of colouring in birds’ eggs is
the blood. ‘“ Natural Selection,” says Romanes, “is primarily
a theory of the cumulative development of adaptations
wherever these occur, and therefore is only incidentally or
otherwise a theory of species in cases where allied species
differ from one another in respect of peculiar characters,
which are also adapted characters.” May it not be that
the appearance of the egg exactly defines the predominance
of those characters? If the eggs of the Song Thrush differ
conspicuously from those of all other European members of
the genus, may not such a peculiarity be due to the fact
that in that particular species the colour which distin-
guished the original type has by some means been pre-
served; or, conversely, that in a highly specialised form,
such characters as determine the retention of colour have been
gradually lost in the protracted progress of polytypic evolution ?
Such questions are purely speculative, and there is little
hope of their being satisfactorily answered until the develop-
ment theory has advanced far beyond its present rudimen-
tary state. But whether, as Weismann and Russel Wallace
maintain, Natural Selection is the sole cause of the modifi-
cation of species, or whether, as Darwin and Romanes have
argued, it is only one of many forms of what the latter
has called “ Discriminate Isolation,” it is at least certain
that all such changes are controlled by one great and in-
fallible principle-—the principle which not only sways the
physical universe, visible to us, or extending far beyond our
little ken, but which, if understood, might explain the
action or fix the domain of those stupendous mysteries
which men of science have often arrogantly despised as
metaphysical or supernatural, although inseparably and in-
dissolubly connected with organic matter—the principle of
the subjection of lower to higher law.

REY. H. N. BONAR ON THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN, 249

A LIST OF THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN AS
AT PRESENT ASCERTAINED, WITH SOME
ACCOUNT OF TWENTY SPECIES NOTED
DURING A FORTNIGHT’S VISIT IN SUMMER.
1899.

By Rev. H. N. Bonar, M.B.0.U,
Kal
(Read 1st February 1901.)

Birds personally noted marked with an asterisk.

1, LINOTA HORNEMANNI, Holbéll—Arctic Redpoll

This, the Arctic form of the British Mealy Redpoll, has
been found breeding in small numbers in the north of

West Spitsbergen. I was not fortunate enough to see this
bird.

*2. PLECTROPHENAX NIVALIS (Linn.).—Snow Bunting.

Widely and plentifully distributed. In broad ‘gravelly
river deltas, on the raised flats at Advent Point and Sassen
Bay, on the crumbling talus slopes and on the stony table-
lands, this bird seemed equally at home. On all sides its
cheery twittering song was to be heard. Met with some-
times in pairs, but generally in flocks of five or six—the
summer's brood. This species must have nested early, for
all the young birds seen were well grown. Watched a
brood of five at Dane’s Gat on July 23 (hopping cheerily
over the wreck of Andree’s balloon-house), whose wing and
tail feathers were not fully grown, but these were the only
young Snow Buntings out of hundreds noted which flew at
all weakly.

Some eight or ten (probably two broods) were usually
to be found perching in or around the wrecked winterer’s
hut at Advent Point; and curiously enough, about the same
number were noted on August 4 in an old coal-shed of

250 REV. H. N. BONAR ON

Nordenskjéld’s at Cape Thordsen, near which I picked up a
cracked egg of this species.

There is an indescribable air of cheeriness and contented-
ness about this bright handsome bird.

3. NYCTEA SCANDIACA (Linn.).—Snowy Owl.

Of rare occurrence in Spitsbergen, though why this
should be so, it is difficult to say. I found some large
castings in the glen near the Vogelberg, which may have
belonged to this species.

*4, ANSER BRACHYRHYNCHUS (Baill.).—Pinkfooted Goose.

Not uncommon in suitable spots. I found three empty
nests of this species on July 28, on a narrow tongue of rock
with precipitous sides, formed at the junction of two torrents,
about nine miles inland among the Colorado Hills. The
two streams had cut deeply into the soft rock, and had
left a V-shaped projection, with walls thirty feet high. On
the grassy top of this cliff-walled fortress the geese had
nested, with what ultimate success I know not, for near at
hand was the burrow of an Arctic Fox, round the mouth of
which lay a good many birds’ bones. From the look of the
down in the nests and from the veining of the membranes
of the egg-shells lying about, one could see that the goslings
had been hatched out. Whether the foxes had allowed them
to fly is another matter. A good many adult birds were
noted feeding in the mud some five miles up the Sassendal
River on July 27.

*5, BERNICLA BRENTA (Pall.).—Brent Goose.

Fairly plentiful in Spitsbergen. ‘Some thirty adults,
accompanied by at least as many goslings, seen on large
ponds some distance up Advent Dal on August 2. Found
several down-lined nests from which the young had been
hatched, on the promontories and small islands of these ponds.
Eight or ten birds probably of this species, seen on the
tarns in Sassendal on July 28.

THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN. 250

6. BERNICLA LEUCOPSIS (Bechst.).—Bernicle Goose.

Not uncommon. I never was able absolutely to identify
this bird. At Dane’s Gat on July 23 a flock of some dozen
geese passed the steamer. They were flying low and at
some distance, but I got my binoculars on them, and believed
them to be Bernicles. Alsoon August 3, when out in a small
boat in Advent Bay six geese very like Bernicles flew over-
head, but too high up for me to see clearly. Therefore I
do not include this bird in my own list.

7. HARELDA GLACIALIS (Linn.).—Long-tailed Duck.

Though said to be fairly common, seems to be scarce. Sir
Martin Conway’s party in 1896 only saw one specimen. I
never saw this bird.

*8, SOMATERIA MOLLISSIMA (Linn.).—Eider Duck.

Very common all round the coasts. Flocks of twenty or
thirty ducks fed nearly every day at low tide on the mud-
flats at the top of Advent Bay, some with their broods,
some without. The drakes always kept by themselves.
Through binoculars, large flocks of them, in their very con-
spicuous plumage, were often visible well out at sea. They
sometimes flew along the coast-line in twos and threes, but
were far shyer than the ducks. By August 1 all the young
were far enough advanced to swim strongly in rough seas.

9. SOMATERIA SPECTABILIS (Linn,).—King Eider.

Said to be fairly common, often mingling with the
ordinary Eiders. But though I kept a very sharp lookout,
I never saw this bird.

*10. LAGOPUS HEMILEUCURUS, Gould.—Spitsbergen
Ptarmigan.

Thinly distributed all over Spitsbergen. Two were seen
within two hours of landing at Advent Bay on July 22,
one near the sea level, the other on the top of the plateau,

252 ’ REV. H. N. BONAR ON

1500 feet up, where there is no soil and no vegetation save
lichens. I found two used nests of this species. The first was
on the steep slope of the gorge behind Advent Point; it
was on the only level bit of ground on the whole hillside,
and was merely a slight hollow scraped in a small patch of
grassy soil, It contained the fragments of the hatched-out
egg-shells. The other nest I found on July 27 in a dry
spot in the broad Sassendal Strath, nearly a mile away from
the nearest hills, It was lined with leaves of the dwarf
willow (Salix polaris) and contained one addled egg. This
bird is absurdly tame, and needs the gravest compulsion to
induce it to fly. It seems much to prefer running, at which
it is an adept.

*11, AEGIALITES HIATICULA (Linn.),—Ringed Plover.

Only four specimens have been noted from Spitsbergen
by different observers, I was fortunate enough to come
across it in two different localities, On July 26 at Sassen
Bay I heard its unmistakable call, and found two pairs
feeding among the gravel and mud of the delta of a little
stream near the sea, I spent some time in hunting for
indications of the nesting of this bird; for there are miles
of gravel flats and raised beaches in the neighbourhood. I
found two or three circular depressions from which the
larger stones had apparently been removed. They were very
like the “ scrapes ” of this bird, but I cannot be positive, as it
is not difficult to imagine other causes which might produce
circular depressions in the gravel. Then on July 30 a
flock of fourteen appeared on the flats at Advent Point. I
saw them several times that day, but never near enough
to identify them, especially as they were strangely and
absolutely silent. But next morning I hunted for them
carefully, and at last found them in two flocks of five and
nine. I brought home two skins, one from this flock and
one from Sassen Bay.

12. STREPSILAS INTERPRES (Linn.).—Turnstone.

Very rarely noted. I did not see it.

THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN. 253

13, PHALAROPUS FULICARIUS (Linn.).—Grey Phalarope.

Distributed thinly: recorded from many spots. I was
very much disappointed never to see this bird, for which I
made diligent search at every likely spot.

14, TRINGA ALPINA, Linn.—Dunlin.

A single female shot off Edge Island, August 22, 1889, by
the Bremen Geographical Society’s Expedition, is the record
for this species. See Ibis, January 1899, p. 46.

*15. Trina stRIaTA, Linn—Purple Sandpiper.

Very abundant. To be seen almost everywhere, except
actually on snow or ice. Pretty tame, yet shrinking in its
habits. Whenever there was soil enough to form a marsh, or
gravel enough to form a little bank at the edge of the sea,
this bird was to be seen. Equally plentiful in the flat
straths of Sassen and Advent dals, or on the high stony
plateaus. At all places it was to be seen, often running
and skulking so furtively that it looked like a grey rat. I
saw one on a huge mossy boggy moor some 2000 feet up
among the Colorado Hills. Egg-shells belonging to this bird
were found in two places in Sassendal, and we found an
empty nest on the spot where we camped at Sassen Bay shore.
It was perfectly circular, and remarkably deep, its edges
being nearly perpendicular. It was lined with leaves of the
dwarf willow (Salix polaris) which abounds there. I found
two young belonging to this nest, perfectly able to run, and
with some difficulty caught and photographed them. Found
another young one on Advent Point much further grown.
It did not try to fly, but it ran like a hare.

16. TRINGA CANUTUS, Linn.— Knot.

One male shot off Edge Island, August 22, 1889, by the
Bremen Geographical Society’s Expedition. The only record
of this bird, See Ibis, January 1899, p. 46.

VOL. I. 19

254 REV. H. N. BONAR ON

17. CALIDRIS ARENARIA (Linn.).—Sanderling.

Has been recorded from Amsterdam Island by Mr
Arnold Pike in August 1888, and by Mr W. 8S. Bruce,
August 1898. Another record is from the Bremen ‘Geo-
graphical Society’s Expedition, August 22, 1889, off Edge
Island. See Ibis, January 1899, p. 47.

*18, STERNA MACRURA, Naum.—Arctic Tern.

I need say little about a bird which is familiar to all
ornithologists in Britain. It was met with in most parts
of Spitsbergen visited, but it never occurred in large flocks ;
only five or six pairs were to be seen at any one spot, indeed,
sometimes it was met with only in twos and threes. It
seems to be particularly well distributed. Noted at Advent
Bay, Vogelberg Point, Hyperite Hah Sassen Bay, and off
Prince Charles Foreland.

*19. LARUS GLAUCUS, Fabr.—Glaucous Gull.

Ravenous, overbearing and ubiquitous. In fact, whalers
(who do not evidently take very enlightened views of
municipal government) have called this bird from these
qualities, the Burgomaster. It never appeared anywhere in
great flocks, but it was to be seen, with its strong determined
flight, everywhere, even twelve miles inland, both in the low
valleys and high on the hillsides. Its impudence and greed
are remarkable. It is fearless and omnivorous, and has a
great fondness for other birds’ (particularly Eider Ducks’)
eggs, and it devours any young or unprotected bird greedily.
Its strength is great, though how it manages to lift heavy
weights I know not. In camp one night we were dimly
conscious of the chuckling and gurgling of some of these
gulls near our tent, and in the morning we found that a
reindeer head (surely equal in weight to any two of them)
had been carried away some hundred yards. Only one good
deed did I see this bird do. One day in Advent Bay I
saw two Burgomasters watch an Arctic Skua, who had just
in the ordinary course of his business compelled a Kittiwake
to drop a fish. This little fish the Skua had caught in his

THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN. 255

wonderfully dexterous way, ere it reached the sea. Just
as he secured it, the Burgomasters closed in on him; he
dashed off nimbly, but his two enemies with their enormous
spread of wing flew quite as fast, and keeping always above
him, so bustled and worried him that, after flying some half-
mile or so, he reluctantly dropped his booty, leaving the
two gulls to quarrel over it.

20. RHODOSTETHIA ROSEA, MacGil.—Ross’s rosy Gull.

Has undoubtedly occurred in Spitsbergen, though strangely
enough omitted from most lists. For the evidence of
Ross, the discoverer of the species (who is surely a com-
petent observer), see Yarrell’s British Birds, 4th edition,
vol. ili. p. 581.

21, XEMA SABINII (J. Sabine)—Sabine’s Gull.

Sabine, the discoverer, shot two specimens of this gull in
Spitsbergen. See Yarrell’s British Birds, 4th edition, vol. iii.
p. 576; also Ibis, January 1900, p. 213.

*22. PAGOPHILA EBURNEA (Phipps).—Ivory Gull.

I saw one specimen of this lovely gull as our steamer
dropped anchor at Advent Bay on July 22, but, curiously
enough, I never saw another, though it is by no means a
rare bird. Its strongholds and chief breeding places are on
the Hinloopen Straits; while a large colony was discovered
in 1898 on Abel Island, one of the Wiches Islands. See
Ibis, January 1900, p. 213.

*23, RISSA TRIDACTYLA (Linn. ).—Kittiwake,

I do not need to say much about this common British
bird. It has many large breeding colonies in Spitsbergen.
A great number breed on the Vogelberg cliffs, curiously
enough, not over the sea, but on the upper series of inland
cliffs which rise from the grassy slope which crowns the sea-
precipice. I climbed to several of their nests on July 25,
and found that all had young at that date. This bird
in Spitsbergen is very tame, and along the seashore comes
almost within arm’s-length of the passer-by.

256 REV. H. N. BONAR ON

24. STERCORARIUS CATARRHACTES (Linn.).—Great Skua.

“One shot during the expedition of the German warship
Olga (Captain von Uslar) in Recherche Bay. This example
is now in the University Museum, Gottingen.” (Ornith.
Monatsber., vii., 1899, p. 9.)

*25, STERCORARIUS POMATORHINUS (‘Temm. ).—
Pomatorhine Skua.

Only one specimen has been recorded for the west coast
of Spitsbergen, but many have been seen on the east coast
and adjacent islands. In Olga Straits and Barents Islands
it is comparatively common. I did not see this bird on
Spitsbergen itself, but near Bear Island, where it breeds, it was
seen frequently. On August 6, six of those skuas followed
our steamer off and on from 9.30 a.m, till 4.30 p.m. They
came pretty near, and gave me abundant opportunity for
studying them through my binoculars. This skua’s twisted
tail is very remarkable. No one who has ever seen it
could possibly mistake this bird for any other. At certain
angles the projecting tail feathers look so bunchy that it
almost seems as if someone had tied a strip of paper on to
the tail.

*26. STERCORARIUS CREPIDATUS (J. F. Gmelin).—
Arctic or Richardson’s Skua.

Pretty common. ‘Three pairs at least frequented Advent
Point while I was there. Saw this bird also at Vogelberg
Point, at Hyperite Hat, at Sassen Bay, and at Dane’s Gat,
while one pair were seen fully twelve miles inland in Sassen-
dal. This bird is dainty and neat in all its actions. One
almost forgives its robberies, they are so gracefully done.
To see one chasing and robbing an Arctic Tern, a bird even
more graceful than itself, is a sight well worth watching.
In almost every case the skua managed to catch the food
dropped by its victim, before it reached the sea. While
coasting up Norway, all of the many specimens seen were
of the regulation sooty brown, but in Spitsbergen this dark

THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN. 257

form was never to be seen. A. Trevor Battye records
the only known specimen of the dark form, from Bell
Sound. It is now in the National Collection. See Ibis,
October 1897, p. 596.

*2'7. STERCORARIUS PARASITICUS (Linn.).— Longtailed or
Buffon’s Skua, ’

Not so common as the preceding species, though my
seeing so few was probably an accident. I saw one pair
twice on two different days, four or five miles up Sassendal.
At the upper end of Advent Bay, where the river runs in,
some five or six were to be seen. This bird is even tamer
than the Arctic Skua, which is by no means shy. It seems
more prying and curious than the others of its kind. Its
remarkable tail (of which the two central feathers project
some six or eight inches) gives it an individuality of its
own. In fact, the veriest novice could at a glance dis-
tinguish between the Pomatorhine, the Arctic and the Long-
tailed Skuas, at a considerable distance, by their tails.

*28. FULMARUS GLACIALIS (Linn.).—Fulmar.

This great ghostly grey moth of a bird was never absent
from us all the time we were in the Arctic Ocean. It is
remarkable for its strong yet leisurely flight at sea, circling
round and round the steamer, often crossing the bows at
a couple of yards’ distance. Silent, unhurrying and ex-
pressionless, it follows the ship day and night. On land
it coasts along the shore or skirts the glen-side, eyeing one
all the time with a sort of dignified, half-mournful curiosity.
Far inland these birds were to be seen in plenty ; they often
sailed within a few feet of us with a most impressive, un-
ruffled calmness as we plodded along.

The finding of an enormous dead whalebone whale by
our steamer some little distance off the South Cape of
Spitsbergen on July 21, gave us a good opportunity for
observing these birds. They surrounded the carcase by the
hundred, many of them so gorged with blubber that they
could not fly. Even when a boat was lowered, and the
sailors “landed” on the whale, the Fulmars would not

258 REV. H. N. BONAR ON

sheer off. They dodged the oars, and swam between the
boat and the carcase as if they had never seen a man before.
One of the sailors caught one by simply reaching out his
hand to the surface of the water as he sat in the boat.
This was the only occasion on which I heard their note—
a kind of chuckling noise. But the matter of greatest
interest was that here were quite a dozen of the white-
coloured specimens which are so rare in Spitsbergen. Mr
Trevor Battye (naturalist to Sir Martin Conway’s expedi-
tion in 1896) says: “. .. . Of the thousands I saw last
year, the white parts of not one could be described even
by courtesy as anything better than a dirty light shade”
(Ibis, October 1897, p. 596). Our party were fortunate
enough to get several photographs of the Fulmars round the
whale showing distinctly the white variety of the bird. It
seemed to me, looking down on them from the upper deck
of the steamer as they floated below, that the white-
breasted birds had not such long wings as the dark ones,
or if they had, they did not sit on the water with their
wing feathers crossed as did the others; their wing tips
seemed just to meet and touch each other over the rump,
while the wings of the dark-coloured ones overlapped at the
same spot like a St Andrew’s cross.

*29, URIA BRUENNICHI, E. Sabine.—Briinnich’s
Guillemot.

Seen in thousands, I dare not say millions. I climbed
up to the great “ Loomery” at the Vogelberg on July 25,
where, as far as I could note, every egg was hatched. On
the rank, guano-grown grass below the upper cliffs, I found
egg-shells and lining membranes everywhere. The birds
let me approach to within a few feet without moving.
Some four or five I saw on ledges below me, and I tried
to make them fly to see whether they had eggs or not.
But nothing short of killing them could have made those
birds budge. I threw turf at them, and rolled boulders
down within three feet of them; they merely turned their
heads towards me with a look of languid interest, but
never thought of moving. It was very interesting to see

THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN. 259

the continuous string of parents arriving at the cliff with
food for the young. Each old bird had hanging from its
bill a small fish (the diminutive Arctic cod), many of which
must have been carried for miles. Altogether this vast
“ Loomery ” was a most imposing sight.

*30. URIA MANDTI, Licht—Mandt’s Guillemot.

This Arctic form of our pretty British Black Guillemot
does not by any means keep to the sea-cliffs in its nesting.
It can be found on high inland precipices a long distance
from the nearest salt water. It breeds everywhere along
the coast, generally in the rotten cliffs—though, indeed,
nearly all cliffs in Spitsbergen seem to be rotten.

A great many breed at the Vogelberg, though not in a
colony: and the low, decaying black shale cliffs at Cape
Thordsen were occupied almost exclusively by this species.
At this spot on August 4 I noted the young, who were almost
full grown, calling plaintively and vigorously to be fed by
parents who seemed no larger than themselves.

The captain of a Finnish steamer (the Virgo), which
anchored on July 31 in Advent Bay, told me that he had
that day shot a bird to which his ornithological book of
reference gave him no clue. He very willingly sent a
sailor to his steamer, who brought the bird in the flesh for
my inspection. It certainly was remarkable, being an
almost white Mandt’s Guillemot. Its black beak and
vermilion feet told me it was an adult. Its measurements,
which I took, corresponded exactly to those given in Back-
house’s European Birds. In place of being (as we should
roughly describe a normal Mandt’s Guillemot) a black bird
with white markings, it was a white bird with black mark-
ings. Its back, neck and breast were pure white, there was no
brown about the plumage, and the eyes—I may add—were
of the ordinary brown tint. I tried to get the captain to give
it to me, but, though very disappointed to find that it was
only a “Tystie,” he declined, saying he was going to present
it to the museum of his native town, Helsingfors.

260 REV. H. N. BONAR ON

*31. MERGULUS ALLE (Linn.).—Little Auk.

A curious, stumpy, energetic little bird, which always has
the air of being late for an important engagement. It has
a business-like hurrying demeanour which contrasts strongly
with the dignified leisurely flight of the Fulmar. It is to
be seen breeding in myriads on the high inland rocks, which
it often seems to prefer to the actual sea-cliffs. With my
binoculars I could see these birds swarming, just like bees,
round every suitable cliff-side, often at so great a height
as to be quite invisible to the unaided eye. As one walks
up an inland valley or traverses a deep gorge, their shrill
plaintive note is to be heard from the top of the cliffs, and
the sound is by no means unpleasing. I found several used
nesting-sites among the rotten rocks and talus-slopes of the
Vogelberg, and got one cracked egg out of one of them.
This bird alters its profile to a ludicrous extent (after the
familiar manner of the Rook at breeding-time) by stuffing
its mouth with small shrimps to carry back to its young.
It was easy to tell from the curious pink-coloured droppings
of this bird which spattered the rocks in many places, that
shrimps formed the principal food of the adults also.

*39. FRATERCULA GLACIALIS (Leach).—Aretic Puffin.

Seen at sea in every part of Spitsbergen visited. When
sailing in the middle of Icefjord, we disturbed hundreds,
never actually in flocks, but in groups of threes and fours.
To the eye, distinctly of a larger and stouter build than the
British Puffin: but as I never shot one, I cannot tell the
difference with any accuracy. This bird and Mandt’s
Guillemot alone were breeding in the low black shale cliffs
at Cape Thordsen, no other birds at all being seen on
these rocks.

*33, COLYMBUS SEPTENTRIONALIS, Linn.—Red-
throated Diver.
Seen many times flying high overhead, calling loudly and
alarmingly.
A pair nested on one of the Advent Dal ponds, and at
least two pairs on the Sassendal ponds. This species was

[Vou. I. Parr II.

o
=
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re
Y
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n
—
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=|
o
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=|
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Trans. Scot. Nat, Hist. Soc.|

14 MAY 27
VAT AW

Trans. Scot, Nat. Hist. Soc.] (Vou. I. Parr I.

Fic. 1.—Fulmar Petrels, including both white and dark types.

Puare III. Fic. 2.—Spitsbergen Ptarmigan.

THE BIRDS OF SPITSBERGEN, 261

noted in a good many parts of Spitsbergen. Its sonorous
ery uttered when on the wing attracts one’s attention very
readily.

Note.—In the above list I omit three birds which might
by many seem to deserve inclusion. Let me state my
reasons.

A Falcon of some sort has undoubtedly been seen, but the
evidence as to what species it belonged to is misty and
vague. No one who has seen such a bird ventures to
assert what kind it is,—therefore I omit it, merely noting
that a Falcon has been seen.

Then a Whimbrel, Numenius PHAEOPUS (Linn.), lately
shot on Bear Island, is included in German lists of Spits-
bergen birds. I scarcely think it fair that a solitary little
island, 150 miles south, should be called Spitsbergen—so I
omit this bird.

Another bird I am far more inclined to add to my list is
the Swallow, Hirunpo rustica, Linn., which Mr Howard
Saunders says “has been known to stray to Spitsbergen.”
(See British Birds, 2nd edition, p. 163.)

Prof. Newton also asserts this, and quotes as the
authority the Ibis, 1875, p. 272. (See Yarvrell’s British
Birds, 4th edition, vol. ii. p. 346.) Surely such cautious
and capable ornithologists as Saunders and Newton are
worthy of being relied on. But there must be some reason

why this bird is omitted from all recent lists, so I leave it
out.

VOL. I. 20

262 NATURE NOTES.

NATURE NOTES.

THE OTTER (Lutra vulgaris) IN EAST FIFESHIRE.

I am glad to be able to state that the Otter is on the
increase in this district (Stravithie). One was, I regret to
say, recently shot. W. BERWICK.

OCCURRENCE OF THE DIPPER (Cinclus aquaticus) IN
KIRKLISTON.

I HAVE only found the Dipper in our district during the
colder half of the year, and then not in large numbers. It
may be seen in most burns and rivers from September till
spring. Probably in summer it migrates higher up among
the hills. SypNEY E. Brock.

Unusuau NESTING-PLACE OF THE WHEATEAR (Saxicola
enanthe).

In a loose rubble wall surrounding a villa on the shore at
Lossiemouth a pair of these somewhat shy and lovely
migrants had their nesting-place. The occupant of the
villa had noticed the strange birds, and I had frequent
opportunities of observing them. One is sorry to add that
too frequent peeps at the nest ended in its desertion. It is
surely unusual to find this species building so near human
habitations. THos. ALEXANDER.

NATURE NOTES. 263

OCCURRENCE OF THE WHEATEAR (Saxicola ananthe) IN
KIRKLISTON.

In this neighbourhood (Kirkliston) the Wheatear never
appears earlier than August—about the beginning of the
month—and only remains for a few weeks, though during
that time it is fairly common along the roadsides. The
district is, of course, quite unsuited to its habits.
SypNeEy E. Brock.

GRASSHOPPER WARBLER (Locustella naevia) IN East LOTHIAN.

IT is gratifying to note that this species seems to be increas-
ing in the Lothians, for a good many have been noted in
recent years.

I have seen two eggs of this bird taken from a nest near
Pencaitland, by one of the sons of the Rev. J. Coullie, in the
summer of 1900.

At the same time, within four miles of the spot, another
pair were seen and noted by me near my manse, from 21st
May till 11th July, when I left for a short holiday, after
which I never heard or saw the birds. I often used to hide
and watch the birds and listen to their curious ventriloquial
trill, but I failed to find their nest. Still, as the pair
frequented the one spot (a small thicket beside a hayfield)
for two months, there can be no doubt that they nested.

H. N. Bonar, M.B.O.U.

Tue Lesser REDPOLL (Linota rufes cens).

THis pretty little Finch is now with us in tolerably large
flocks, say twenty or thirty, accompanied by a like contingent

264 NATURE NOTES.

of the sprightly Siskin. They are feeding at present upon the
tender opening buds of the Alder (Alnus glutinosa), which so
prettily fringes the banks of our “ Crystal Jed.”

The bright colours and “continuous twitter” of these
lively birds attract the notice of even the least observant.

The late Brotherston of Kelso, an experienced observer of
bird life, says: “Redpolls during winter visit the birch
woods near Penmanshiel to feed on the birch seeds, but they
remain only a short time.”

The movements of the Redpoll are very active and
amusing, and its note is wondrously loud for so small a
creature. Gero. Fyre, LL.D.

MacpiE (Pica rustica) AT HAMMERFEST.

ALL up the Norwegian coast I had noted this bird, but it
came rather as a surprise to me to find a pair at Hammer-
fest, 280 miles north of the Arctic circle, on 19th July 1899.
There, on a bare, rocky, wind-swept island, without a tree
three feet high on it, these birds seemed to thrive. They
lived in the very centre of the town, which is scattered
round the shores of the splendid bay. I discovered their
nest at the flattened angle of a two-storied house over a
shop-door. Two feet below the overhanging eaves an old
flagstaff-holdfast projected, and here the bulky, domed nest
had been built. It contained very few birch twigs, being
mainly composed of wire, with here and there a few broken
wooden barrel-hoops.
The people of all Norwegian towns protect the Magpie.
H. N. Bonar, M.B.O.U.

Nestinc Hapits or THE ROOK (Corvus frugilegus).

Durinc the last two years I have noticed the Rooks when
building, instead of lifting sticks from the ground, engaged

NATURE NOTES. 265

in breaking off and carrying away twigs from beech-trees,
They appear to catch hold of the twig and jerk and twist
it till it breaks.

What is the explanation of the habit sometimes shown
by rooks of assembling in autumn about their nests and
apparently making preparations to commence building ?

SyDnEY E. Brock.

Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) IN West LorHran,

THoucH one of the best-known summer visitors to this
country, the Cuckoo is never found in the district imme-
diately to the west of Kirkliston. This is especially strange,
as the country seems well suited to its habits. It would be
interesting to know the reason for the bird’s absence from
this locality. Sypney E. Brock.

THE WILD Ducks oF THE SOLWAY,

DurinG the period from 30th January 1887 to 9th October
1893 I made an exhaustive collection of notes on the
ornithology of the district around the town of Kirkeudbright.
From these I cull the following in connection with the
distribution of the wild ducks. While JT speak of the
Solway I ought to say that the area under my notice is
really the estuary of the Dee, and may be delimited by a
radius of ten miles from Kirkcudbright.

The Sheld-Duck (Zadorna cornuta) is common along the
shores of Kirkcudbright Bay, where it breeds, The young
birds, attended by their parents, are commonly seen on
the estuary in the summer months.

The Shoveler (Spatula clypeata) is rarely met with. I
remember seeing one which had been shot inland near
Kirkeudbright in March 1893.

266 NATURE NOTES.

The Mallard (Anas boscas) is here, as might be expected,
the commonest duck. In the breeding season it is not
particularly common, but in winter large flocks appear
on the shores of the Solway.

The Teal (Wettion erecca) is migratory, and a few remain
to breed. I record finding a nest containing ten eggs on
18th May 1889. This nest was in a gorse bush, and at
some distance from water.

The Wigeon (JJareca penelope) comes to the estuary from
the north in large numbers. None remain to breed.

The Scaup (fuligula Marila) is rarely met with at any
time; but on 25th May 1892 I saw a pair (male and
female) of this species on Jordieland Loch, a small sheet of
water a few miles north-east of the town of Kirkcudbright.
Looking to the date, there is a strong presumption that these
birds bred that year, either on the moor surrounding the
loch, or at least somewhere in the vicinity, but unfortunately
I am unable to state definitely whether or not, as I did not
again see them. I am aware that this species has only
once been proved to breed in Scotland,—in Sutherlandshire
in 1899. J. W. PAYNE.

THE LittLeE AvK (Mergulus alle).

AmonG the interesting visitors which these recent severe
spring gales have brought to us, not the least interesting
is the Little Auk. This bird is comparatively rare any-
where round our shores, but so far inland as this—some
thirty-five miles as the crow flies—its occurrence has a
special interest. On 8th February one was seen swimming
languidly about in the calm water of the mill-dam at
Hundalee, two miles above Jedburgh. It was at first
supposed to be a Grebe (Podiceps minor), several of which
have recently been seen in the Tweed at Kelso, but its
characteristic manner of swimming rather deep and very
much by the stern, as Mr Abel Chapman describes it,
was noted, and when shot it was at once recognised. The

NATURE NOTES. 267

bird is now in the possession of T. Scott Anderson, Esq.,
Lintalee. Mr Hancock, “Catalogue of Birds of Northum-
berland,” records as noteworthy the finding of an exhausted
Little Auk by Laws of Breckny Hill—‘“a pupil of the
famous bird-engraver, Bewick of Newcastle ”—at a distance
of “ten miles from sea”! GrorGE Fyre, LL.D.

NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF STRAVITHIE.

DurinG recent years a great diminution has taken place in
this district in the numbers of the following species, viz.,
the House and Sand Martins, especially the latter, and the
Woodcock. On the other hand the Partridge and Pied
Wagtail are decidedly on the increase. Owing to systematic
and continued persecution the Carrion Crow and Magpie
are rapidly becoming exterminated; the Grey Wagtail is at
all times very rare. W. BERWICK.

NoTE ON BEES AT MUSSELBURGH.

Durine the last three or four years I have paid several
visits yearly to the banks of the Esk at Musselburgh in
search of bees. I have taken sixteen species there (not
counting Apis mellifica) within quite a small area. The list
does not claim to be an exhaustive one of the locality, but
is perhaps worthy of mention in our 7’ransactions as a slight
contribution to our local entomology.

Of the genus Halictus I have taken three species :—
rubicundus (Chr.), cylindricus (Fab.), and nitidiusculus
(Kirb.), all burrowing along the sides of footpaths and in
hard ground. Cylindricus is especially common, rubicundus
the least so. Generally in April, sometimes not until May,
the females may be seen, after waking from their winter
sleep, busy excavating their burrows and storing up food for

268 NATURE NOTES.

the future larve. No males are seen at this time, they
having all died at the approach of winter. About July and
August the new generation appears; the males first, followed
in a week or ten days by the females. During the autumu
the females are found near their burrows, and the males on
flowers. On a fine day in early September the male of
cylindricus may be taken in great numbers. The genus
Andrena is represented by four species :—albicans (Kirb.),
rose (Pauz), var. trimmerana, clarkella (Kirb.), and nana
(Kirb.). Of nana I have only taken two males. Several
were seen on 4th June 1897 flying over a grassy bank, but
having no net with me I was unable to catch more, and I
have not seen the species since. Clarkella is not common;
I have taken it in May. Albicans and rose, var. trimmer-
ana, are both very abundant. In 1897 I took trimmerana
on 22nd February, an exceptionally early record. Both
Species burrow in sandy banks, forming large colonies. Six
Bombi have occurred, viz.: Bombus agrorum (Schmied),
hortorum (Linn.), pratorum (Linn.), lapidarius (Linn.),
terrestris (Linn.), all commonly, and Jatreillellus (Kirb.)
var. distinguendus, one female, ou 26th May 1897, busy at
the flowers of Zamium albium. This fine bee is rare; it
has been recorded, among other Scotch localities, from
Dumfries, Perth, and Dunbar.

Of the inguiline or parasitic bees I have taken three
species :—Sphicodes subquadratus (Sm.), Nomada alternata
(Kirb.), and Psithyrus quadricolor (Lep.). The habit of
parasitism is very widespread in the Anthophila, there
being quite a number of genera all the members of which
lay their eggs in the nests of other bees. In most cases
they resemble in appearance the industrious bees with
which they associate, and in many instances differ from
them in structure only by the absence of the pollen-collecting
apparatus. If, as is probable, they are an offshoot from the
industrious bees they affect, this similarity is just what one
would expect. Nomada, however, is an exception. The
species of this genus are all brightly-coloured insects, looking
more like wasps than bees, and not at all like the sober-
coloured Andrenas, etc., in whose company they are found.
Still, in minute points of structure they show many resem-

NATURE NOTES. 269

blances to Andrena. On the Esk, Nomada ulternata occurs
in great numbers about the burrows of Andrena albicans
and A. rose, var. trimmerana: it is an exceedingly pretty
bee. Sphicodes associates with Halictus. I have taken S.
subquadratus flying about with H. cylindricus. Psithyrus
quadricolor is, according to Mr Saunders, “ Aculeate hymeno-
ptera, ete.,” probably an inguiline of Bombus pratorum. I
have taken the females in May flying about grassy banks
looking for the nests of Bombi.

Another bee, Colletes Daviesana (Sm.), has been recorded
from Musselburgh, but I have not come across it in the
locality I have worked. A. E. J. CARTER.

CLOUDED YELLOW BUTTERFLY (Colias edusa) IN KINTYRE.

On 15th September 1900 I found a specimen of the Clouded
Yellow Butterfly (Colias edusa) near Clachan, Kintyre. It
was by a burnside on a moor, and was flying very strongly.
This is, I think, the second specimen recorded from Kintyre ;
but I am led to believe that it is much more widely dis-
tributed than is commonly supposed.

JOHN MacRae.

CRABS AND CRAB ALLIES IN THE FIRTH OF FORTH.

ALTHOUGH between tide-marks at least, there are not a large
number of crab-like forms in the Firth of Forth, some of our
species occur in great abundance. Those most interesting
creatures the syuat lobsters are represented only by
Galathea squamifera, small specimens of which are very
common among the roots of Laminaria. I have never found
the much handsomer G. strigosa with its showy colouring.
In the same place as G. squamifera, one finds numbers of the
minute porcelain crab (Porcellana longicornis) with its flat

270 NATURE NOTES.

body tightly pressed to the roots of the weed. The male is
a fine bright red colour, and has the left chele curiously
twisted and lined with dense pubescent hair. When
alarmed, this species, in spite of its crab-like appearance, is
capable of using the tail in awkward swimming movements.
When swimming, the little creature has a very curious
aspect, for the heavy great claws seem to overbalance the
body, and after the first few strokes the animal falls over
and swims back downwards. It seems to be greatly relished
as food by the larger Crustacea. Our other species, P.
platycheles, is very different in appearance, and seems always
to occur in muddy places. I have never seen it attempt to
swim, though, like the smaller species, it uses the tail when
attempting to regain the normal position after having been
turned on the back. It is quite common, but is very apt
to be overlooked on account of the dingy colour, and the
habit of cowering down when exposed by the overturning of
the stone under which it has been lurking. The dense
fringe of hairs on the chelipeds, which is almost always
filled with mud particles, and the muddy hairs on the back,
cause the crab to resemble a flat pebble attached to the
stone by tenacious mud.

An interesting peculiarity of the Forth area is the extra-
ordinary abundance of the common hermit crab (Pagurus
bernhardus), the shells containing the hermits being in the
majority of cases covered by a dense growth of the zoophyte
Hydractinia echinata. At Alnmouth—a not very distant
locality—the association of hermit and zoophyte seems at
most to be rare, while at Longniddry it is exceedingly com-
mon among the hermits which swarm in the pools.

The interesting Masked Crab (Corystes cassivelaunus) would
appear to be common along the sandy beaches in the vicinity
of Gullane and Aberlady; the dried shells are certainly not
infrequent along the shore. The only Spider-crab which
can be called common is Hyas araneus, very abundant in
the Laminarian zone and among the finer kinds of weed. In
muddy places I have found small specimens which in the
size of their post-orbital process approach H. coarctatus, a
species whose distinctness is denied by some authorities.
The occurrence of H. araneus in great abundance is a

NATURE NOTES. 271

point of contrast with the west coast, where this northern
Species is not so common.

The Shore-crab (Carcinus menas) and young specimens of
the edible crab (Cancer Jragurus) are of course very common
between tide-marks, but I have not found living swimming-
crabs there. One at least of these (Portunus marmoreus)
is common in the dead state on sandy shores.

M. I. Newsicain, D.Sc.

“SAGARTIA MINIATA” IN FirTH oF Fortu.

Ir seems worth notice that the dredging party took many
Specimens of this anemone during the Society’s excursion to
Inchcolm in May 1900. The ground, as is apparently the
case over a considerable portion of the area, was muddy, and
the hauls contained many zoophytes, e.g., Halecium, Antennu-
laria, Thuwiaria; mud-inhabiting Echinoderms such as
Synafta, heart-urchins, and the Ophuiroid Amphiura jili-
Jormis; many Mollusca, eg., Cyprina, Dentalium, Tellina,
Turritella, in addition to the anemone which occurred on
the stones and shells found among the mud. I have not
found a previous record of this anemone in the Firth of
Forth, nor have I found it between tide-marks where
Sagartia troglodytes is common.
M. I. Newsicin, D.Sc.

WOoD-LICE.

THE common Wood-louse or Slater is blessed by having
four livers (so-called), long tubular glands running parallel
with the intestine or mid-gut. I have had reason lately to
examine some hundreds of these, and lovers of the Slater,
who I fear are not numerous, may be interested to know
that in the spotted species (Oniscus) the livers are very
generally infested by crowds of bacteria, even in quite

272 NATURE NOTES.

normal circumstances, and this does not seem to produce any
deleterious effects. In the other common (dark grey) species
Porcellis, I have never found bacilli. LH ore:

THE COMMONER SPECIES OF FiIG TREES IN CAPE COLONY.

THOSE who are acquainted with the fig tree only as it grows
under artificial conditions in England, can form little idea of
the wonderful beauty and luxuriance which it attains in its
native habitat.

In Cape Colony, for example, where there are many species
differing in appearance and fruit as in habitat, the fig tree
forms one of the most conspicuous and most pleasing
features of the landscape. Although unfortunately its wood
is too soft to permit it to be of any use to the carpenter, yet
its fruit makes the fig tree very valuable. In South Africa
its value would be much greater were more attention
devoted to its culture. Speaking broadly, the fig trees of
South Africa may be divided into two groups, viz., the fig
trees of the cultivated districts and those of the veldt.

Owing to the widely different conditions of their natural
habitats, the species forming the one group differ widely in
their appearance and in their fruit from those which form
the other. The typical fig tree of Cape Colony is a tall tree
with thick spreading branches strong enough to bear the
weight of a man, though owing to the want of moisture its
leaves never attain the size of those grown in a hot-house in
England. So little moisture is there that one often sees in
hot seasons the leaves become brown and scorched, but the ~
fruit does not seem to be in any way affected by the
excessive drought.

The fruit of the various species differs, as may be expected,
in size and in quality, but the most highly prized are the
purple fig, which is large and beautiful ; the yellow fig, which
is shaped more like a pear than a fig; the green, whose
ripeness is only likely to be detected by the connoisseur ;
and lastly, the little black fig, to my taste the nicest of all.

NATURE NOTES. Qo

Birds are very destructive to the fruit of the fig as well
as to that of every other fruit-bearing tree. On approaching
one of these tall fig trees one will often disturb a large flock
of birds, which will suddenly fly out from the foliage where
they had been enjoying their feast. No species is probably
more destructive to the fig than the common Spreo (Spreo
bicolor), which, though a starling, always recalled to my mind
our English blackbird. But less welcome visitors are
attracted by the shade of the fig tree. For often to one’s
disgust one will, when about to pluck the luscious fruit, find
a Boomslang (Tree-snake) comfortably coiled round the bough,
and even to those who are aware that the creature is
innocuous, its presence is anything but inviting.

The fig tree of the veldt offers a strong contrast to its
relative which grows under more favourable conditions, for
it is in its appearance more like a shrub than a tree, while
its flowers very much resemble those of the ice-plant,
except that they are yellow instead of pink. The fruit of
one species is known as the “ Little Sour Fig.” When ripe
it is of a dark reddish-brown colour, and despite its un-
inviting name, is much enjoyed by some people. By the
Dutch it is mostly used for preserves, and I can vouch that
it makes delicious jam. The fruit of another species is
never used for that purpose, and is only eaten when newly
gathered. It is of a lovely yellowish green colour, the
yellow tint becoming all the more intense as the fruit ripens.

At the Cape the coloured people believe that the milky
juice of the fig leaf when broken off from the premer will
cure warts, but I am afraid it is all “ Faith & no cure”; yet
even in England the fig tree is not without its romance, for
in a small town in Buckinghamshire a certain fig tree still
attracts numerous visitors. The story goes that many years
ago an old lady predicted that when she died she would not
turn to dust, but that her body would be converted into a
fig tree! Long after her death a fig tree was observed
growing from her tomb, and the credulous natives have as
much faith in the verification of the old lady’s prognostica-
tions as the South African darkies have in their wart cure.

C, J, S. Baynes,

274 NATURE NOTES.

SYSTEMATIC BOTANY.

Mr G., C. Druce, in the preface to his Flora of Berkshire,
published in 1897, expresses the hope “ that the cloud which
now rests upon systematic botany in Britain may soon be
dispelled.” There can be no doubt that for a number of
years past this branch of the science has been in sad and
unmerited disrepute in this country, and that this has been
brought about by a too exclusive attention to the teaching
of the German school of botanists. It is a satisfaction,
therefore, to not a few who still feel interested in systematic
botany, to find an authority like Sir George King manfully
taking up the cudgels on its behalf. The close of his
opening address as President of the Section of Botany at
the last meeting of the British Association seems, therefore,
worth reproducing for the benefit of those who may not have
had an opportunity of hearing or reading it. Speaking
more particularly as to the qualifications of many who are
being sent out from Coopers Hill to the Forest Department
in India, he said: “The ordinary forest officer educated in
England now arrives in India without sufficient knowledge
to enable him to recognise from their botanical characters
the most well-marked Indian trees. To tell such an
officer the name of the natural family to which a plant
belongs conveys no information to him whatever, for he
knows nothing of botanical affinities. ... Having myself
served in it (the Forest Department) from 1869 to 1871, I
can speak from my own experience as to the value, from the
utilitarian point of view, of a knowledge of the names,
affinities, and properties of the trees, shrubs and herbs which
compose an Indian jungle, and of a knowledge of them as
individual members of the vegetable kingdom rather than
as masses of tissue to be studied through a microscope.
The appointment* which I held in India for twenty-six
years after leaving the Forest Department gave me full
opportunity of getting into touch with all who interest
themselves in a knowledge of plants, and of discovering how
few of these at the present day are forest officers. . .
* Superintendent of the Royal Botanical Garden, Calcutta,

NATURE NOTES. 275

The general decadence of the teaching of systematic botany
in England during the past twenty years is, perhaps, to some
extent the cause of the low estimation in which the
science is held by the Indian Forest Department. Twenty-
five years ago systematic and morphological botany, no
doubt, had too great prominence given to them in the
teaching at universities and colleges of this country, and
the other branches of botanical science were too much
neglected, although I do not think they were despised.
Now it appears to me that systematic botany is too much
neglected. I hope it is not also despised! Few of the
systematists who survive in England are now to be found
attached to the universities. They are mostly clustered
round the two great herbaria in London ; and such of them
as have to look to systematic botany for the means of
livelihood are not in the receipt of salaries such as one
might reasonably expect in one of the richest countries in
the world! ” JAMES Bisset, F.R.S.E.

A NotTE ON THE FLORA OF BLACKFORD HILL.

Ir is a point of some interest to those whose attention is
drawn to the general distribution of plants, to note how, in
the vicinity of any large town, the character of the flora
becomes affected by the town’s gradual extension.

Plants which are of common occurrence seem to get
scarce and may altogether disappear, while others which are
much more local in their distribution and which seemed to
have harder work to maintain a foothold still persist. This
condition appeals to one in noting the flora of Blackford
Hill.

On the northern slope of the hill—that nearest the town
and most frequented by the general public—the flora is
decidedly meagre, and only the more hardy species seem to
persist; but here and there among the bushes of whin
which are still in profusion one comes across an occasional

276 NATURE NOTES.

Viola tricolor (Wild Pansy) with its sprawling green stem
and beautifully blue and yellow tinted flowers.

On the south and west sides, particularly about the crags
and quarries and banks of the stream, a number of not very
common plants are still to be found, and seasonal visits to
these localities are always productive of pleasure at least to
the botanist.

One notices in early spring the Ranunculus ficaria (Lesser
Celandine) peeping from some sunny corner showing its
shiny yellow petals, and that curious dicecious euphorbia
Mercurialis perennis (Dog’s Mercury) with its slender delicate
male plants, and more robust females. Ina marsh near the
quarries a few specimens of Cardamime pratensis (Cuckoo
flower) may be procured, but it is fast disappearing from a
haunt in which, a few years ago, it grew in great profusion.
Stellaria holostea (Greater Stitchwort) and Stellaria graminex
(Lesser Stitchwort) are abundant with their snowy white
flowers. The Ranunculus aquatilis (White water Buttercup)
used to be common in the stream, but only a few sickly
specimens remain in a small lade to the east of the stone
bridge across the stream. Lpilobium hirsutum (the Great
Willow herb), and Petusites vulgaris (Butterbur) still flourish
in and on the banks of the stream, while a few specimens
of Spirea Ulmaria (Meadowsweet) are to be found.

It is in the months of June and July, on the southern
side of the hill, that the not common Dianthus deltoides
(Maiden Pink), with its delicate tinted rosy corollas, is found
in bloom; here also, Lychnis Viscaria (Red German Catchfly)
with its erect stem coated immediately below the nodes
with a gummy exudation, may be met with, though it is
decidedly local in its distribution. Helianthemwm vulgare
(Rock Rose) is also found among the rocks, where its like-
ness to the common buttercup has probably caused it to be
overlooked. Hypericum perforatum (common perforated
St John’s Wort) is met with in the hollows of some of the
unused quarries. Growing not abundantly, yet fairly
conspicuous from the surroundings are a few specimens of
Sanicula ewropwa (Wood Sanicle) with its panicled heads of
dull white flowers. JAMES FINLAYSON.

NATURE NOTES. 277

“ CYPERUS PAPYRUS,” PAPYRUS ANTIQUORUM.

SEVERAL years ago I obtained a specimen of Cyperus papyrus,
or at least the flower stem, from the fountain of Diana,
Syracuse, and it was asserted the plant grew in no other spot
in Europe. Of course the political division is unimportant,
but I have since then read that it grows rather freely on the
river Anapus, and is also met with in Calabria. I had’
heretofore concluded it might be an imported stranger to
Sicily, but it may after all be indigenous. I. HuMBLg.

‘* HIEROCLOE BOREALIS” IN KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE.

ALTHOUGH the discovery of this rare grass in Kireudbright-
shire has already been recorded by Mr Arthur Bennett in
the Journal of Botany (1899, p. 328), and in the Annals of
Scottish Natural History (1899, pp. 230—235), where an inter-
esting historical account of the Holy Grass is given, 1 think
it may be well again to draw attention to the fact that it
has been found in a station so remote from the only other
one known in the British Isles. In 1854, Mr Robert Dick
recorded it from the banks of the river at Thurso, Caithness,
It had already been lost sight of, I believe, in the original
locality of Glen Kella (or Cally) in Forfarshire, where it was
discovered by Mr George Don in 1812.

It has been suggested that the Hieroclie is liable to be
overlooked because it flowers as early as May, so that we
may hope it may yet turn up in some intermediate places.

The Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh,
is fortunate in possessing two fine specimens from the Kirk-
cudbrightshire shore, presented last May by the Rev. Mr
George M‘Conachie, but it is to a lady (Miss Mittelbach), I
understand, that the credit of finding it in this county is
due.

The name Hieroclée is derived from two Greek words mean-
ing “sacred grass,” because in some parts of Germany it is

mVOL. (I.% 21

278 NATURE NOTES.

or at any rate was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and strewed
before the doors of the churches on festival days. The
plant, both when fresh and dry, possesses an agreeable scent
like that of Anthoxanthum odorutum (the sweet vernal grass),
hence no doubt its use for the above purpose. Hooker also
records that in Iceland it was used for scenting apartments
and clothes.

This grass, though so rare with us, has a wide distribution,
being found in Arctic, Alpine, and Northern Europe, North
and West Asia, and North America.

J. FREDK. JEFFREY.

WALLFLOWER WITH NO COLOURED PETALS.

Last summer I found that among a number of wallflowers
growing together, one of them had no coloured petals. At
the end of each spray the ordinary green leaves were
grouped very closely, and formed rosettes. In the centre
of each rosette were stamens and pistil. The transition
from leaf to stamen was, in many cases, clearly marked.
Some of the green leaf-petals bore a dark spot of colour at
the tip, but this was exceptional.

The plant bore no seed. I made a drawing of the
curious green flowers, and I should be glad to know if this
is a common freak among the Crucifera.

ELIZABETH _M. JOHNSTONE.

THE ACACIA IN FLOWER.

Ir seems to me unusual to see an acacia tree in bloom in
Scotland, therefore it may be of interest to mention that
during the months of June—July 1899, an acacia (Robinia
pseudo-acacia) which grows a few yards from my home on ,
the South Side of Edinburgh, was decked with sprays of

NATURE NOTES. 279

white, or, rather, cream-coloured blossoms, the perfume from

which was very delightful. I had the pleasure of exhibiting

one of these sprays at the July meeting of our Society.
ROBINA ORROCK.

FLOWERING OF “ DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA.”

On the damp peat-moss about Loch Maree in the district
of West Ross, Drosera rotundifolia and D. anglica are equally
abundant. I have searched there for the fully expanded
flower during perfect summer weather, but although seed
was being produced abundantly the flower never seemed
more than a half-opened bud.

Anne Pratt records in The Flowering Plants of Great
Britain, that she only saw the fully opened flowers of the
Sundew after long watching. Darwin, in his Forms of
Flowers, says: “The first flower stems which were thrown
up by some plants in my green-house bore only cleistagamic
flowers. The petals, of small size, remained permanently
closed over the reproductive organs. These cleistagamic
flowers produced an abundance of seed, later in the season
perfect flowers appeared ;” and also, “with plants in a state
of Nature the flowers open only in the early morning, as I
have been informed by Mr Wallis, who particularly attended
to the time of their flowering.”

Then, again, Kerner, in a table showing the hours of
opening and closing of a series of ephemeral flowers—that
is, flowers which open only for a single day—gives for
Drosera longifolia, hour of opening 10 to 11 am., and of
closing 2 to 3 p.m. The same authority says :—“ Droseras
open their flowers only under very favourable conditions of
weather, and then only every other day. At any rate for
D. longifolia it has been shown that, even in the finest
weather, a flower bud opens on alternate days only.”

I saw the flowers of Drosera rotundifolia fully opened, for
the first time, last August (12th August 1900). It was on
the Lomond Hills at twelve o’clock during a day of extreme

280 NATURE NOTES.

heat; between noon and 1.30 I noticed a considerable
number of plants all in full bloom.

It is interesting to note that the flowers were on the first
flower stems, and that in several cases as many as three or
four flowers were upon a single stem. D. RussELL, Jun.

SPEEDWELL ATTACKED BY GRUB.

Last summer (1900) the Speedwell (Veronica chamedrys)
was to a remarkable extent subject to attacks from a small
grub, which established itself in the head of the shoots and
formed, by the mutilation of the young leaves and their
subsequent thickening, a roughly globular mass. The
distorted leaves were abnormally hairy, and sometimes of a
slightly pinkish tint. This blight, which may be caused by
the larve of a small beetle, was very prevalent in the
Lothians, and in the autumn I found it quite as common in
the district of Newcastle-on-Tyne, with the addition that in
every case where the affected Speedwell was growing near a
hedge of hawthorn, the bushes were attacked in the same
manner. As the grub seems only to attack the young
boughs, it must be rather a serious pest, especially if it
succeeds to the same extent in arresting the growth of
other rosacee in our fruit gardens.

The pupa have not hatched out at the time of writing
(March), and until those collected do so, I cannot speak
definitely of the species. BEATRICE J. WILLANS.

FUNGI IN EDINBURGH.

Fistulina hepatica, Fr—In the front garden of a house in
Bruntsfield Place there grew until lately a Spanish chestnut
tree (Custunea vulgaris, Lam.) which finally died and was
cut down, only the stump remaining. On this tree a small
specimen of Fistulina hepatica, Fr., was discovered ten years

NATURE NOTES. 281

ago, and it still holds its place on the stump. This fungus
is common on old oak trees in England, and is here and
there found on oaks in Scotland, but it does not appear to
have occurred before in this country on any other kind of
tree. Elsewhere, however, according to De Seynes in his
monograph on Fistulina, it has been found on the Chestnut,
Beech, Willow, Hornbeam, Alder, Ash, Walnut, and Hazel,
as well as on the Oak. Berkeley, in English Flora, v., part
ii. p. 155, notes that it grows “on Oak, Ash, Beech, and
Chestnut,” but in his Outlines of British Fungology he merely
says, “on trunks of old oaks,” perhaps referring to this
country alone ; and Dr M. C. Cooke repeats this. Fries, in his
Hymenomycetes Europxi, gives the habitat of the fungus as
“ad truncos Quercus.” Greville, in his Scottish Cryptogumic
Flora, states that it is called in Tuscany “ Lingua di Cast-
agno,” from which it would appear that the fungus is
common on chestnut trees there; and Krombholz mentions
that it is found on chestnuts as well as on oaks in Bohemia.
Arrhenius (Nordens Mabsvampar, p. 127) says that in
Scandinavia it occurs sometimes on the chestnut tree. It
would appear then that this fungus, though it has been
found on several kinds of trees, prefers the oak, and, after
the oak, the chestnut, and that in this country it is ex-
tremely rare except on the oak. It is interesting to find it
not only growing at all within the city of Edinburgh, but
occurring on a chestnut there.

Melanogaster ambiguus, Tul.—A specimen of this fungus,
one of the Hypogxi, was found in July 1900 by Mr A.
Murray, in the grounds of the Royal Blind Asylum, West
Craigmillar. This is a rare fungus in Scotland, though the
fact of its being subterranean may account for its being so
seldom found. It is distinguished by a peculiarly dis-
agreeable smell.

Tricholoma monstrosum, Sow.—This occurs in large
quantities in the Newington Cemetery on a plot of grass
which has not been used for interments. It grows densely
cespitose, and takes many strange forms. It corresponds
exactly with Sowerby’s figure, and is not a common fungus.

Davin Pau, LL.D.

282 NATURE NOTES.

GEOLOGICAL NOTES.

In one of the intrusive dykes east of Elie, Fife, a peculiar
specimen of drusy quartz was obtained. The crystals are
black in colour, and much modified in form, and it was only
after a close examination that a small typical crystal of
quartz was observed. On trimming the specimen, pieces of
bituminous matter were found scattered through the vesicles
of the rock. These, on heating, intumesce, and finally burst
into flame, burning with a smoky yellow light. The crystals
seem to owe their black appearance to this, for on strongly
igniting a powdered sample, the colour was destroyed and a
dirty grey residue remained.

A similar occurrence of bituminous matter with crystals
of quartz was observed in a small geode found on the south-
eastern slope of Carnethy, above Penicuik, in a dyke built
up largely of blocks of andeside obtained from two small
quarries situated close at hand, In this case, however, the
crystals were perfectly clear and transparent, showing both
prism and pyramid faces, their ends being embedded in a
piece of bituminous matter (asphaltum) about the size of a
bean.

The evidence in the last case points to the bituminous
matter occurring as a secondary product, and most likely
from hot or cold solutions, not from a gaseous state, as the
necessary heat would have destroyed the crystals. In the
Elie specimen, either the two substances were formed
together (the peculiar character of the quartz might be due

to this), or the quartz has been deposited last.
R. DYKES.

Some very fair pseudomorphs of Hematite after pyrites
may be found on the north side of Duddingston Loch, at
the junction between the intrusive mass of the Long Row
and the sandstones on the east side of the cliff dipping into
the waters of the loch. The crystals vary from less than a
quarter of an inch square to more than one inch square, and
retain the sharp outline of the original pyrites.

NATURE NOTES. 283

On the west side of the cliff, close to the brick wall near
the edge of the loch, malachite occurs in thin films, and in
very small radiating crystals, associated with pseudomorphs of
limonite and hematite after pyrites. The malachite results
from the oxidation of copper pyrites (chalcopyrites), and is
scattered through small vertical veins in a matrix of cale spar
and quartz.

The writer estimated the amount of copper per ton of
ore, the result of the estimations being, in round numbers,
40 ounces and 36 ounces respectively, in each of two assays.
A little of the copper was reduced to the metallic state and
purified, as a specimen of copper from Arthur's Seat.

R. DYKES

THE BODETHAL IN THE UNTERHARZ—EROSION OF VALLEYS
BY RivER ACTION.

It is a truism nowadays to state that the most stupendous
results in Nature have been caused by very slow and almost
silent methods—a fact in nowise detracting from the
majesty of continuous and all-pervading creation, but rather
enchancing its grandeur. This is strikingly exemplified in
the case of erosion by rivers or streams of valleys, glens, and
ravines, names applied according to the varying breadth or
narrowness of the eroded parts. The theory that the main
course of rivers has been primarily decided by sea-action
does not, in the least, lessen our wonder at the enormous
excavating power they possess, especially if they flow over a
rocky surface. We need only walk to the top of Blackford
Hill to see what has been accomplished in that way by the
little Braid Burn. The finest instance that has come under
my own observation is that of the Bode Valley, rightly
called “ The Crown of the Harz.” The Bode stream has
eaten its way through the hardest rocks, and, although
beautiful during its whole course, the climax is reached at
the great rock chasm, where rise on one hand the gigantic
_ granite mass of the Rosstrappe, and on the other the

284 NATURE NOTES.

plateau of the Hexentanzplatz. The Rosstrappe (1594 feet
above sea-level), so called from an impression in the rock
resembling that of a horse’s hoof, rises precipitously on three
sides, 793 feet above the Bode, and projects itself like a
bastion into the valley. Somewhat lower is the Biilowshohe,
evidently eroded by the stream at a later date as it slowly
ate its way down to its present level. In the channel of the
stream the Kessel, or Kettle, of granite, is an interesting
object. By a necessarily long and circuitous route the
opposite side of the chasm, the Hexentanzplatz (witches’
dancing ground) is reached. It is 1677 feet above sea-level,
and stands 865 feet above the Bode. There is much here
of interest to geologists, as the rocks assume peculiar castel-
lated forms in places, while, in others, one thinks of Scott’s
“rocks confusedly hurled.” Although infinitely inferior, no
doubt, to the famous canon of the Colorado, the Bodethal
is very fine, appealing not only to the scientist, but to the
traveller in search of the picturesque, and to the lover of
legendary lore. I. HUMBLE.

New LOocALITY FOR GALENA.

Last spring I obtained two small pieces of Galena from
calcite veins in the agglomerate at Kincraig, to the west of
Elie. A. G. STENHOUSE.

MICROPEGMATITE IN SEGREGATION VEINS IN THE INVERKEITH-
ING DOLERITE.

A MICROSCOPIC examination cf good thin sections of these
veins under a magnification of about 200 diameters reveals
the fact that the ground mass is chiefly micropegmatite and
that many of the felspar crystals are surrounded by a
definite fringe, also of micropegmatite,

NATURE NOTES. 285

In the slices which I have examined the felspar of this
micropegmatite is too far decomposed to determine whether
or not it is in optical continuity with that of the crystal
which it surrounds. A. G. STENHOUSE.

PRESERVATION OF NATURAL TINTS, VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL.

OnE of the familiar “felt wants” of natural history is a
satisfactory or even approximately satisfactory method of
preserving the natural tints of specimens when preserved in
a fluid. Most preservatives cause either modification in
the constitution of pigments which may amount to destruc-
tion as a colour, or simple solution, the result being prac-
tically the same. The absence of such a method renders
progress in the study of some of the more obscure depart-
ments of botany (eg. fungi) a matter of difficulty. Having
occasion to attempt the preservation of a few forms, both
animal and vegetable, it may be of service to others
experimenting on the same lines to have a brief note of
another's experience. A number of liquids were tried,
which may be roughly classified as spirituous, aqueous, and
one or two as nearly as possible negative in properties.

The problem may be attacked in many ways, but it is
obvious that to proceed scientifically the first requisite would
be to ascertain with precision the exact chemical nature
of the pigments to be retained im situ, and then to select
a preservative wholly negative towards it from a chemical
and physical point of view. But the study is further
complicated when, in any given case, you have the properties
of more than one pigment to consider. Then the density
and resistance of the tissues, and, to avoid shrinkage from
osmotic action, the relation of the density of the preserving
medium to that of the structure itself, has to be borne in
mind. Attempts to preserve agarics in special sterile saline
solutions of high specific gravity ended in failure from this
latter cause, abstraction of fluid from the tissues of the
plants experimented on causing general collapse. From the

VOL. I. 22

286 NATURE NOTES.

above it is apparent that an investigation of this kind has
many difficulties to overcome. Scattered in the indices of
the scientific journals many references will be found relating
to the subject, but few data of an exact experimental kind
is available.

Another way by which the problem may be attacked is
to protect the structures from change, by means of a trans-
parent envelope. I attempted it in this way :—Drop the
specimen into a weak solution of sodium chloride in
water (0°25 per cent.) containing a trace of mercuric chloride
(1 in 5000) kept at or just below the boiling point, the inverted
Specimen being weighted by means of a glass rod. It is
kept in this for a few minutes, to expel air and saturate tissue
superficially, quickly withdrawn, allowed to dry externally,
then coated by immersion in a thin celluloid varnish, which
dries immediately, leaving a thin transparent varnish. The
results, at least in the case of soft structures, are not of
much practical value.

In the absence of exact data hinted at above, one has to
fall back on the empirical. One of the most useful all-round
preservatives is formaldehyde, familiarly known, in its 40
per cent. solution in water, as formalin. It has the merit
of being cheap, requires no skilled manipulation, and when
used with care has many fairly satisfactory applications.
When there is an absence of brilliant tints and marked
contrasts a one per cent. solution in water does well; but when
the colours are intense and contrasted, a weaker solution is
more advantageous, say 1 part in 500 parts of water. In
strong solution, intense blues and yellows lose their
brilliancy, red becomes deepened in tint. A sea-urchin
which was dredged two years ago off Millport and put into
weak formalin solution the same day, retained the delicate pink
tints seemingly unimpaired. Of the many ways tried, the
one that seems to have the most general application consists
in the combined use of Joré’s Fluid, spirit and glycerine.
Joré’s Fluid has the following composition :—

Sodium chloride, . i 5 1 part.
Sodium sulphate, . : 2 parts.
Magnesium sulphate, : Zr,

Bolutien of formalin (10 per feat) ROO. Mes,

NATURE NOTES. 287

The specimen is first placed in Joré’s fluid for twelve hours
or so, then removed, washed carefully in running water to
get: rid of excess of the fluid, and transferred to methylated
spirit until the colour, which may have somewhat faded
by action of the fluid, is, as far as possible, restored ;
withdrawn, lightly rinsed in water, and transferred to a
solution composed of

Glycerine, . : : 10 per cent.
Formalin, . ‘ , 2 *
Water to make . E 100 -

The above treatment, modified as experience may suggest,
deserves further and wider trial.

As indicated at the beginning of this note, the use of a
negative fluid was tried. The plant was warmed in the
pure liquid sulphur—tfree paraffin of the British Pharma-
copeeia in order to get rid of air and part of the moisture
in the tissues, and also to destroy bacteria, spores of
moulds, etc., and when the heating was judged sufficient,
allowed to cool and a further portion of paraffin added,
containing menthol sufficient to make the whole 0°25 per
cent. Omitting details of manipulation, it might be found
a useful way of keeping tiny agarics.

In the foregoing there is little reference to working
details, but one or two points may be added here. Where
the specific gravity of the fluid is such as to cause the plant
to float, it can be readily kept immersed by anchoring it by
a thread to a piece of solid glass rod. By painting a third
of the external circumference of the glass bottle or jar
throughout its length with a contrast enamel the results are
much improved, the distinguishing features being more
readily seen. Sealing is best performed when a cork is used,
by pushing it down below the level of rim of jar or bottle,
and pouring into the depression a quantity of liquified hard
white paraffin. If the bottle or jar is closed by a glass stopper,
the junction can be effectually sealed either by paraffin as
above or painting with enamel. THOS. ALEXANDER.

4 a
Ra) iy i dome

tic f

! ay

-SOLLECTION OF BUTTERELIES.

List of Indian Butterflies in the Collection of
J. DAVIDSON on tst July 1897.

- -DANAIN2.

Hestia malabarica, Mo.=Kana-
riensis, Moore.

» jasonia, Westw.

A cadelli, Wood-M.& De N.
anais aileanke But

a , €xprompta, But.

“4 5 Tatanplenca’ Mo.

4 melanoides, Mo.

i aglea, Cram.

agleoides, Feld.

tytia, Gray.
melaneus, Cram.
nilghirensis, Mo.
gautama, Mo,
limniace, Cram.
septentrionis, But.

kde chrysippus, Lin.

a DANAINA2— Continued.

Danais chrysippus var. alcip-
poides, Mo.

5 var. klugii,
Butler.

» genutia, Cram.
- hegesippus, Cram.
» nesippus, Feld.

Euploea splendens, But. = rogen-
hoferi, Feld.

. Margarita, But.

» erichsonii,Feld, = Crassa,
But.

) klugii, Mo. = grantii,But.
2 kollari, Feld.
¥ sinhala, Mo.

a rhadamanthus, Fab, =
diocletianus, But.

‘ linnei, Mo.
a
bremeri, Feld.

3 vermiculata, But.

core, Cram.

=
_ Influence of Civilization on the Geographical Distribution of the a 4

4

' some Account of Twenty Species noted during a Fortnight’s _

t

: ‘. (With two Plates),

CONTENTS OF PART II—VOLUME L

PAGE
The Culture of the Scientifie Mood. By J. Arthur Thomson, ae
M.A., F.R.S.E., Professor of Natural History, Marischal Cole Sa ee
lege, Usivexaty of Aberdeen, °. wie Sth = - 12 Bs “oe
ae:
The Life of the Sea-Shore. By Marion I. Newbigin, D.Sc. (Lond.), 134 “a
Agates, Carnelians, and Jaspers. By Mr Goodchild, H.M. Geo-
logical Survey, F.G.S., F.Z.S., Curator of the Collections of |
Scottish Geology and Mineralogy in the Edinburgh Museum — ee
of Science and Art, Past President of the Society, . - 152.

Some Observations on the Hymenomycetes, By Rev. David Paul, —
LL.D.,

Chromosomes in Resting Nuclei. By Miss L. H. Huie. (With a
Plate), ‘ ; :

Life at the Surface of the Sea. By W. B. Drummond, M.B.,

i 2e., MECP.E., Z : i ‘ 2 - ee Se
Finger-Prints — Their Evolution and Significance. By David xe ; ¢
Hepburn, M.D., F.R.S.E., V.-P-R.P.S., Lecturer on — ee ae

Ror oak
Anatomy in the titeentie of Edinburgh, -- 26s 7}

Mammalia in Europe during the Present Century. By Rev. — =
G.S. Dobbie, M.A, ; ; ; ? .

‘The Claims of Oology to be regarded as an Exact Science. By
J. B. Dobbie, F.R.S.E., F.Z.S., M.B.0.U.,

A List of the Birds of Spitsbergen as at present ascertained, with

Visit in Summer, 1899. By Rev. H. N. Bonar, MB:O.U.

OF THE

a
SCOTTISH NATURAL

haa.

HISTORY SOCIETY.

-
]

7
%
se

FOUNDED 1881. Ky

VOL. If.—PART I.

SESSIONS XIX. anp XX.—1900-1901: 1901-1902.

: _ EDINBURGH: _ ‘
D FOR THE SOCIETY BY NEILL AND CO., LTD.

—

TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.

THE FLORAS OF THE EAST AND WEST OF
SCOTLAND COMPARED.

By Joun MacRag, M.A,
(Read 6th December 1900.)

Ir is almost unnecessary to preface my paper by the
remark that the subject is much too great to be treated
adequately in one paper—it is too self-evident; for a whole
series of papers taking the country belt by belt would be
necessary, and these papers, too, would need to be of huge
dimensions. What is necessary is, that I lay down the
limitations under which this paper is to lie.

Now, the first danger to be avoided in this Society is,
as Professor. Thomson was never tired of insisting, that of
local irrelevancy. Clearly, therefore, Edinburgh must be
treated of; and I have accordingly drawn an imaginary
line through the map, passing through the centre of Mid-
lothian, and in the paper I will confine my remarks to those
vice-counties. through which this line passes—Berwick,
Haddington, Edinburgh, Linlithgow, Lanark, Ayr, Renfrew
‘Clyde Isles, and Cantire.

In absolute fairness, perhaps, I should have included
Dumbarton and Stirling and perhaps omitted Ayr; and as
it stands, the western counties named come further south
than the eastern. This gives the East a slight handicap,
but, as we shall see, it can well afford it.

VOL. II. 1

’

2 MR JOHN MACRAE ON THE FLORAS

I purpose, then, in this paper, first of all to try to get
a general view of the plant-geography of these counties,
and then to give some of the particular differences*in: the
plant-associations that seem to me most noteworthy. —

I. GENERAL.

Have you ever noticed, say, in the Limits of Distribution
given in Hooker’s Student's Flora, how the general north-
ward distribution in Scotland was not a parallel of latitude,
but rather a line striking slantwise across from south-
west to north-east—much further north on East than West ?

I take at random the Umbelliferz, and here are the most
of the Scottish limits given :—

Eryngium maritimum—From Aberdeen and Argyll
southward. _

Smyrnium Olusatrwm—From Aberdeen and the Clyde
southward. (srorie
Apium graveolens—From Perth and Argyll southward.

Aithusa Cynapiwm.—From Elgin and the Clyde south-
ward.

Meum Athamanticum.—North to Aberdeen and Argyll.

From this we deduce our first principle: THz East sHows,
IN PROPORTION TO ITS LATITUDE, A MUCH GREATER FLORAL
VARIETY THAN THE WEST.

This, of course, is a general statement, and several plants,
as we shall see, belong rather to the West than to the East ;
but here it is sufficient to note the fact.

Again, not only is the variety of forms less, but there are
actually fewer flowers in the West than in the East. It
would seem as if circumstances in the West were more
favourable to the production of cryptogams—say, mosses
and lichens—but less favourable to phanerogamic evolution,
which is what we are concerned with in this paper.

Take a train journey across our belt of country—e.g.,
by the Caledonian Railway from Edinburgh to Gourock,
which traverses the country at almost the same latitude
throughout. The merest look through the window at the

OF THE EAST AND WEST OF SCOTLAND COMPARED, 3

Flora of the railway banks will tell you, if you have eyes
to see, on which side of the country you are travelling.

I was travelling across by that route in July last, and
tried, as far as the rate of motion of a Caledonian express
would permit, to make out the Flora of the railway banks on
both sides of the country. The result may be interesting,

On the Hast.—Campanula rotundifolia (Harebell) ; Cnieus
lanceolatus (Spear Thistle), very abundant; Vicia Cracca
(Vetch) ; Spirza Ulmaria (Meadow-sweet); Lathyrus pratensis
(Vetchling); Senecio Jacobea (Ragwort); Scabiosa arvensis
(Field Scabious); TZragopogon pratense (Goat's Beard) ;
Campanula Tracheliwm (Canterbury Bells); Chrysanthemum
Leucanthemum (Oxeye Daisy); Linaria vulgaris (Snapdragon);
Papaver (Poppy); Heraclewm (Hogweed). And a noticeable
feature was the great profusion of flowering plants wherever
there was the least chance of their development.

On the West.—Also Heraclewm, Spirwa, Vicia Cracea,
Campanula rotundifolia; but Centaurea Cyanus became
prominent, Papaver was not nearly so abundant, Linaria
only near towns; and Zeucriwm Scorodonia was abundant,
and ferns—Filiz-mas, I expect, mostly—more frequent.

But the most noticeable thing was the much barer
general aspect. Willows were commoner, and even
Heracleum showed itself only at intervals; there were
furlongs of green grass without any prominent flower, in
great contrast to the floral luxuriance of the East.

We thus reach our second principle: LocaL crrcum-
STANCES IN THE EAST ARE MORE FAVOURABLE TO FLORAL
PRODUCTION THAN IN THE WEST.

I think this is borne out by the prevalence of so-called
introduced plants in the East.

Take, for example, Leopard’s bane (Doronicum Par-
dalianches), which is well established, say, at Colinton and
near Linlithgow.

Valeriana pyrenaica, which grows in Colinton Dell and
out beyond Dalkeith.

Reseda lutea, which grows in Haddington.

Yellow figwort (Scrophularia vernalis), which grows out
Luffness way, and has been recorded there from the
beginning of the century; and, to name one other example,

4 MR JOHN MACRAE ON THE FLORAS

there is Lamiwm maculatum, which has quite established
itself beyond Dalkeith, and is, Mr Brock informs me, by no
means rare in Linlithgowshire.

It would seem not only that in more populous country
districts man has a better opportunity of influencing the
Flora, but also that the outward conditions are themselves
more favourable to the development of plant-life.

It would not be idle to inquire into the reasons of this.
First, we may note the fertility of the soil. It is, on the face
of it, likely that the richer soil would have the richer and
more diversified Flora. But here man may add a factor to
it, and I think he has, in the enrichment. You have the
West mainly Celtic in origin; the East mainly Teuton. Now
the Teutons occupied themselves in diligently tilling the
soil, but the Celts went in far more for pasturage; this
would give a dim historical background to the fact that
weeds of cultivation in the West are fewer than in the East,
but it could not, in any case, be a seriously determining
factor,

Other geological conditions, eg., the comparative rockiness
of, say, Cantire, would account for something, and the
geological formations have no doubt much to do with the
fertility of soil.

The present geographical position brings still more light
on the subject. For one thing, the East is nearer to the
main body of Britain than is the West—the Solway Firth
does much to interrupt continuity, while the Cheviots do very
little. And the comparative nearness of the East Coast of
Britain to Europe makes its influence by Continental Flora the
more certain; perhaps persisting from pre-North Sea times ;
perhaps seeds carried across by birds in their annual migra-
tions. This may help to explain the persistence of forms
—eg., the Alliums and Caucalis nodosa—to a higher latitude
in the East than in the West on the borders of the Old
World.

But the main determining factor, I think, is climate.
The West is warmer than the East in winter—as I can
testify from experience—but colder in summer; but the
equableness of temperature seems to have little effect on
floral richness or the contrary. What does have effect is

OF THE EAST AND WEST OF SCOTLAND COMPARED. 5

the heavier rainfall on the West, and—what does not
necessarily go along with it—a climate generally more
humid. This, by washing away pollen, for example, is un-
favourable to phanerogamic development, though, with
regard to cryptogams, probably the reverse is the case.

Again, the strongest wind on both sides is the west. For
this we have infallible evidence in the slope of wind-
swept trees, even about Edinburgh, not towards the West, as
we would have expected, but towards the East.

Now this wind comes with greater force on the West, and
is there charged with more moisture. From this difference of
climate it follows that, leaving aside the Flora of the corn-
field and plants likely to have been aided by man in
their introduction—eg., Common Dandelion—we are likely
to have a greater variety of Xerophytic vegetation on the
East and of Hydrophytic on the West. By these terms I
mean the plants requiring a minimum of moisture for their
sustenance, and those requiring a maximum of it—desert
plants on the East, marsh plants on the West.

Of course the greatest class of Hydrophytes is the mosses,
and with these we do not deal, but even among the
phanerogams the result is noticeable ; and this brings us at
last from the consideration of the Baieral subject to a more
particular survey.

Finding that a mere desultory idea of things was not
quite saeivient for our purposes, I have made out a series
of statistics from the “Topographical Botany of Scotland,”
a series of papers by Professor Trail, of Aberdeen, still,
unfortunately, unfinished, which began to appear three
years ago in the Annals of Scottish Natwral History.

First I have taken some outstanding Xerophytes and
Hydrophytes, and then a few typical orders, and compared
their standing in the different vice-counties I mentioned at
the beginning, from Berwick across to Cantire. I have noted
their occurrence in each county, then struck an average
for three groups:—(1) East Lowlands, 81-83; (2) West
Lowlands, 75—77 ; (3) South-West Cipklants, 100- 101.

In the tables x means native; + means introduced.

6 MR JOHN MACRAE ON THE FLORAS

The county numbers are those of Watson’s Topographical
Botany, viz. :—81, Berwick; 82, Haddington; 83, Edin-
burgh ; 84, Linlithgow; 77, Lanark; 75, Ayr; 76, Renfrew;
100, Clyde Isles; 101, Cantire.

XEROPHYTES.
Name. 81 | 82 | 83] 77 | 75 101
|
Echium vulgare, % \hes x Viper’s Bug-
loss,
Cynoglossum officinale, | x | x + Hound’s
Tongue.
Vicia lathyroides, Beall ax x Small Vetch.
Hyoscyamus niger, a le se oo Henbane.
Senecio viscosus, . ealiets + Viscid Rag-
wort.
Potentilla verna, Sul sc Spring Cin-
quefoil.
Arenaria verna, x Vernal Sand-
* Helianthemum wort.
Chamecistus, yea Pees x Rock Rose.
Reseda Luteola, . Nell oe x | Wild Migno-
nette,
Coronopus Ruellit, Kell Ix x Wart Cress,
Lychnis Viscaria, Catchfly.
Trifolium striatum, .| x | x x
es Sragiferum, | x | x x | ns
os scabrum, x
Totals jai ve thle, | 12 10 [3 +? 1
eee _—_—-_—_— | ——
Average, . 13 - 6+ 3-
HYDROPHYTES.
Pinguicula lusitanica, x x
Samolus Valerandi, .| x | x x x
Lobelia Dortmanna, . x x
Sparganium minimum, x Ne x
Alisma ranunculoides, | x x x
Potamogeton nitens, x
otal e.- bey] 2a i ee 5 5 |
—— FT |
Average, . 2— 4— Boa

* But never a dominant plant in the West.

In the following results I have marked Linlithgow plants,

but have not included them in striking an average.

Lin-

lithgow is so badly worked that this would be doing

injustice to the East counties.

OF THE EAST AND WEST OF SCOTLAND COMPARED.

7

Name.

*Geranium sanguineum, .

Erodium ¢
Oxalis acet
Impatiens

sylvaticum,
pratense,
pyrenaicum,
molle, . -
pusillum,
rotundifolium,
dissectwm,
columbinum, .
lucidum,
Robertianwm,.
icutarium,
osella,
Noli-tangere,

Total,

Average, .

*Genista anglica,
», ttnctoria,

Ulex ewropceus, - <
>» nanus, . 5 :
Cytisus scoparius, . :
Ononis repens, « - .
+ spinosa, : °

Trigonella purpurascens, .
Medicago sativa,
» sylvestris,

», lupulina,
Helilotus officinalis, .
», alba (casual),

Trifolium subterraneum,
An pratense, .
ia medium,
a arvense, .
cin t5> striatum, -
cee |, scabrum, :
et Tepens,
- Sragiferum,
3 procumbens, .
35 dubium, A
jiliforme, z
Anthyllis Vulneraria,
Lotus corniculatus, . A
* ,, tenuis, . ‘
3, Uliginosus, . é

Carry forward, .

GERANIACEA,
81 | 82 | 83

. x x x
. x x x
x x x

x

. > 4 x x
x x x

‘ =| +
x xX x

ae 1 x

x x x

x x x

x x x

Ss x x

+

yh) Tht Wa
a)

12

LEGUMINOSA.
. Xx x 25
vall.oxX 2
. xX x x
Sok: 2
. x x x
. x x x
e x x Pe
. xX
° x x x
«| +2) +2] +2
~|#] +] +
° x x x
. x x oC
e x x x
. x xX x*
= 4 x
. x x be
«| (XW een
. x xX x<
e x x > 4
: is eal
. x x x
. x x x
° x x x
e x x x
. | 22 | 22 | 25

75
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
11
a ae,
10
x .
Xx x x
x
x x x
Eo) Seyi ee
x
x x
+
+
Sea line
x
oa
+
Sculox
Xs | as
x x
x
x x
x
x x!
x x
x x
ase
x x
21 | 16

* But never a dominant plant in the West.

xX X

x XX

MR JOHN MACRAE ON THE FLORAS

LEGUMINOSA—continued.,
Name. 81 | 82 | 83 | 84] 77 | 75 | 76 }100! 101
Brought forward, . 22 | 22 | 25 | 167 16 | 21 | 16913 | 11
* Astragalus danicus, a pales meme x ||) oc x
* 4 glycyphylios, eo eS eiesaal Miee aie) Pat
Oxytropis uralensis, = x
Ornithopus perpusillus, . x WX
Hippocrepis comosa, 5 x
Vicia hirsuta, . 5 . £5 fre se oe at imei! ee ie “2k |e x
» gemella, . 3 > x x | Xx
», Cracca, . 5 4 EK Galle koala MAM pee le oe x
», Orobus, . 5 x real (ies (ees
» sylvatica, : I yal xe 3t) Ilene x
+» sepium, . > 4 Ea) Ian Pash eda fesse eestor x
33 CULE, A x x
» angustifolia, . A 2 QR is Selllitle dies ete ig fb 2
* ,, Jlathyroides, ‘ SIP Sah x se
Lathyrus Aphaca, : + +
W ne Wissolia, . SE
53 hirsutus, . 2h
> pratensis, . aa Ea RS san (Wega Fore |e 3c x
5 sylvestris, . x aP.4 573) nl Lew
oa montanus, e x x x x x x x x
Totals ss 34 | 32 | 41 | 25 | 28 | 39 | 22 | 22 | 17
+ SS Y-—-~-— -Y H.-Y
Average, , 5 36 30 20
UMBELLIFERA,
Hydrocotyle vulgaris, 5 Sei) ee ES Pei eee | SSF pees il es
Eryngium maritimum, . Kell Kae x ex
Astrantia major, . 4 > x
Sanicula europea, . : re RcregellineesS et fat ee al Mie ae Labs oil h
Coniwm maculatum, : rlllisexcah wesc ene Sen eae (ees seal hexane
Smyrnium Olusatrum, . al atl s ory ex xl x
Apium graveolens, . : +
+ 4, nodiflorum, . A ; x x
» tmundatum, 2 Sah Sennen ex all h BES Ilepss
Cicuta virosa, . , : x x in| Reale
tCarwm verticillatum ‘ al il ess
Sison Amomum, «|
Sium latifolium, 4
> erectum, F A ail OS3| EPSa le ex Ko ex
Aigopodium Podagraria, . So doa Pao pal Scot ba) baa ke. alba
Pimpinella Saxifraga, steel oSQu jbo deh ssa So is al as
aA major, ‘ x
Conopodium denudatum, . SOUS Osa =e al. Most os
Myrrhis Odorata, . : peal Se if Seen NS | WE. cea ie gi feo
Cherophylium temulum, . Sia 4) le Segal IP aa TMP bs gl Fis 86
Carry forward, 13 | 138 | 15 | 9°] 12 | 14 | 15

* But never a dominant plant in the West. LA
+ Note Western distribution of Apiwn nodiflorum and Carum verticillatum,

OF THE EAST AND WEST OF SCOTLAND COMPARED.

UMBELLIFERAS—continued.

Name.

9

Brought forward,
Scandix Pecten-Veneris, .

Anthriscus vulgaris, .
é, sylvestris,
Feniculum vulgare, >

Crithmum maritimum,
Gnanthe Jistulosa, .

3, Lachenalii,

»> Crocata, .

», Lhellandrium,
Aithusa Cynapium, .
Silaus flavescens, . :
Meum Athamanticum, .
Ligusticwm scoticwn,
Angelica sylvestris, .
Peucedanum sativum, -
Heracleum Sphondylium,

eo «© © ‘0. @ Je

Daucus Carota, - :
Caucalis Anthriscus, :
* 4 7
“e nodosa,
Total,
Average, ° .

Cynoglossum officinale,
Asperugo procumbens,
Symphytum officinale,
35 tuberosum,

Borago officinalis,
Lycopsis arvensis,
Anchusa sempervirens, .
tPnewmaria maritima, .
Myposotis ccespitosa, . :

93 «=—s palustris, . .
ae repens,

~ sylvatica, . é

5 arvensis, . °
T 5 collina, . A
versicolor,
Lithosper nuwin officinale, :

ATVENSE,

Echium vulgare, .
Total,- 3 ‘

Average, . .

x

xx xX+XxX XX

Moueateiste

x
x
x
x

| 81 | 82 | 83
13 | 13 | 15
= lip °osSd Nieesd
Bee |! os.) OX
Dele Seale .|| x
oH +
Pi
aut x
1!" x x
wnileees x x
: x 5% | song
ool: SESH ess
: mK
ai cosa weseel | oe
«, (cots Sean ies
|
anil. os x x
PM eee | pier ee
Fe (esa || woe eae
aN OSS i
27 | 26 | 30
U--—_— YH
aa 28
BORAGINEA.
ST axXat 99
2 ape
wlalb aes x
Bi lds INGE
Sl Salas es
; b+
es: |
Pregl | ook Sn eee
shasta
elec | x
aailt x x
APSE Saal es
20 be ion ez
Bi > sell Oe a
x ae
sac | PS | SORT SE
SM be Sa.0)|| $2
14 | 12! 15

staal eee |
pied ea ee | es
Seal, XO ene
R58 is Kw OS
2
Soy Ih ets Te OS
|| Ke) 26
x x xX
oP =| | eas
a eset les
>See ee ee (ees
13 | 13 | 10

* Note distribution of @nanthe Lachenalii and Caucalis nodosa.
+ Note how they stop short at Renfrew—e.g., Symphytwm tuberosum,
Myosotis collina, Lithospermum arvense.

t Note prevalence i in West of Pnewmaria maritima and Myosotis repens.

10 MR JOHN MACRAE ON THE FLORAS

LILIACE.
Name. 75 | 76 | 100) 101
Ruscus aculeatus, . - ia be 3
Polygonatum multiflorum, oe ae

*

Alliwm Scorodoprasum, .

F vineale, i x x
* ,, oleraceum, . 2 :
* ,, Schenoprasum,
* 3, Uursinum, 5 : Soe) xe sce
cilla verna, . - : : x x
Festalis, . é Saal Mee tll Ie cod het 3
Ornithogalum wmbellatum, =E
Fritillaria Meleagris, : ors
Tulipa sylvestris, :
Gagea fascieularis, . .
Total, ~< - : : Sl 2 Sas
Average, - 7 3
J UNCACEZ
Juncus bufonius, 4 PA Vee x x x x x x x x
», trifidus, = x
»» squarrosus, . : ie a (aon Missin Parma Vera beg | lbeo oa | sey
3» compressus, 5 2
» Gerardi, z ° Sr fe. Sat (ee al ie al (Rode | (OB al ie ae Peary foc lS
3) | enauts. . - : x
+ glaucus, : 3 Sate x x x x py (Pies 2
ss. effusus, : 4 A Fie eal Rie ee aaa eae ore ak Ueda et be)
3, effusus x glaucus, 3 x x
», conglomeratus, . Pe We fe Se Ue ead ae ad Gaal feeb seas sel feces |)
> maritimus, s : x x x x ocala
5 supinus, 3 : Fl (ee bes x Xai x x boa | as
s, obtusiflorus, . ay (es 2 2 2 ai Bo
», lampocarpus, - 2 || 5) [ee alee ete
», acutiflorus, . Z | pa Weare al hse 2] es ae || gt I al Se |
», triglumis, . ‘ Fy X> fee
Luzula Forsteri, “ x
+ vernalis, . : ra! (ees) > <2] Xo oe
a maim, ‘ : ht|* (ga eee x ef) ce ag
3» campestris, . : Pha Ue a 2s Ke | Se eae
4 erecta, . : - il lee es x x x x 3
Totals >. : : . | 13 | 14] 14 17 | 16} 16 | 16
(ee ee Se
Average, = 5 14- 16+ 16

* Note Al/iwms in 81 and introductions in 83; also paucity of species in
100 and 101.

OF THE EAST AND WEST OF SCOTLAND COMPARED. 11

CoMPOSITA.

Name. 81 | 82 | 88 | 84 7 | 0 76 }100} 101

Eupatorium cannabinum, .

Solidago Virgaurea, - 3

Bellis perennis, = - .

Aster Tripolium,

Filago germanica, .

+, minima, !

Antennaria dioica, . * 5

Gnaphalium uliginosum, :
ue “ie aay - .

dl
|
Inula Helenium, . >

xX X X X XK XK XK XK XK
xX X XK X XK XK XK XK XK
XX X XK XK XK XK X

xX XK X XK X XK XK
xX X KX X XK XK XK XK XK

Pulicaria dysenterica, -
Bidens cernua, 5 , -

3, tripartita, . .
Achillea Millefolium, . .

x X
x

x

x

x
XX XX X+ xX XX XK XK XK XK XK XK

SS DEK NG sei Oa SE ENTE SE OEY OE, OK

Ptarmica, . - -
Anthemis Cotula, . “ 3
ay arvensis,
5 nobilis, :
Chrysanthemum segetum, .
es Leucanthemum,
“ Parthenium, .
Matricaria inodora, . i -
aS maritima, =
73 Chamomilla, . p
Tanacetum vulgare, . -
* Artemisia Absinthium,
a vulgaris, ~ :
“ maritima, . :
Tussilago Farfara, . : =
Petasites officinalis, . 2 -
tDoronicum Pardalianches,
Senecio vulgaris,
1, sylvaticus,
+ ,, viscosus, é
» erucifolius, .
», Jacobea, .
ey aquaticus, .
saracenicus,
Carlina vulgaris, . .
Arctium Lappa,
= Maus, - °
= nemoroswm, °
; minus,
Carduus pycnocephalus,
ee as nutans, .
” Crispus, =
Cnicus lanceolatus, .
», ertophorus,
», palustris, . 2 || Fa esa 5%

x

eo Se

a rede a eg

++xX xX xXx
x

x xX ++

xX XXX + X

+
x
x
x
x
x

DCL tire: NK OC
Este Oe

Pa ees Pek

ES teh tb deb eh. 5 Las cube Yd
S056: BG ste HE SRE SE Oe
x

ead pate

Sere DET SCOR OC: OK 3K
“0 X xx +XX
x DESC Ee Ede OI IC
SEUNG RENE POR ORO Oe
ee a re edd

we) ee Sem ee) Sen a oe

xX XXX XX

x XX XX

xX XXX XX
x X

Carry forward, . - | 41 | 37 | 40

* Confined exclusively to East Coast.
+ Note distribution and introduction.

12 MR JOHN MACRAE ON THE FLORAS

Compositai—continued.

Name. 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 77 | 75 | 76 1 100/101
Brought forward, . - | 41 | 37 | 40.) 28 | 89 | 37 | 31 | 36 | 33
Cnicus heterophyllus, : we O Ee AK | OC a 58 || ens
a «arvensis, : : sh Sy fe XT Xo Ke KS se Rea ieee
Onopordon Acanthium, . Sri ests hee” t= + |x
Saussurea alpina, . 4 die a x
Serratula tinctoria, . 2
Centaurea nigra, aa Via Gl i, ie > SG Uo cea ce es es |
5 Scabiosa, x + af
ah Cyanus, 5 Sa) ie dime te, ean ee ci | | PRS 2 el ea seaeh| fas
Cichorium Intybus, : -] te] +t] ty tp ey st +
Lapsana communis, . c ee fe HOR eC Wk see see eed ioe
Picris echioides, : ; bel aie: Stall ee 9 = |e
Hypocheris glabra, . 3 el om x
is radicata, 2 esa (a ae (ee a fs Weegee burs P|
Leontodon hirtus, . é > S| Nem, go
A hispidus, . >| Re. dn eg SC | Scam eae se
5 autumnalis, pian) a> gam Va | (ie gal te al We S| |
Taraxacum officinale, bn Ma cat a. Sal tie gan" (ine ae Pl -caes) eos) Feet gw |S
Lactuca|virosa, x x 5a
oe muralis, +) +
Sonchus oleraceus, . SA eM Se all RAI SRN lis eat eto sae
in asper, x x x ~e x x x x x
» «= arvensis, > San le at eb eek moa cede Nis all (peel oo
Pragopogon al os eascall ase SCARS x
Crepis virens, . Se SA ol See Se Seen ae ee
33 succiseefolia, . : x x | |
3, paludosa, 4 » Ans a gee id esau eg hie / SOP IE aE
Total, . . . .| 61 {| 57 | 62.| 48.1 59 | 56 |.46 | 52 | 46
eS uo-+--—Y eed
Average, A : : 60 54 49

Netr REsvtts.

Geraniacee, . : : re Ue LO) el eet ali! 6
Leguminose, . : ; oo) 34}. 824) 41) 25.198 | 89 eee gone,
Umbellifere, . : : . | 27 | 26 | 30] 17 | 22 | 28 | 26 | 24 | 21
Boraginer, . ; c . | 14] 12 | 15 | 12] 15-| 138) 18 p10) 6
Liliacee, : ; . Ps me fae a 2) VS Pee) tc Vesa ae Ui oP 3
Juncacez, ; : ; . | 18] 14] 14.) 14] 16 | 17 | 16) 16 | 16
Composite, . ‘ : - | 61 | 57 | 62 | 44] 59 | 56 | 46 | 52 | 46
Gross Total, . : . |167 |155 {185 |123 |158 |172 |136 138 |115
++ NY UV ~-—~’ VY --4---Y

Average, ; : c 169 155+ 127 -

But the more satisfactory point of view from which to:
study the plant-geography in any of its particular aspects.
is that of plant-associations—a term borrowed from the
German, and meaning a group of plants associated together:

OF THE EAST AND WEST OF SCOTLAND COMPARED, 13

by common habits. For an instructive paper on the subject,
I would refer to an article by Mr Robert Smith, of Dundee—
whose premature death this autumn we all so greatly deplore—
entitled “ On the Study of Plant-Associations,” and published
in Natural Science, February 1899. I might ask members of
the Society to think back also and recollect a paper read
by Mr Turnbull here more than a year ago, dealing with
Professor Schimper’s book on the subject. According to this
classification, plants are classified as dominant, secondary,
or isolated species.

Now, it is at once evident that topographical lists do not
help us here, for they only guide us as to the occurrence or
non-occurrence of plants in a vice-county, not as to their
distribution in it.

Take, for example, Parietaria officinalis. I have been
assured by Mr Somerville, of Glasgow, that Parietaria does
not occur west of Stirling, and yet it is given for Ayr and
Lanark. This simply means that in the West the plant is
merely an isolated straggler. In the East you find it about
most old ruins. It is practically a dominant plant in many
localities. The predominance of certain plants in each is
therefore a matter for individual observation. I can but
touch on a few points in the counties of East and West best
known to me—Cantire and Edinburgh.

Cantire is typical of the Southern Highlands. A central
belt of moor, never rising very high, reaching its highest—
1800 feet—in Knapdale, with lower reaches of pasture-land
within a mile, never more than two, of the sea; then
river-valleys tilled, though only moderately fertile; and,
lastly, sandy meadows sloping to the shore; with the fury of
the Atlantic gales and the moisture-laden clouds to break
over its low hills. Necessarily this will be different from
fertile Edinburgh.

The predominant association in Cantire is the heather
group—Lrica cinerea and Tetralix, Calluna Erica, Vaccinium
Myrtillus, Empetrum nigrum—and the heath grasses. One
strange thing here is that the Old World Corn-wheat, Melam-
pyrum pratense, often gets into this association and continues
to flourish. Heather is everywhere to within, say, two
miles of the sea; and into the hill-pastures it creeps, and

14 FLORAS OF THE EAST AND WEST OF SCOTLAND COMPARED.

ground, well-tilled long ago, but left untouched owing to the
prevalent depopulation, soon gets gradually into its grip again.

Then in the damper hill-pastures the most conspicuous
plant, especially in autumn, is the Devil’s-Bit Scabious
(Scabiosa Swecisa)—its purple heads, with here and there one
white, are everywhere ; while along the streams the Yellow
Iris (Iris Pseudacorus) and Lythrum Salicaria—the great
purple Loose-strife—are very conspicuous in the landscape.

Towards the sea the hill-slopes, when uncultivated, are
covered with brackens—Péeris aquilina—and the colour of
the lower hills in late autumn, from russet to golden and
from deep crimson to tawny brown, is even a more wonderful
sight than the deep purple of the higher heather hills in
August. And then in winter many of the hill-slopes are a
wondrous purple with the straggling birchwoods along their
sides.

That Cnanthe crocata is conspicuously present goes
without saying, but a rarer plant is Gnanthe Lachenali,
which is common, comparatively, in the shore marshes.
And mention must also be made of Cotyledon Umbzilicus,
which in North Knapdale covers the roadside for miles;
of Carum verticillatum, the Whorled Carraway, in the
damper hill-pastures; and of the beautiful little Vernal
Squill (Scilla verna), which covers the sea-rocks in many
places in May with its pale mauve flowers.

Coming now to the East, we find all things different.
The very hillsides have plants we never see—Astragalus,
Helianthemum, Echium vulgare.

The dominant cornfield plant is undoubtedly the Poppy,
which is only sometimes seen in Cantire, brought in with
alien seed. I myself have only seen it once. Then along
the hedges you have Jack-by-the-hedge — Sisymbriwm
Alliaria—while by the wayside you have the White Dead-
nettle (Lamium album), which we never see.

The list is one that could be indefinitely extended, but
I think enough has been said to justify my contention
that, beautiful as may be the vegetation of the West, we
there, among grey skies and grey rocks and grey seas,
have not the luxuriance of flower or the diversity that obtains
in the more fertile and happier East.

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 15

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE
CLASSIFICATION.

An Appress by Davip Hepsury, M.D., F.R.S.E., V.-P.R.P.S.E.,
Lecturer on Regional Anatomy, University of Edinburgh.

(Read 10th January 1901.)

THROUGHOUT the entire range of the Vegetable and Animal
Kingdoms observers have recognised that certain individuals
possess common features in greater or smaller numbers, and
consequently that they resemble each other more closely
than they do other individuals of the same Kingdom. In
other words, there is a natural basis upon which to raise a
classification. For this reason we have adopted such terms
as Kingdom, Sub-kingdom, Class, Sub-class, Order, Sub-
order, Family, Genus, Species. Under each of these terms.
we associate a certain number of characters which are borne
in common by the plants or animals which constitute the
members of the group. Nevertheless, we do not insist that
each member of the group should be a detailed duplicate of
all the other members, for we recognise that much Variation
is possible within the limits of even a single species.

Man, as represented by existing Races and Peoples, is
usually credited with the position of a single Genus, Homo,
containing a single species, sapiens, because it is considered
that, whatever Man’s colour or geographical distribution
may be, there is a sufficient number of structural characters to
warrant the association of the most primitive savage and the
highest product of modern civilisation under the same species.

I do not propose to discuss the question of what con-
stitutes a Race and what constitutes a People, nor do I
propose to discuss the evidence which might be adduced in
favour of the view that H. sapiens has been preceded by ZH.
insapiens. My object is to show that in spite of the structural
resemblances which exist among the members of the genus.
Homo, there are important structural differences which are
fundamental, and which are sufficiently distinctive to enable-

16 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

us to form classifications for purposes of reference and com-
parison.

By such classification it can be shown that certain
morphological characters are more closely allied to the
Anthropoid forms, but it does not follow that a single
civilised individual, presenting morphological characters
which are distinctive of the lower animals, is himself more
akin to them, because we know that it is of the nature of
variations to possess historical rather than prophetic import-
ance. If, on the other hand, it were characteristic of an
entire Race or People to present structural affinities with a
group of animals lower in the scale than Homo, then we
should be warranted in looking for some explanation other
than the one of accidental historical repetition.

Everyone recognises differences and resemblances among
the members of the human family sufficient to form a
foundation for such an expression as the “ Races of Men.”
For the most part these differences and resemblances affect
the colour of the skin, the character of the hair, speech,
habits, and geographical distribution. We do not possess
the material for a comprehensive examination of the soft
parts of different races, but it is open to doubt whether any
very outstanding differences would be found, considering
how very closely the Anthropoid Apes resemble Man in
regard to the anatomy of soft parts.

From the comparative ease with which bones are
preserved and obtained, there is an accumulating amount of
evidence regarding the skeleton and, in particular, the skulls
of mankind, and therefore skulls are much taken advantage
of for purposes of comparison and classification.

Since the great organ of the central nervous system is
contained within the skull, it must be evident that all
information with regard to the skull gains an additional
importance. It would be quite wrong, however, to insist
that observations made upon a box, with regard to its
dimensions and capacity, necessarily affect the quality of
the contents of the box. At the same time, it would be
equally mistaken to assume that the capacity of the cranium
and its various proportions are purely accidental and un-
important occurrences.

———T

ia.

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 17

Although we do not possess data concerning the capacity
and proportions of the skulls of newly-born infants of different.
races, yet we know that all human beings are born with
heads of the largest size compatible with safe parturition.

It is only when we deal with adult skulls that the data
become available for comparison and classification, because
the infant skull, besides being difficult to obtain, is not
really suitable for the study of dimensions and capacity.

In dealing with the skull, it is essential at the outset
to distinguish between the Cranium and the Face.

The Cranium proper is the box which contains the brain,
and in forming an estimate of its size and dimensions, we
may measure its capacity, its circumference in different
directions, or segments of its circumference and the chords.
which subtend them.

The Face is chiefly associated with the apparatus con-
nected with the senses of sight, smell, and taste; with the
masticatory apparatus, and also to a minor extent with the
sense of hearing. It may be measured so as to ascertain
its dimensions either as a whole or in reference to its parts,

At the outset it will be necessary to look at the skull as a
whole for the purpose of familiarising ourselves with certain
of the more commonly used technical terms and their appli-
cation in connection with skull measurements or craniometry.

The skull may be looked at from ABOVE, from BELOW,
from the SIDE, from the FRONT, and from the BAcK. Each
of the aspects or surfaces is termed a Norma. In con-
nection with each Norma a few words will suffice.

Norma Verticalis—We note first the Bregma (Gr.
brechd, to moisten), which is the point where the coronal
and sagittal sutures meet. It is also the region of the
anterior fontanelle of the infant, and hence it is called the
bregmatic fontanelle. At the posterior end of the sagittal
suture where it joins the lambdoidal suture is the Lambda.
(Gr. A), and a short distance in front of this point between
the parietal foramina is the Obelion. The highest point.
in the line of the sagittal suture is the Vertex. When
the skull slopes away from the vertex on either side it is
_ said to be “ill-filled,’ but when, on the other hand, it

bulges on either side it is called “ well-filled ” (Cleland).

VOL. II. 2

18 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

Norma Lateralis——We note the outline of the vertex
and back of the head, and observe that the curve rises
upwards and backwards from the Glabella and superciliary
ridges, attaining its greatest height a little behind the
bregma. Then it slopes gradually downwards and back-
wards in the civilised skull. Sometimes the slope from
the obelion downwards is precipitous and may have been
due to pressure applied in infancy causing a deformity.
We note also the Pterion; the regions of greatest and least
width; the Asterion; Mastoid process, etc.; Temporal
ridges ; Stephanion.

This view of the face is very important, because we can
see the amount of projection of the face as a whole, or of
the nose, chin, or jaw. When the upper jaw projects it is
called a Prognathic skull (Gr. gnathos, cheek or jaw-bone),
and then the nasal bones are non-protuberant. On the
other hand, with projecting nasal bones the upper jaw is
non-protuberant and the skull is Orthognathie.

Norma Frontalis—We note the general width of the
face and the amount of projection of the zygomatic arches,
observing whether the skull is “‘metopic,” ae. presents an
unossified frontal suture; the form of the jaw; the state of
the dentition ; the outline of the nasal and orbital openings ;
the character of the nasal spine of the superior maxilla.
The Nasion is the mid-point of the fronto-nasal suture.
The Alveolar Point is the most prominent point of the upper
jaw just above the incisor teeth. The Sub-nasal Point is
the point at the root of the nasal process of superior maxilla.

Norma Occipitalis——We note the Jnion (Gr. inion, nape
of neck), which is the external occipital protuberance. The
inion and the curved lines extending laterally from it give
us the supra-inion and the infra-inion. In the former we
find the Occipital Point, and this region is covered by the
scalp. The infra-inion gives attachment to the muscles of
the neck. The Asterion is the point where occipital,
parietal, and petromastoid bones meet.

Norma Inferior—Here we note the Foramen Magnum.
To its front edge is given the name Basion, and to its hinder
margin the term Opisthion (Gr. opisthen, behind) is applied.
In quadrupeds the foramen magnum is directed backwards

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 19

in the Norma occipitalis. The change in the direction of
the foramen magnum in Man is due to the backward
growth of the cerebrum and the need for maintaining the
balance of the skull upon the summit of the spinal column.

Note also the form of the Hard Palate and the Dentary
Arch, and the state of the teeth, for information with regard
to age and habits.

CAPACITY OF THE SKULL.

The object aimed at by this mode of examination is to
obtain a convenient indication of the development
of the brain. It must be remembered, however,
that the skull contains meninges, blood-vessels, sinuses,
the beginnings of cranial nerves, and the cerebro-spinal fluid,
in addition to the brain, and it has been suggested that
10% should be deducted from the capacity in order to allow
for these objects.

It is not easy to take the capacity of a skull by any
method which is quite free from error, or to get constant
results by whatever method one adopts. The aim of the
operator is to fill the cranium quite full of some substance,
which may then be poured out into a graduated glass
vessel for measurement. Of course, special precautions
require to be taken for the purpose of ensuring equal
pressure during both of these operations. Therefore, the
substance employed should not permit of any compression,
and the routine of the operation must be rigidly adhered to
in the most minute details. It is preferable to have a large
series of data recorded by the same operator.

Of the substances which have been employed, sand and
seed are quite unreliable, because they permit of com-
pression: water is inconvenient for many reasons, although
recently an attempt has been made to confine it in a thin india-
rubber bag placed within the cranium and slowly distended.
The best substance is chilled shot, number 8, and the rate
at which the shot flows into the skull, as well as its rate of
flow from the skull into the graduated measure, must be
constant, so that for this purpose it should flow through a
funnel whose outlet is 20 mm. in diameter. Even when

20 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

every precaution has been observed, slight discrepancies will
arise, but if the error be no greater than 10 c.c. it may be
regarded as “ slight.”

The capacity of the normal human skull varies from
1000 ce. to 1800 c.c.

In striking averages, it is advisable to compare only those
of the same sex, because the mean capacity of female crania
is 10% less than the mean capacity of male skulls.

Skulls whose capacity is below 1350 c.c. are called Micro-
cephalic ; from 1350-1450 e.c., Mesocephalic; above 1450 c.c.,
Megacephalic.

Megacephalic skulls are observed among Esquimaux,
Europeans, Mongolians, Burmese, and Japs.

Mesocephalic skulls are seen among Negroes, Malays,
American Indians, and Polynesians.

Microcephalic skulls include Bush people, Andamanese,
extinct Tasmanians, Australian Aboriginals, many
Melanesians, the Veddahs and Hill men of India.

The mean capacity among European men is about 1500
c.c. Sir Wm. Turner gives the mean capacity of 50 male
Scotch skulls as 1492°8 c.c., ranging from 1240-1770 ee. ;
of 23 female Scotch skulls as 1325 c.c., ranging from 1100—
1625 c.c.; of 24 Australian men as 1286 cc., ranging from
1044-1514 «ec.; of 12 Australian women as 1106 c.c., ranging
from 930—1220 c.c.

From a skull whose capacity is 1800 ce. to one of only
930 cc. is an enormous stride, and yet there is no doubt of
the hwman character of the smaller of the two, but it
requires another enormous stride to bring us to the nearest
Anthropoid Ape. A male Gorilla has been measured at 490
c.c.; a male Orang, 440 cc.; a male Chimpanzee, 355 c.c.

Admitting that skull capacity bears some relation to the
size of the brain, and presumably therefore to the in-
telligence of the individual, we have no difficulty in seeing
that an enormous gap separates the highest ape from the
lowest known human being, just as the latter is again far
removed from the highly civilised and “ well-filled” skull of
the European. If attention were merely confined to the
tables of averages, one might almost conclude that sufficient
data existed for distinguishing Homo sapiens from Homo

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION, 21

insapiens, but, unfortunately for the value of the figures, the
great range of the variation may ‘place a skull from a
Megacephaliec race among those that are Microcephalic, and
vice versa. We have no means of judging how much the
quality of the brain compensates for smallness of size, and
we are left with the general principle that so far as concerns
primitive peoples, a large cubic capacity indicates a more
favourable degree of intelligence than a small one. Never-
theless, we cannot overlook the fact that the Esquimaux, who
are neither highly intelligent nor models of advanced
Civilisation, possess some of the largest recorded skull
Capacities. It is very difficult to offer any reasonable
explanation of this fact, but, in connection with it, there ig
the further curious fact that some of the largest of
mammalian brains belong to the Cetacean inhabitants of the
Polar seas. I believe that there is a saying among hatters
to the effect that “all the big hats go to Aberdeen!” This
is probably a recognition of the fact that heads tend to
increase in size as we go northwards.

Whatever may be the true meaning of information
derived from the study of skull capacities, they certainly
tend to place highly civilised peoples at one end of the scale,
and those peoples which are by common agreement regarded
as lower races at the other end, and yet they raise all human
beings high above the nearest of the Anthropoid Apes,

LINEAR MEASUREMENTS,

Additional and highly important information may be ob-
tained from linear measurements of the skull, and these may
be absolute or relative. Since the skull is not a rectangular
box, it is necessary to measure the distances along the arcs of
curves as well as the distances between points on the surface,
For these purposes a steel tape and callipers are necessary.
(Instruments were shown and their uses explained.)

The Measurements along Curves are three in number,
viz. :—

1. Horizontal circumference, Ophryo-oceipital (Gr, ophrys,
eyebrow) or Glabello-occipital.

22 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

2. Great longitudinal circumference, from glabella to pos-
terior margin of foramen magnum by tape, plus the length
of foramen magnum taken by callipers, plus the basi-nasal
length obtained by callipers.

3. Transverse circumference, between auricular points.
across the vertex, plus interauricular length obtained by
callipers.

The first of these may be divided into prex-aural and
post-aural in terms of the auricular point, for the purpose
of showing whether development has been greater in front
of or behind the ears.

The second may be subdivided so as to show how much
of the circumference pertains to the frontal, parietal, and
occipital bones respectively.

The information thus obtained is supplementary to that.
derived from measurements taken between fixed points by
means of callipers. As regards the cranium, these are
measurements of length, breadth, and height. The greatest
length is glabello-occipital, and this line practically presents
the length of the cerebrum, subject to deductions, for the
frontal air-sinuses and the thickness of the skull.

Breadth is measured at minimum-frontal, stephanie,
maximum parieto-squamous, and asterionic regions. Of these,
for ordinary purposes the maximum parieto-squamous is the
most important, since it is the greatest absolute width of
the cranium.

The height is taken between the basi-bregmatic points.

In themselves these measurements are of great value,
but their principal interest is found in a comparison of
one with another. Thus, it is customary to compare the
length with the greatest width. This is done by assuming
that the length equals 100, and then representing the
width as a percentage. The working formula for this.
calculation is—

Breadth x 100

Length
Thus

= Cephalic or Length-breadth Index.

131 x 100 _ 65:5 146 x 100 _ 4.3.
200 173

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 23

By far the most important classification of skulls rests upon
this Index. Those skulls whose Cephalic Index (length-
breadth) is—

Below 70 are Hyperdolichocephalic.
From 70--75 are Dolichocephalic.

From 75—80 are Mesaticephalic.

From 80-85 are Brachycephalic.
Upwards of 85 are Hyperbrachycephalic.

In many ways these divisions are unnecessarily minute—
first, because they are purely arbitrary ; and second, because
it is quite evident that, as regards the mesaticephalic group,
such skulls approximate to one group when upwards of 77°5,
and to another when below that figure.

As examples of Dolichocephalic skulls we may take
Esquimaux, Kaffirs, Zulus, Veddahs, Fijians, and Australian
Aboriginals, etc.; of Mesaticephalic skulls — Chinese,
Europeans (mixed), Bushmen, Polynesians (mixed), ete.; of
Brachycephalic skulls—Aboriginal Americans, Andamanese,
Malays, Burmese, Mongols, Lapps, Finns, ete.

In addition to this cephalic index, the height is some-
times contrasted with the length, and, by assuming that the
latter is 100, we obtain a formula—

Basi-bregmatic height x 100
Glabello-occipital length

= Vertical Index.

Below 70, low heads—Platycephalic.
70—75, moderate or intermediate—Metriocephalic.
75 and upwards, high—Akrocephalie.

Such an index places Aboriginal Australasians and Bush-
men among the low heads; Fijians and Loyalty Islanders
have high heads, while Scotch and English are in the inter-
inediate group.

From all this it will be evident that a vast amount of
thought and labour have been expended upon the cranium
in the hope of utilising the accumulated information towards
solving the problem of why certain types of skull are so
constantly associated with certain peoples. For a long
time anthropologists have felt that the methods which

24 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

have been described for taking diameters by callipers and
measuring external curves by the graduated tape were not
sufficiently correlated, and in a variety of ways attempts
have been made to remedy this defect. However, this has
not found great favour, because the plans suggested all led
to more or less destruction of the skull by the use of the
saw.

Recently I was fortunate in devising a set of callipers
which enable us mechanically and easily to divide any of
the cranial diameters into segments which exactly corre-
spond to the sections of the various ares of bone by which
they are covered.

(These callipers were shown; the method of using them
explained.)

Before discussing the results obtained by the use of these
callipers, and before discussing the value of skull measure-
ments as a whole, I shall direct attention to the examination
of the face.

THE FAce,

Simple as the subject might appear, there has been much
discussion concerning the limits of the face. To the
student of anatomy the face includes the region of the
facial bones—that is to say, it does not include any part of
the cranial or brain box. Therefore it does not include the
forehead. In popular speech, however, the face includes
the forehead and extends from this to the tip of the chin.
The posterior limit of the face is the projecting convexity
of the zygomatic arches, between which the facial width is
determined. By some, the upper limit is taken at the
fronto-nasal suture, but, by others, this limit is given at
the Ophryon so as to include the eyebrows. In this con-
nection it is worthy of note that the Greeks did not put
any eyebrows on their statuary.

A comparison between the length and breadth of the
face is obtained as follows :—

Namo: tal di ter x 100
aslo-mental diameter = Facial Index.

Bi-zygomatic diameter

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 25

On the results of this formula, faces are classified as high
and low according as their indices are above or below 90.
Since, however, the lower jaw is very frequently absent
from skulls which are collected in different parts of the
world, as, for example, in New Guinea, where the women
use this bone as a bracelet, another formula is required,
VIZ, :-—

Nasio-alveolar diameter x 100
Bi-zygomatic diameter

= Maxillary Index.

On this calculation the faces are again high and low
according as their indices are above or below 50. Most
Europeans have high, 7.e., narrow faces; but Esquimaux and
Mongols have low, 7.e., broad faces.

Not only the face as a whole, but its separate features,
may be made the basis of classification.

Thus the Nose provides a feature in which much racial
variation is found, and no greater contrasts could be
imagined than the typical Grecian nose and the short, squat,
bridgeless nose of the Australian Aboriginal or the extinct
Tasmanian. The differences are mainly due to variations
in the size of the nasal bones. At the nasal aperture the
nasal spine is either poorly developed as in the Australian
Aboriginal, who in this respect approximates to the lower
animals, or well developed as in the Europeans. When the
nasal spine is faint, a certain amount of prognathism is
always present; but when the nasal spine is absent, as in
the Anthropoid Apes, the prognathism is marked. During
life the nasal cartilages greatly influence the direction of
the nasal opening, but as these are absent in the dry skull,
the nasal aperture looks forwards. This opening is measured
as follows :—height of the aperture is the distance from the
nasion to the floor of the nose at the base of the nasal spine
(subnasal point); the width of the aperture varies, but the
‘greatest width is taken. In this way

Nasal width x 100

— Nasal Index.
Nasal height too

Narrow nostrils (Leptorhine), below 48—e.g., English and
-Esquimaux.

26 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

Median nostrils (Mesorhine), 48 to 53—eg., Chinese.

Broad nostrils (Platyrhine), above 53—eg., Australian
Aboriginals.

Australian Aboriginals represent the Platyrhine group,
and Kuropeans—among civilised western peoples—the
Leptorhine group. No aboriginal belongs to the latter,
and no European to the former. Sir William Turner
gives the Mean Nasal Index in male Scotch skulls as 44:3,
and among female Scotch skulls 467 ¢., they are well within
the Leptorhine group.

The Orbit (which is the bony chamber containing the
eyeball) is also a source of valuable information, particularly
in relation to the relative proportions of its outlet, where
the width and breadth are measured at right angles to each
other. The width is measured from the Dacryon (Gr..
dakryo, to weep) to the outer wall; and the height is the
greatest measurement obtainable at right angles to the width.

The width is always greater than the height.

Orbital height x 100
Orbital width

High orbit (Megaseme), above 89—e.g., Andamans and
Chinese.

Moderate orbit (Mesoseme), 84 to 89—e.., English and
Scotch.

Low orbit (Microseme), below 84—e y., Guanches and
Australian Aboriginals.

A microseme orbit is elongated transversely.

Important information is also derived from contrasting
the length and breadth of the Hard Palate. In obtaining
these measurements, both the outer and inner lamelle of
the alveolar border have been selected. The length is taken
in the Mesial Plane, and the width at the level of the-
second molar teeth.

Palatal length x 100
Palatal breadth
Leptostaphyline, below 80.

Mesostaphyline, 80 to 85.
Brachystaphyline, above 85.

= Orbital Index.

= Palatal Index.

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION, Fe

or
Palato-alveolar breadth x 100

Palato-alveolar length = Palato-alveolar Index,

Dolichouranic (long vault), below 110.
Mesuranic (medium vault), 110 to 115,
Brachyuranic (short vault), above 115.

As a rule, breadth exceeds length, but in Apes length
exceeds breadth. Australian Aboriginals approximate to
the Apes.

Having examined the Cranium and the Face separately,
we may now combine the two and study the relation of Face
to Cranium. In this connection terms are used to indicate
the relative projection of the face in front of the cranium.
Thus the Horse, Tiger, Ape, ete., are prognathic, because the
amount of projection is great, Among Europeans the pro-
jection is slight, ic, orthognathic. The lower races are
prognathic.

Prognathism is contributed to by the projection of the soft
parts—eg., the lips—also by the incisor teeth, and even by
the lower jaw. This condition may also be affected by the
amount of curvature of the skull and by the attitude of the
skull upon the spinal column,

In the natural attitude of the human skull the axis of
vision is horizontal. When the skull alone is present there
are several ways of determining the horizontal axis of vision,
but that in common use is to place the skull with the upper
margins of the zygomatic arches horizontal.

To determine the amount of projection, a point is selected
on the base, viz., the Basion. From this point the distance
is measured, first, to the most projecting point of the upper
jaw, viz., the alveolar point; and second, to the nasion or
glabella. In this way

Basi-alveolar diameter x 100 pli
: : ~ — = Gnathie Index.
Basi-nasal diameter

Orthognathous, below 98—e.g., Europeans, Scotch, Bush-
men.

28 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

Mesognathous, 98 to 103—eg., Chinese, Japs, Malays,
Polynesians, Maoris, and Andamanese.

Prognathous, above 103—ey., Kaffirs, Hottentots, Melan-
esians, Negroes, Tasmanians, and Aboriginal Australians.

The facial angle affects the face itself and may be
determined on the living head as well as on the skull. By
the Angle of Camper we mean the intersection of a base
line drawn from the centre of the external auditory meatus
to the subnasal point by another—a face line—drawn from
the face margin of the upper lip to the glabella in the
adult. A high facial angle means a high race, since
normally it depends upon the amount of prognathism.
Among the ancient Greeks the facial angle rose to 100°;
Romans to 95° ; while all the best heads of antiquity gave an
angle of 90° or a little over.

Camper’s base line, however, does not give the full measure
of prognathism, hence Cloquet lowered the base line to the
alveolar point.

According to this plan the facial angle among Europeans
is 72; Negroes, 56; Chimpanzee, 386; Gorilla, 32:2;
Orang, 28°5; Horse, 24; Tiger, 22°5.

From this réswmé of the methods employed in the
examination of the cranium and the face it must be quite
clear that there is ample material for the classification of
skulls, and, through them, of the races or peoples to which
the skulls belong. But, having made the classification, we
must now endeavour to determine whether it provides us
with anything more than a collection of figures; whether,
in fact, this method of classification upon the basis of figures
is of any more value than a similar means of classifying any
other group of objects which presented great variations in
size. In applying ourselves to the discussion of the results,
I think we must admit it to be a remarkable fact that, to a
very large extent, the various modes of classification place
what are popularly called the “higher” races at one end of
a series, and the “lower” races at the other. And not
only so, but that certain of the lower races are shown to
approximate more or less closely to that group of the
“lower” animals which is most man-like in its general

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 29

characteristics, viz. the Anthropoid Apes. This is par-
ticularly noteworthy in the case of such measurements of the
face as the orbit, nose, and hard palate, and in connection
with Prognathism. In regard to the whole of the informa-
tion obtained from a study of the face, we may consider the
influence of the brain to be exercised indirectly rather than
directly, as it must be upon the cranium, which, after all, is
merely a box for the protection of the brain, aud must owe
its capacity and dimensions to the influence of the brain
which is within.

Thus it is that the stages of a process of evolution appear
less far apart in a study of the face than in a study of
the cranium.

Although, as a rule, the measurements of the cranium
differentiate the “higher” from the “lower” races, and
although they show us that the lower races approximate to
the Anthropoid Apes, yet in all particulars the gap between
Man and Animals is much greater in connection with cranial
measurements than it was in the contrasted face measure-
ments. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the right of all
the races of men to be classed as Homo sapiens would form
a perfectly legitimate subject of discussion ; whether, in fact,
on the ground of cranial development such a race as the
Australian Aboriginal should not be classed as Homo
insapiens. Be that as it may, any attempt to unravel the
mystery of cranial measurements compels us to answer such
questions as: “ Do cranial measurements mean anything ?”
“ Are the infinite variations due to any explainable cause ? ”
“ Are they accidental?” “Why is it that a whole people
may present the same general configuration of cranium ?”
In my opinion, the answer to these and all similar questions
lies in a recognition of the fact that the cranium is only the
receptacle which contains the brain, whose growth and
expansion largely, if not entirely, determine the ultimate
capacity, proportions, and attitude of the cranium.

On a former occasion I have demonstrated to the
members of this Society that the newly-born human infant
does not possess the attitude of its parents, as is the case
with other newly-born mammals, but that it slowly acquires
the characteristic “erect attitude” after the lapse of a

30 DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

considerable number of months. Within the last year or
two (and notably through the able investigations of one
of my colleagues, viz, Dr Waterston), observations made
upon the bones and joints of the human foetus at various
stages of gestation prove that at birth the bones and joints
of the human infant very closely resemble those of the
Anthropoid ape, whereas its brain at the same period is
distinctly a human brain. In other words, at birth the
human brain is in advance of the human body, and it has
developed faster than the body. Not only so, but the
cranium which surrounds the infant brain is not a rigid
box, since it consists of bones set comparatively widely
apart, whereby it is possible for the human infant to be
safely born with a brain in advance of the general bodily
development, as well as with arrangements which permit
of continued enlargement of the brain and of the surrounding
box.

As the growth of the individual proceeds, brain-growth
and ossification of the cranial bones continue, until the
bones are merely separated from each other by those lines
of union called sutwres to which your attention has already
been directed, and which tend to disappear by ossification
as age advances. When a suture disappears, it is no longer
possible for any increase of the cranial cavity to take place
in relation to that line of union; but so long as any given
suture persists, there is the possibility of an increase of the
cranial cavity either in length, breadth, or height, and I
take it that in the first instance the determining cause of
increase in the diameters of the cranium is the growth of
the brain which it contains. We have here, therefore,
two conditions of growth, viz., growth of brain and growth
of cranium ; and so long as these retain their relative rates
of growth, the proportions of the cranial diameters will
-correspond with the proportions of the brain diameters.
If, however, a suture should close sooner than is its rule,
then the growing brain must adapt itself to the altered
conditions, not by ceasing to grow, but by accommodating
itself to the increased space obtained by additional growth
of the cranium in another direction. We do not know
what conditions determine the early closure of a suture,

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. mil:

‘but we know that great variations of cranium result from
their premature closure, and in this way we may get a
type of skull which is quite at variance with the common
type of the race. We also know that pressure due to
intra-cranial pathological causes may entirely prevent the
-elosure of sutures and lead to extraordinary abnormal
variations in cranial shape (Hydrocephalus).

Thus, it seems to me that brain growth is the cause
which directly determines cranial growth along those
definite lines whose relative proportions provide the facts
for cranial classification.

The effect of heredity would be to perpetuate a form
of cranium which corresponded with the evolution of the
contained brain, subject, of course, to such additional modi-
fication as depended upon further growth and evolution of
the brain. On the other hand, intermarriage between
people of different types of cranium would naturally result
‘in modifications among the crania of their offspring, and
‘thus we may have another reason for isolated cases of
variation among the crania of primitive races. In elucida-
tion of this argument I now direct attention to. certain
observations taken by means of my segmenting callipers,
and recorded in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh.

These observations were conducted upon the skulls of
‘certain primitive races showing well-marked types of
Dolichocephaly and Brachycephaly, and the results are most
interesting.

Thus, an examination of transverse diameters showed that
‘the crania were practically uever symmetrical on the two
‘sides of the mesial plane, and, moreover, the asymmetry was
always most pronounced in the parietal region, and least
remarkable in the region of the cerebellum, while it pre-
sented an intermediate condition in the frontal region.
Now that is very much what might be expected from the
relative importance of the corresponding parts of the brain,
but the closure of the suture between the two parietal
bones is, as a rule, much later than the disappearance of
lines of union between the halves of the frontal bone or the
‘segments of the occipital bone.

oD DR DAVID HEPBURN ON

Similarly, I have treated the glabello-occipital length by
segmenting it in terms of perpendiculars dropped upon it
from the bregma and the lambda, thereby approximately
representing the amount of the brain lying under cover of
the frontal, parietal, and supra-inial portion of the
occipital bones respectively. In groups of skulls so widely
apart as the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic, I found
that practically the same percentage of the length was under
cover of the parietal bones, but that in the latter there was
dy more in front of the bregma, whereas in the former
there was 1% more behind the lambda. From this I have
argued that in the case of brachycephalic skulls growth at
the coronal suture is in excess of, or more active than, growth
at the lambdoidal suture, while the opposite condition prevails
among dolichocephalic skulls. Further, such variation in
relative rate of skull growth can only coincide with corre-
sponding growth of brain.

Among the members of @ civilised race, all kinds of skulls.
may be found, although one type may predominate. Here
we find more complex conditions, for although from its
proportions a civilised skull may be classified with those of
a savage race, yet we must take into account the greater
average capacity of civilised skulls. We must also remember
that proportions result from the rate of growth in different
directions, and that this may be influenced by the early
closure of sutures under conditions which we do not under-
stand, although we might call them historical or reversionary.
It seems to me that this is the simplest explanation of a
dolichocephalic skull appearing among a brachycephalic or
mesaticephalic race.

Certainly it is a remarkable fact, that so far as primitive
races are concerned, the skull which is most akin to that of
lower animals—viz., the dolichocephalic type—should be so
common, and that among such peoples it should also be
associated with a facial condition similarly related to that of
lower animals. On the other hand, a dolichocephalic skull
appearing in a civilised race would almost certainly present
a much greater capacity, and would not probably be associated
with prognathism.

The brachycephalic skull being that in which the pro-

THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 33

portions of length and breadth are farthest removed from
the lower animals, so we must look upon it as a higher type
and an improvement upon the dolichocephalic; but among
primitive peoples its possessor is not necessarily a highly
civilised person.

It is essential that the skulls of civilised peoples should
be examined after the same method as that followed in the
case of primitive races so as to obtain uniformity of results,
but the apparently incongruous associations which follow
are somewhat confusing, since the greater average of skull
capacity removes much of the common platform which exists
for comparisons among primitive races. Besides, the causes
which lead to variation are probably much more operative
among civilised than among primitive peoples.

The classification of skulls, therefore, on the lines described
carries most weight in the case of primitive races, and
although the skulls of civilised races are classified upon
similar lines, yet the value of the classification is diminished,
since the amount and quality of the brain are quite inde-
pendent of the proportionate length and width of the box
which contains and surrounds it.

Apples fell for many a year before Newton found, in that
circumstance, an aid to the construction of the Law of
Gravity; material for suitable weapons had been plentiful
for centuries before the first Anthropoid Ape lifted the lucky
cudgel, which is supposed to have revolutionised his own
status in the animal kingdom, and to have conferred upon
his descendants that boundless legacy of the first step towards
the erect attitude, the full benefits of which have been the
birthright of the human race for countless ages. In both
eases the starting-point in the new development was found
in the brain rather than in the environment. The study
of the evolution of the Cranium is therefore in reality a
study of the evolution of the Brain.

34 PROF, J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS.

By J. ArrHur Tomson, M.A., F.R.S.E., Professor of
Natural History, University of Aberdeen, Vice-President.

(Read 14th February 1901.)

In the eighteenth century the attention of naturalists was
for a time focussed on the problem of regeneration or the
regrowth of lost parts. Trembley discovered to his delight
that the freshwater polyp—AHydra—might be multiplied
by being cut in pieces ; Spallanzani showed that the earth-
worm cut by the spade might regrow a new tail or even
a new head; Bonnet made numerous experiments on other
worms and thought out an elaborate theory; Réaumur
pointed out the advantage of the regenerative capacity in
animals which were in natural conditions exposed to frequent
risk of breakage or wounds. Neither facts nor interpreta-
tions were awanting a hundred years ago, and yet the
problem has come down to us still unsolved.

Of recent years, however, some progress has been made,
The remarkable development of experimental embryology,
and the happily growing tendency to test biological
hypotheses by experiment, have prompted fresh work on
the subject of regrowth. The basis of fact has been greatly
broadened, and perhaps it is not too sanguine to say that
the interpretations have become a little less vague. The
literature of the subject is already so enormous that it
suggests the usefulness of attempting a sort of balance-
sheet of fact and opinion. In so doing, I have confined
myself to adult animals, leaving plants and young embryos,
not out of account, but undiscussed. I am especially
indebted to recent papers by Weismann, Morgan, and
Barfurth.

What I mean to discuss is really only one aspect of
the regrowth of lost parts in adult animals, but it is
advisable to recall a number of analogous phenomena.
One of the first two or even four cells into which an egg

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS. 35

divides may in many cases form a complete embryo,
sometimes dwarfed in size (Lancelet), sometimes normal
(Sea-Urehin). One of the first two cells into which the
frog’s egg divides will develop by itself and form, according
to the conditions of the experiment, a half-sized embryo (if
the injured ovum be allowed to float freely) or a one-sided
half-embryo (if the injured ovum be kept fixed), but the
one-sided half-embryo may at a certain stage regenerate the
missing half. Similarly it is very easy to make a single
ovum of bird, frog, sea-urchin, etc., form a double embryo
instead of the normal single one. There is a large body
of similar facts, which show this, at least, plainly—that a
living unit has often the power of doing much more in the
way of growth than is normally required of it. And this,
as it seems to me, is an important general result to bear
in mind.

Secondly, we should recall the familiar fact that in many
animals there is an almost continual process of tisswe-
regeneration going on. Worn out epidermic cells, glandular
cells, blood-corpuscles, etc., ete., are all replaced by what we
may call a process of continued growth. We pass gradually
from the regrowth of our hair and finger-nails to more
complex phenomena, like the annual regrowth of stags’
antlers. In short, to meet the exigencies of normal life,
there is a continuation of local growth, which has also its
bearing on the regeneration of accidentally lost parts.

Thirdly, it seems useful to remember that among Sponges,
Ceelentera, Annelids, Polyzoa, and Tunicates, we find buds
separated from the parent body to form new individuals—
a process which leads us towards the regeneration of an
entire animal from an artificially excised part.

But the power of asexual reproduction, which is normally
a mere alternative, may become the all-important power for
the species, as is well illustrated by the case of an Alpine
Planarian studied by Voigt. It is a relict of glacial
conditions, a northern form, abounding in the mountain
streams around Bonn; observation and experiment show
that warmth hinders its sexual reproduction; out of 4000
specimens not one was sexual; it is keeping its foothold
in existence solely in virtue of its asexual reproduction,

36 ; PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

In other words, a potency which, to begin with, is only a.
subsidiary alternative, may in special circumstances attain
an essential predominance. This, also, should be borne im
mind when we think of regenerative phenomena.

Fourthly, it may be profitable to keep by themselves
those cases where an artificially cut off small fragment is
able to reproduce an entire animal. In regard to the
Protozoa, we know that a fragment of a cell may in
propitious conditions regrow an entire creature, provided
always that the fragment be in some measure nucleated—
provided, that is to say, that the organisation of the cell-
firm is not destroyed by the fragmentation. The experi-
ments on Stentor, for instance, illustrate this point clearly.
There does not appear to be any special problem here, since
so many of the Protozoa are in the habit of multiplying by
fission, or by giving off buds.

Similarly, in the familiar case of Hydra we know that
a fragment cut off will regenerate an entire polyp, provided
that it is not too minute in size (a quantitative limit), and
provided that it is a fair sample of the body and not, for
instance, a mere tip of a tentacle (a qualitative limit).
There does not appear to be any special problem here, since
the continuance of Hydra is mainly dependent on its.
multiplication by buds. And the same might be said of
many Planarians, which also multiply asexually.

We see, then, that in approaching the problem of the
regeneration of lizards’ tails, newts’ legs, snails’ horns,
starfishes’ arms, it is useful to bear in mind :—(1) the facts-
of experimental embryology, (2) the normal process of
tissue-regeneration, (3) the frequency of reproduction by
buds, and (4) those cases where a mere fragment regrows:
the whole.

The first fact in regard to the regrowth of lost parts
which I wish to illustrate is that the capacity has a very
unequal distribution among animals. It is very common in
worm-types, but almost absent, I believe, in Nematodes ; it is.
common in Cheetopods, but unknown in leeches; it is general
among Arthropods, but there is not very much of it in
Molluscs ; it is well seen in Amphibians, especially in the
tadpoles and newts, but it is not much in evidence among

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS, 37

fishes ; it is common among lizards, but not among snakes ;
and soon. A bird’s toe or the end of a mammal’s tail can
hardly be regarded as more complex than a starfish’s arm or
the visceral organs inside a Crinoid calyx ; but while regenera-
tion is characteristic of Echinoderms, it is at a minimum
in Birds and Mammals.

When we follow this fact into greater detail, the in-
equality of distribution becomes even more striking. The
weakly developed limbs of Siren and Proteus are not
regenerated, but the strongly developed limbs of Triton are.
Although in many families of lizards regeneration of
the tail is common, it is incomplete or absent in those whose
tails are used in prehension, as in Chameleons, or as organs
of defence. A salamander will regrow an amputated limb
if the bone be cut across and not disarticulated, but in a
frog the wound heals without regeneration. In Phom-
chilidium, Loeb finds that a.cut between the second and
third limbs is followed by regrowth of the oral segments,
but that is probably unique among Arthropods (Arch.
Entwickmech., ii. (1895), pp. 250-7. 3 figs.).

Another general fact is that while the regeneration of
external parts is common, that of internal parts is rare,
among backboned animals, and rare even in backboneless
animals except in cases like that of the earthworm or star-
fish, where the cutting off of part of the body necessarily
injures the internal organs, such as alimentary and nervous
‘systems. If a rabbit’s spleen be removed, it is not replaced ;
if a fragment be left, it does not grow larger. Similarly the
excision of a kidney, the thyroid, a liver-lobe, and so on, is
not known to be followed by regenerative growth.

Now, the interpretation of these two sets of facts, which
has occurred to many naturalists, from Réaumur to Weismann,
is summed up in what is known as Léssona’s law. In 1868
Léssona formulated the working hypothesis that regenera-
tion tends to be well-marked in those animals and in those
parts of animals which are in the course of natural life
very liable to injury—to which I venture to add two saving
‘clauses, always provided that the lost part be of some vital
importance, and that the wound or injury be not in itself
likely to be fatal. The theory—the Darwinian interpreta-

38 ; PROF, J, ARTHUR THOMSON ON

tion, we may call it—is, in Weismann’s words, that “ the
power of regeneration possessed by an animal or by a part.
of an animal is regulated by adaptation to the frequency of
loss, and to the extent of the damage caused by the loss.”

It is evident, at once, that the lank and slender bodies
of worms, the arms of starfishes and brittle stars, the
sprawling limbs of newts, the long tails of lizards, and so.
on, are naturally liable to injury, and that a regenerative
capacity is a quality which natural selection would foster.
It is also evident that internal organs are much less likely
to be cut out than external organs are to be cut off. It is.
also certain that visceral wounds are much more likely to
be fatal in Vertebrates than in Invertebrates, so that a
regenerative capacity in the former would be, so to speak,.
a quality wasted, whereas in the less sensitive Invertebrates,
where it often occurs, it is very much in demand,

I do not think we are likely in the present state of
science to attain to any theory which will enable us to
express the mechanism of regeneration—how it is that a
regenerative power resides in a lizard’s tail or in a snail’s.
horn; it seems more useful, until more data are accumulated,
to try to come to some decision on the simpler question,
whether Léssona’s law is a sufficient formula to cover the
known facts in regard to the occurrence of regeneration, I
have no desire to dogmatise on so difficult a question ; I only
say that the hypothesis has considerable merit, and deserves
to be fairly tested.

In testing it we are at once led to ask whether there are
any well-authenticated cases of regeneration of parts such as-
would not. be likely to be injured or lost in natural
conditions. A number of difficult cases have been suggested,
and we may consider a few which are typical of many
others.

In his “ Germ-Plasm,” Weismann admitted the difficulty
of the stork, whose upper beak was accidentally broken off,
whose lower beak was amputated to the same length, with
the result that both were regenerated. Was there any
evidence that such an injury might occur in ordinary life,
and might therefore have some organic provision made for
its compensation? The difficulty was lessened by the report.

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS. 39

of Bordage, that in cock-fights similar injuries were frequent,
and were often followed by most striking regeneration, In
one case the premaxille and part of the mandible were torn
off—a large fraction of the entire beak—yet both bones
and horny coverings were regenerated, Now, cock-fighting,
though elaborated by men of more or less evil device, is a
natural phenomenon, and, in connection with regeneration
problems, of much more biological importance than the
careless might suppose. When we remember that male
storks also fight furiously, sometimes fatally, the difficulty
of the stork’s bill seems, as Weismann says, almost to
become an exception proving the rule.

Everyone is familiar with the fact that a lizard seized by
its tail or struck on the tail may relinquish possession of
that appendage and thus save its life. Natural history
curiosity-books describe the muscular wrigglings of the
detached member. Now, since the lizard’s tail is a part that
would be naturally enough seized by a cautious enemy, that
there should be organic provision for its replacement is not
surprising. The fact that there is in some cases a structural
peculiarity in the vertebree which renders breakage easy,
corroborates the interpretation. The frequent exuberance
of the organic provision for regrowth was illustrated by a
lizard which I had for some time in my possession, whose
tail from a certain point was double. So far good, but
what of those cases where there is in lizards’ tails either no
regeneration after loss or only a very incomplete one?
Part of the answer has, I think, been given by Werner, who
has devoted much attention to lizards’ tails, for he points
out that the regeneration is absent or very incomplete in
those whose tails are differentiated as prehensile, or as
defensive organs. It seems plain that a tail which is
known to strike, or a tail coiled on a branch, would be much
less likely to be seized than the ordinary wagging and
partially locomotor tail of other lizards.

Another difficult case which Weismann discusses is that
of the eye of the newt (Zviton), which may be regenerated,
as Bonnet and Blumenbach showed, after very serious injury.
We now know that if the lens alone be carefully taken out,
it will be replaced—a fact to which I must afterwards refer.

40 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

But what chance is there that in nature a newt should have
its eye gouged out? To this, Weismann answers that
newts fight furiously, at anyrate at the breeding season, and
often injure one another; and that the larve of the large
water-beetle (Dytiscus marginalis) often attack newts just
behind the head. To this, I may add the observation,
whose importance I did not unfortunately realise at the
time, that the water-snail Planorbis may -actually kill
salamanders, getting upon their backs and filing them with
their radule, I do not attach importance to my addition,
except that it seems to indicate that a fuller knowledge of
the life of these Amphibians will show that the serious
injury of an eye is not an unnatural casualty.

In locusts and other insects of the same tribe, the loss
of one of the first two pairs of legs is followed by regeneration.
This is a well-known fact, but there is a peculiarity about it
which will require subsequent reference. What seems more
striking is that the posterior or third pair of legs, which are
of great importance in jumping, are not regenerated. Now
why should this be, that the less important may be regrown
while the more important are not? I think the answer is
found in the observation of Bordage that loss of the posterior
limbs almost prevents moultings, leaves the locust exposed
to great danger, and furthermore prevents breeding. In
other words, the case is almost covered by my second
addendum to Léssona’s law, “ provided that the injury be not
fatal.” Nor can one conceive how organic provision could be
made for an injury which prevents breeding. The pre-
vention of breeding is a full stop in evolutionary progress.

The last case seems to me fairly cogent ; let me now give
one which may seem more far-fetched. Miss Helen D.
King (Archiv Entwickelungsmechanik, vii. (1898), pp. 357—
63. 1 pl.) notes that in the case of the starfish (Asterias
vulgaris) an isolated arm will regenerate the whole if it has
about a fifth of the disc left, and the not uncommon
occurrence of “ comet-forms,” as some have called them, bears
this out. These comet-forms consist of a fully-developed
arm, a partially-formed disc, and four rudiments of the
missing four arms. The investigator also notes, and this is
the point here, that while the ventral part of an arm may

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS. 41

regenerate the dorsal surface, the converse does not occur.
It might be said that the ventral surface, with its tube-
feet, water-vessel, nerve-strand, etc., is much the more
complex; but, on the other hand, it seems justifiable to point
out that the dorsal surface is, in natural conditions, much
more open to attack and injury than the ventral surface
adhering to the rock. Again, perhaps, the exception proves
the rule.

Another apparent difficulty which turns out to be a
corroboration is expounded by Bordage. It is perhaps a
little difficult to follow without diagrams, but it is worth a
little trouble. The lower or tarsal joints of the legs of
locusts and the like are not difficult to dislocate, and in the
two front pairs they are readily regenerated. But if the
leg be tried higher up, it requires great force to break it
between parts 1 and 2 (coxa and trochanter), or still more
between parts 2 and 3 (trochanter and femur). The injury
is often fatal, but if the insect survives and is young,
regeneration may be effected, especially if the separation
was between parts 2 and 3, where it is with most difficulty
brought about. Now, after making all allowances for the
various ways in which locusts may be pulled about by one
another, or by birds and other enemies, it seems difficult to
see how in natural conditions sufficient force would be
exerted to break the leg, and still more difficult to under-
stand why regeneration should most frequently follow when
the breakage occurs at the most difficult place. Yet the
difficulty is premature, for observation of the frequent
moultings shows that when the locust is struggling out of
its old clothes, breakage at the joints is very apt to occur,
particularly at the trochanter-femur articulation, which
afterwards becomes so strong. The difficulty disappears and
becomes an argument in favour of the adaptive nature of
regenerative phenomena. Similarly, Bordage has shown in
regard to Phasmids, where the assaults of birds and lizards
seemed insufficient reason for the prevalent habit of breaking
off a leg at a particular line and regrowing it thence, that
the breakages during emergence from the egg or from the
cast husks have probably furnished sufficient reason for the
evolution of the restorative provision. Of a hundred

42 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

Phasmids, nine died during moulting, twenty-two tore
themselves free with a loss of one or more legs, and only
sixty-two survived without any loss.

The most difficult case I know of is that of the abdominal
appendages of hermit-crabs, which are normally protected
by the borrowed shell. There are five—the first very
rudimentary in males, but used for egg-carrying in the
females; the fourth and fifth used for fixing to the shell. It
is evident that all, especially the hindmost two pairs, are
little liable to be nipped off. But Professor T. H. Morgan
has shown that all the limbs are capable of regeneration,
though they do not all grow again equally often, the anterior
abdominal appendages being less frequently renewed than the
more exposed thoracic limbs, though even these are not
always restored after loss. He therefore concludes that
there is here no relation between frequency of loss and
regenerative capacity—a thesis which would be fatal to:
Léssona’s law. Weismann’s general answer is that the
regenerative capacity shown by the hermit-crab’s abdominal
limbs may be a persistent inheritance from ancestral forms.
with exposed tails. Morgan protests against this attempt
to shunt the interpretation back to the shadowy past of
possible ancestral history, but I do not myself see anything
to complain of in Weismann’s argument. I should like,
however, to enquire more particularly into the life of
hermit-crabs to find out whether there are not now—in
combats, in shifting from one shell to another, and particu-
larly in moultings—some very good reasons for the per-
sistence of regenerative capacity in these same hind legs.

Another objection to the theory which interprets the
occurrence of regenerative capacity as adaptive is found in
those strange and highly interesting cases where the re-
growth takes place, but not according to pattern. As.
Spallanzani showed in 1768, and Morgan in 1899 (Anat.
Anzeiger, xv. (1899), pp. 407-410. 9 figs.), a decapitated
earthworm may grow a second tail (as shown by the direction
of the nephridia) instead of replacing its lost head. But.
this only serves to show that the regenerative machinery
does not always work rightly. It confirms us in our belief
that animals are by no means perfect in their adaptations.

REGENERATION OF .LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS. 43

Even in ordinary development things may go wrong, and a
headless creature may be formed.

If we believe that this is the best of all possible worlds—
i.¢., that adaptations are perfect—then the fact that regenera-
tion does not always work rightly may prove a stumbling-
block. But there seems little reason for accepting the
belief.

Let us consider a few more instances. Werner points out
that when a lizard regrows its tail, it does not always adhere
to the pattern (8. B. Akad. Wiss. Wien, v. (1896), pp. 34-35).
When the scales are comparatively simple, the regeneration
is almost perfect, but when the scales are complex and there
is much ornamentation, the regenerated tail is simpler than
that which has been lost; it tends to be an ancestor’s taal
that is regrown. Or to put it in another way, the orna-
ments and elaborations which are present in the adult,
though absent in the embryo, are absent also in the regen-
erated tail. This does not seem surprising, if regeneration be
regarded as due to a local persistence and re-awakening of
embryonic growing powers. It is interesting also to notice
that if the upper or distal part of the tail be different from
the proximal part nearer the tip, then the regenerated tail
follows the distal pattern.

There seems, indeed, to be a widespread tendency towards
the reproduction of a simpler or ancestral form, or, in some
cases, of a simpler, more embryonic form. Thus in cock-
roaches and walking-stick insects (Phasmide), where there
are normally five tarsal joints at the end of the leg, the re-
generated limb has only four tarsal joints, which is believed to
be the ancestral number. Weismann cites the observation of
Fritz Miiller, that in a Brazilian shrimp, Atyoida potimorim,
the long clawed forceps are replaced in regeneration by the
older short-fingered type of forceps, seen in the allied genus
Caridina, That this cannot be due to mere lack of material
is evident, he says, from the fact noted by Barfurth that the
four-fingered hand of the Axolotl is replaced after amputa-
tion by a more typical five-fingered hand. It might also be
noted that regeneration will occur perfectly in half-starved
animals. Weismann’s particular theory is that the hypo-
thetical regeneration-germs which he supposes to reside in

44 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

areas liable to injury have lagged a little behind the evolu-
tion of the part to which they correspond, and which they
are able to replace. I should be more inclined to restate
the facts more vaguely, but perhaps more cautiously—that
residual powers of embryonic growth are here and there
persistent, ready to express themselves on appropriate
stimulus, but tending to a simpler result than that attained
in the course of the normal slow growth, partly because the
regeneration tends to be rapid, and partly because the con-
ditions are different,

A crab loses a limb, the wound is closed by the cuticle,
and a limb-bud begins to appear. Whether we imagine that
there are special regeneration-germs specifically constituted
for limb-making and resident at likely spots, or suppose that
there is in the bud, as in the imaginal discs of a pupating
insect, a return to embryonic conditions, a re-arrangement
of material under the influence of novel stimuli, or make
other suppositions, we have to face the fact that the re-
generation does not always come up to the mark.

An antenna may grow in place of an _ insect’s leg
(Wheeler), or a leg instead of an antenna (Kraatz). An
abdominal appendage in the edible crab may be replaced by
a walking leg (Bethe), or an antenna instead of the eye-
bearing stalk ina shrimp. The cases where a Crustacean
does not get an eye for an eye, but something simpler, have
been especially studied, and are very interesting (Herbst
and Morgan). In Palewmon, Herbst observed that a lost eye
was replaced by a short stalk-like structure with sete and
a flagellum; in Sieyona, the new part had sometimes a basal
piece and two branches (Archiv Entwicklungsmechanik,
li, (1896), pp. 544-558 ; Festschrift Nat. Ges. Ziirich, ii. pp.
435-454, 1 pl.).

We need not multiply instances, but it should be noticed
that most of them concern animals whose limbs normally
pass from one form to another with successive moultings,
and, as Przibram suggests, it is worth asking whether the
antenna instead of an eye was really the final result of the
restorative process. In his experiments on Daphnia and
Asellus, he found that the limb which came from a regenerat-
ing limb-bud was not at first perfect, though it became

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS. 45.

normal after repeated moultings (Zool. Anzeig., xix. (1896),
pp. 424-5. 2 figs.) He also makes the note, which others.
confirm, that young animals regenerate lost parts more
rapidly than older forms do. Just as some plants show a
reduction of cambium as they grow older, so there may be
a reduction in the residual germ-stuff which in some way or
other is instrumental in effecting regeneration.

In thinking about regeneration the marvel of the
process by which the stump of a snail’s horn will regrow
the whole horn with the eye at the tip included, and will
regrow it not once or twice, but as often apparently as the
experimenter’s patience lasts—we should, I think, recall two-
important biological ideas. The first is the way in which
one stage in growth gives rise to another. Between
the apparently simple egg and the obviously complex bird
there seems such a gap, that we are bewildered by the
apparent disproportion between cause and effect. But the
bewilderment lessens as we follow the development from.
stage to stage, and see how one phase naturally and gradually
leads on to the next. The words gradual differentiation
and integration solve no mystery, but they save us from a
false perspective. And what is true of embryonic develop-
ment is to some extent true also of regenerative growth.

It is, of course, striking to see how from within its.
cuticular sheath there suddenly bursts forth a beautifully
formed lobster limb, stretching itself out like a Jack-in-the-
box. But the abruptness of the phenomenon is wholly
superficial; there has been a long period of gradual
differentiation within the husk of the limb-bud. There
are not many Jack-in-the-box phenomena in organic nature.
I do not see my way at present to any theory of the
mechanism of regeneration, nor do I believe that the
times are ripe for it. But it is well to point out that we
must not make the miracle more mysterious than it is.
Comparisons between living creatures and crystals are apt.
to be misleading, though their utility will perhaps be
recognised in the future; but let me remind you that a
minute fragment of alum, fashioned artificially into a sphere,
or a cylinder, or a lens, will, when dropped into a solution.
of alum, develop into a perfect octahedron, through what.

A6 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

Rauber calls an- imperfect embryonic stage; or a sphere of
saltpetre will similarly regenerate a rhombic prism; and
any mutilation of a crystal will be followed by a restoration
of the normal form. I mean to hint that the gap between
the little spherule of alum and the octahedral mass is
comparable to the gap between the regenerative cap at
the anterior end of a decapitated Naiad worm and the re-
grown head. The gaps are bridged by a gradual series
of differentiations and integrations.

There is a second fact which we do well to remember in
thinking about regeneration—the marvel of the process by
which a decapitated earthworm or Planarian or Tubularian
grows a new head, by which a curtailed earthworm or
lizard grows a new tail, by which a newt grows a new lens
or a new leg, so to speak, at command. This second fact
is that we must try to allow for the influence of environing
stimuli. The residual germinal power in the animal counts
for much, but this is localised and operates under the
influence of a particular environment, which also counts
for much, though not for so much.

Perhaps this point may be best understood by reference
to what is called abstrusely heteromorphosis. A few
illustrations must suffice. If a fragment be cut off a
Tubularian, and one end be stuck in the sand, a head may
regenerate at the free end whether that was originally
upper or lower, oral or aboral. But if both ends be left
free, the fragment regenerates a head at each end. Evidently
the environmental influences count for something here.
But while the common Zubularia can regrow its crown of
tentacles at either end, the anemone Cerianthus can regrow
them only at the distal end. So that not very far from the
plastic Tubularia we find the less plastic Cerianthus, whose
regenerative power is limited by something which we may
call “inherent polarity "a something, at anyrate, which
cannot be overthrown by altered external conditions, such as
placing the piece upside down. Miss Bickford cut off the
head of a Tubularian straight across, new tentacles were
regrown at a certain distance from the wound; Driesch
made the cut oblique, and the tentacles regrew obliquely
to the longitudinal axis, and were not righted in the

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS. 47

course of subsequent growth. The direction of the cut
counted for something. If a posterior portion of an earth-
worm be cut off obliquely, there is on the part of the
anterior portion a sort of sloughing which effects a straight
plane for regrowth of the missing hind piece. But if the
worm be decapitated obliquely, an anterior bud grows out
at right angles to the surface of the wound, and is
gradually brought into its proper position as growth goes
on, unlike what occurs in TJwbularia. The variety in
different cases seems to suggest that the result is, as it were,
a compromise between the inherent growth-tendencies of the
organism and the environmental stimuli operative in each case.

I have left to the end any notice of one of the most
puzzling facts which the recent study of regeneration has
brought to light—the fact that the regenerative growth is
sometimes very different from that which occurs in
embryonic development. Two examples must suffice.
When the anterior end of a Naiad is cut, an ectodermic cap
is formed, according to Hepke, over the wound; in the
concave interior of this cap all the organs to be replaced
gradually appear; muscles, which are normally mesodermic,
are formed by cells migrating from the ectoderm, and a gut
apparently ectodermic grows back to meet the severed
endodermic gut (Zool. Anzeig., xix. (1896), pp. 513-6).
In the Annelid, Ophryotrocha puerilis, as described by Rievel
(Zeitschr. wiss. Zool., |xii. (1896), pp. 289-234. 3 pls. 1
fig.), the very front of the new gut formed in regenerating
the results of decapitation is made by a forward growth of the
old endodermic gut, whereas normally the fore-gut should,
of course, be ectodermic. According to Michel, the caudal
bud which regenerates a curtailed Nephthys is wholly
ectodermic (Comptes Rendus, Acad. Sci. Paris, exxiii.
(1896), pp. 1015—7, 1080-2). In Tubifex, the anteriorly
regenerated fore-gut is endodermic all but a small, most
anterior piece (Haase). It is plain that regenerative growth
does not necessarily follow the path of embryonic develop-
ment, but the same sort of difficulty arises in connection
with the buds of Tunicates and Polyzoa, and is perhaps a

hint that we tend in embryology to make too much of the
distinctiveness of the germinal layers.

48 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON ON

My second instance is more clear cut. Calucci, Wolff,
and Miiller have made the experiment of extracting the
lens of Triton, with the result that it was normally
regenerated. From what, however? Not from remaining
debris of the lens, for there was none, but from the iris,
Leucocytes at the edge of the iris begin to take off pigment
from the posterior layer, the cleared iris cells proliferate,
the mass formed becomes a saccule, and the posterior wall
of this saccule forms the characteristic crystalline fibres of a
new lens. Now, since the lens-is normally formed from
the ectoderm in front of the optic cup, and has no genetic
connection with the iris, it is startling to find that the iris
should regenerate it. If the facts be all right, and we have
at least three observers, this case seems against the theory
that specific regeneration-germs reside in particular areas.
We might expect the iris to have iris-regeneration-germs,
but it seems able to remake a lens, in whose original making
it plays no part. So far as I can see, the case favours the
view that the residual germinal power localised here and
there in animals is more general and less specific than some
suppose. It may be noted further that the newt is an
animal with great regenerative power in many parts, and
may be contrasted with an animal like the rabbit, where
regeneration of the lens does not follow after complete
extirpation, but only if some portion be left (Gonin).
Moreover, it must be remembered that the posterior
epithelium of the iris, which regenerates the lens, is.
ectodermic.

In conclusion, let me say again that the times do not
seem to be ripe for a theory of the actual mechanism of
regeneration. I should only weary you if I tried to make
clear the provisional theory of Weismann and the criticisms:
of it by men like Professor Morgan.

A crocodile loses a tooth, but beneath its hollow base
there is another ready to fill the gap, and not far off there
is the rudiment of another. The adder casts a fang; behind
it there is another ready to slip into place, and to re--
establish in a most interesting way a connection with the
poison duct. Now, we may suppose that when a crab loses a
claw there is resident at the area of rupture a rudiment

REGENERATION OF LOST PARTS IN ANIMALS. 49

capable of starting the development of another claw, not a
rudiment visible to the eye indeed, but a residual particle
of specialised germ-plasm, lying there awaiting a possible
awakening stimulus.

Or perhaps we may conceive that in certain animals and
parts of animals, the cells which once took part in growth,
but have become, as it were, stereotyped in certain forms,
still retain a residual power of doing what was done once
before, and that when a wound is made, there comes about
a re-arrangement and re-adjustment of the molecular con-
stitution of the implicated cells, who thereupon set about
their old task of growth, not always, however, able to
accomplish it perfectly, and sometimes so affected by the
novel stimuli that they do it hurriedly in a rough and
ready fashion, or in a wrong way altogether.

But these matters are too high for us, we cannot under-
stand them. Therefore, I have contented myself in this
paper with arguing for Léssona’s law that regeneration is,
in its expression, an adaptive phenomenon, tending to occur
in those animals and in those parts of animals which are in
natural conditions most liable to loss, always provided that
the part lost be of real importance, and that the injury be
not in itself fatal. All of which comes to this, that the
distribution of regenerative capacity is to be accounted for
on the theory of Natural Selection.*

* This paper was read before the appearance of Prof. Morgan’s treatise on
‘Regeneration’ (1901), which supplies the serious student with a most
instructive balance-sheet of facts and opinions,

ANTS.

By J. G. GoopcuILD, of the Geological Survey, F.G.S., F.Z.S.,
Custodian of the Collections of Scottish Geology and
Mineralogy in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and
Art, Past President.

(Read 4th April 1901.)

Ir has probably happened to most people who have been
sitting on a sunny bank in the warmer months of the year, that
VOL. II.

50 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

they have casually turned over a flat stone which lay near
to them, and have found that, in doing so, they have un-
intentionally intruded upon the privacy of a community of
ants. The moment that the roof is lifted from their house,
the inmates get into a state of much excitement and alarm,
and run hither and thither in a very nervous and fussy sort
of way, evidently, at first, as if they were not quite sure of the
nature of the calamity that hadbefallen them. When they have
quite realised the situation, their first thought seems to be, not
to rush away into a place of concealment with a view to their
own safety, but rather to attend to the preservation of the
apparently lifeless objects one sees in the nest, and which
are usually known by the name of “ants’ eggs.” These, of
course, are not the eggs of the ants, but are their larve, or
pupe, as the case may be. For the purpose in view here
it will suffice to refer to these as the ants’ young ones.
There seems to be great confusion at the outset, as if no
one knew what best to do. But if the movements of the
ants are carefully watched, it will be seen that some of them
almost immediately go to the entrances leading to various”
underground passages, and after clearing away any débris
that may have obstructed the entrance, they disappear
below. Probably they go down to clear the way for the
young ones, around whose safety the anxiety of the whole
community obviously centres. In the meantime, and as if
by the direction of some overseer, the ants who have
remained at the surface have each one seized the object
about whose safety they are all so much concerned, taking
a young one in their jaws just as a cat walks off with its
kitten, and, loaded with these, they hurry to the entrance
to one of the tunnels, and after a good many struggles
they manage to push their way in with their helpless
burden, and eventually deposit it safely in the nursery
below.

A careful observer will note the interesting fact that,
notwithstanding the flurry and excitement manifested by
the members of the ant community, they never run against
each other, nor do any two of them make for the same hole,
nor in any other way does there seem to be any lack of
order or discipline in their movements, even though the

ANTS, 5

catastrophe could not have been foreseen, and also though
there is apparently no ant in the position of general or
' director to co-ordinate their several movements. It is very
wonderful, when one comes to think of it; like much else
that ants and other social hymenoptera do. After a time
the last of the young ones has been carried into a place of
safety, and then the observer, who has been the unwitting
cause of so much anxiety to the tiny household, will, of
course, put back the stone into its former position, so that
when the ants find the roof again over their heads they may
return and put their place in order, and go on with their
household duties as before.

Very many books have been written about ants, and
there will probably be a considerable number more before
our knowledge of many points in both their life-history and
their habits in general are accurately known. Some of the
lacune in our knowledge will be referred to as this Address
proceeds; but as, upon several other points, the facts appear
to be tolerably well known, it may be as well to present
these in something like a connected form, so that this
article may serve, for the time being, as an ant biography.
In doing this, the fact will not be lost sight of that the
habits, and perhaps also the life-history, of no two species
of ants are exactly alike. Between some, indeed, the
differences in this respect are very considerable. Still,
there is much that is common to the species belonging to
many different genera, and it is these common features
which are referred to here.

Ants belong to the Order Hymenoptera, which includes
the Bees, Wasps, Sawflies, Gallflies, Ichneumons, and some
others. Mr Grimshaw tells me that 31,000 species of
Hymenoptera are known, and that of these, 3000 have been
recorded as British. There are about 1000 species of Ants
known in different parts of the world, and we have about
thirty of these as natives of Britain, with a few more here
which have made this their home after being accidentally
brought in from foreign countries. A list of the British
Ants, with descriptions of the species, will be found in the
Rev. W. Farren White’s Ants and their Ways, Appendix,

52 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

2nd ed., pp. 228-250 (Religious Tract Society, London, 1895),
to which reference may be usefully made in connection with
other matters relating to ants. Sir John Lubbock’s (Lord
Avebury) Ants, Bees, and Wasps, is, of course, indispensable
in this connection.

The chief points connected with the morphology of ants.
that call for mention here are but the few that are directly
related to such of the habits prevalent amongst this group
as are here referred to. There are, of course, as in all other
insects, three pairs of jointed legs, armed with sharply
forked terminal claws, and provided with bristles, which are
used for toilet purposes, as well, probably, for some forms of
perception. The worker ants have no wings. The head is.
provided with two ordinary eyes, and with ocelli in addition.
There are conspicuous antenne, which are sharply kneed at
about a third from the base, and are capable of a con-
siderable range of movement. These are important as
organs of sense. The mouth parts, as in all arthropods,
are very complex, and the representatives of the jaws move
sideways, instead of up and down as they do in vertebrates.
These mouth parts serve many purposes in ant economy,
and act, amongst other ways, in much the same way as.
hands do with us. They can also inflict severe wounds,.
which, for the size of the biter, are by no means small.
The abdomen is joined on to the thorax by two stalks, one:
of which is very slender, as its analogue is in the wasps.
This is intended to give great mobility to the movements.
of the hinder parts. This flexibility is furthered still more
by a second constriction, which occurs between the first ring
of the abdomen and those behind it. It is this which gives
rise to the “scale” characteristic of the group. The head
may be said to be the centre around which the several
parts are specially adapted to perception. The thorax is.
the part that is concerned in locomotion. The abdomen,
looked at in the same light, may be regarded as a labora-
tory, where, besides the processes connected with assimilation
which are there carried out, is situated the manufactory and
store of the formic acid which plays so important a part in.
many of the animal’s ways.

ANTS, 53

This formic acid is allied in both its composition and its
effects upon other animals to the irritant secreted by the
Common Stinging Nettle, and also to the poison used with so
much effect by the Wasps and Bees. Those who have not
realised what formic acid can do might try the effect of
holding a freshly scratched or pricked finger over an ants’
nest just after this has been disturbed. The resulting sen-
sation will enable them to understand how it happens that
when an ant has bitten some other small creature with its
powerful jaws, and has immediately squirted some of its
formic acid into the wound, the injured animal quickly
succumbs to the effects of the irritant poison. Ants have
no stings; but their mode of offensive attack just referred
to is quite as effectual in its operation as the neater and, so
to speak, more scientific method adopted by its cousins the
Wasps.

Let us now imagine that we go back to an ants’ nest, and
we will further suppose that the intrusion this time takes
place in August. The chances are, in that case, that then
we should see that the disturbed community consists of at
least two kinds of ants. The majority would still consist of
these kinds that we saw so busily at work carrying away
their young ones and repairing the damage to their home.
The remainder are provided with wings, and seem to con-
cern themselves much less about domestic calamities, even
those befalling the young ones, than their wingless fellow-
lodgers do. Replacing the roof of the house, as before, we
might afterwards continue to observe the ways of the ants
for a week or two, and observe what happens.

Some fine morning in August, after the sun has dried up
all the dew, we may thus find that a vast army of the
winged ants will sally forth from the nest and begin to
mount into the air. By some instinctive impulse, the
nature of which is yet unknown, all the neighbouring winged
ants of the same species do the like, with the result that
the air in places may seem full of them. The swarms accumu-
late to such an extent in some cases, that the motion of
their wings in the bright sunshine has been said to give the
impression of the movements of a large body of smoke; and

54 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

it is even said that people have been deceived into the
belief that an extensive conflagration was in progress, when
the appearance has been caused by nothing more than the
aerial movements of a large body of winged ants. The
impulse that has driven so many of the winged forms out
from the nest into the air is of the same nature as that
which leads to the swarming of bees. The swarm consists
exclusively of winged male ants, which correspond to the
drones in a bee-hive, together with winged females, each of
which answers to the queen bee in the same community.
The nuptial flight continues for some hours. A vast
gathering of that kind nearly always attracts great numbers of
predaceous animals of other kinds, who greedily devour a
large proportion of the swarm, either in the air or on the
ground. The male ants are especially liable to attacks of
this kind, especially after they have fallen exhausted to the
ground ; and it is said that at the close of the day when the
swarming has taken place, hardly any of the males who
have taken part in the nuptial flight are left undevoured.
The female ants are decimated too; but many of these con-
trive to escape. What happens to those who do escape being
eaten is not yet fully known. It is believed that some of the
female ants wing their way back to the parent formicary, and,
arrived at the entrance, they double back upon their wings,
break them off as appendages never to be again required,
quietly re-enter, and take their place as joint sovereigns—or
shall we say princesses ?—along with their mother. In other
cases, and perhaps this is what happens as a rule, the winged
female carefully selects a suitable spot for founding a new
colony, alights there, divests herself of the now useless
wings—for the nuptial flight occurs but once in their lives
—enters the chosen spot quite alone, and begins to keep
house.

Now, in considering the sequel to this history, we have
to bear in mind several facts. One of these is that ants
go through a great deal of labour in founding and extending
their abodes. They dig, carry the material from one place
to another, rearrange it, as a mason might do, plan the
work from the first so that the drainage, warming, and
ventilation are all properly attended to. Arrangements.

ANTS. 55

have further to be made for extensive nurseries, for the
storage of food in some cases, for easy access to food
supplies in all cases, and for adequate protection against
the inroads of such of their enemies as they can cope
with. Verily these multifarious duties form no light task
for one person to perform; and it is the queen mother,
whose early married (or widowed) life we are now
considering, who plans and carries out all these essentials
in their earlier stages. Had her husband lived, he,
lazy scamp, would have done nothing to help, and would
only have been in the way, and have been one more to
provide for.

So the queen sets to work, manages to get a living
somehow, and, when the heavy autumn dews render work
out of doors impossible for an ant, she bides within. And
when the nipping frosts of later months make active life
intolerable, she is supposed to go off for a quiet slumber
—the only rest she has a chance of getting until her
coming young family have grown up, and can take over
the various household duties she has at present to carry
on alone.

So the Winter months pass; Spring returns, and, with
the advent of warmer sunshine, domestic activity recom-
mences. Her husband died in August, and it is now
April, and she lays her first egg. This egg is not closed
up in a cell with a store of good provisions in it like the
bees lay up for their young ones. The egg, on the contrary,
has to be carefully looked after at all hours of the day.
It must not get too dry, too cold, or too warm; so the
queen mother has, besides her other domestic duties, to
carry the egg about from place to place many times during
the day. Soon afterwards a second egg is laid; and the
tasks are doubled. So matters go on day after day for
a variable time, ranging from a fortnight to six weeks,
when the first egg is hatched and the helpless larva is
divested of its swaddling clothes. The newly-born young
one now has to be fed, as well as cleaned and tended to
in other ways. So, whatever happens, the queen mother
has to go out alone to get food, for there is no reason to
suppose that it is stored up in any way. Ants feed upon

56 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

a considerable variety of substances, with a very marked
preference for those of a saccharine nature. Nobody yet
seems to know what food the queen mother gets in a state
of nature when “suckling” the young one; but she feeds
it with some nutritive juice, and by much the same method
as that adopted by pigeons in the case of the early stages
of their young. This kind of work goes on for a month,
by which time the larva is “full-fed” and changes into
the stage of pupa. Even in this half-animate state the
young ones require close attention to warmth, light,
moisture, etc., quite as much as the eggs do.

The pupa stage extends from about three weeks to four,
according to the temperature and local conditions. At the
end of this time the young ant is hatched. It is usually,
and normally, a “neuter,’ or worker ant. Queen ants
appear to be developed only under certain special conditions,
which at present seem to be but imperfectly understood,
and may be under the control of the workers, as in the case of
Bees. The origin of the male ants will be considered later
on. It is stated that the queen ant may go on laying fertile
eggs in this way, every summer, for at least eight years—
a very remarkable fact, it will be generally admitted. She
is usually the mother of all the worker ants proper to her
household.

With the birth of the first worker ant, if new duties
arise for the queen, it may be said that her former
domestic duties no longer increase in proportion to the
number of the colony. Every few hours additional helpers
arise, and it is certain that one by one these take over
much of the work that has been previously carried on
by the queen alone. It is not only the wants of the rising
generation that have to be attended to—and there is much
to be done in the way of keeping the house and the young
ones clean and well-fed—but there is mason work to be
done, and a host of other duties, whose number and variety
increase with the growth of the family. How the queen
ant manages to educate the young ones nobody yet knows,
and perhaps nobody ever will. But educated they are,
in some way. It is supposed that the young worker ants
go through a systematic course of instruction, beginning

ANTS. We

with the care of their younger sisters, and then going on
to the adaptation of the formicary to its growing requirements,
in the course of which much labour is expended. The
next stage seems to be that of catering for the household,
about which more will be said presently. Probably the
final stage of instruction is that connected with their duties
in connection with police or military work, defensive first
and offensive afterwards. That they do learn to do all
these things systematically no one can doubt, though we
do not know anything about the methods of instruction
followed; nor do we yet know whether the whole of the
education of the family is left to the queen, or is wholly or
in part delegated to some of the older workers as they acquire
the experience required and the number of workers increases.
Much—very much—yet remains for us to learn about the
habits of these little folk; and although we may be wiser
for considering their ways than we were, yet we are only,
so to speak, beginning to begin to learn the whole of the
truth.

I do not propose here to repeat the many interesting
stories that have been told about ants—many of which are,
doubtless, fully entitled to credence; but I shall, instead,
devote this Address to a broader review of the main facts.
It may, however, be remarked here that, in most respects,
but not in all, ants do undoubtedly show a much higher
grade of intelligence than any other invertebrate, or, for
that matter, than a great many vertebrate animals do. With
this power of adapting themselves to unfamiliar conditions,
which may fairly take rank as reason, there is a very wonderful
development of that lower grade of intelligence transmitted
to the generations of to-day from their ancestors for count-
less centuries past, which we speak of under the general
name of instinct. Which act out of many shall be referred
to the one category, and which to the other, it is often hard
to say. Sir John Lubbock gives many interesting illustra-
tions upon these points, which there is not time to quote
in this Address now, nor room in the Zransactions to print
afterwards. I may, however, in concluding this section of
my Address, express the admiration which we must all
feel for the wonderful altruism displayed by the queen

Don MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

ant and her daughters in regard to everything that
concerns the well-being of the colony of which they are
members.

The queen ant, as before stated, is the mother of all the
workers. How the male ants or drones arise is yet a
doubtful matter. Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) states
that in his formicaria the worker ants occasionally laid eggs.
These were fertile, and they invariably gave rise to male
ants. This is another one of several most remarkable facts
connected with ants. Lord Avebury does not state whether
he considered that all male ants have originated in this
way. I venture to think that perhaps it may some day be
proved that they have. Similar cases are not unknown in
other departments of the animal kingdom, but the subject
cannot well be discussed here.

Some reference has been made here to the warlike
propensities of certain ants. Probably these arose, in the
first instance, from a development of the action that the
inhabitants of a formicary have been compelled to take in
their own defence when attacked by other animals—-it may,
of course, be one more manifestation of their natural restless
and energetic disposition. However that may be, ants in
general are given, now and then, to raiding each other's nests
and carrying off some of the contents—the young ones
amongst others. Probably, in the earlier cases, the intention
has been to take these hapless babes home to eat; but,
however that may have been at first, it has now and then
happened that the young ones carried into captivity for this
purpose have been suffered to live and grow up amongst
their captors, just as our savage ancestors took the young of
wild beasts home and suffered them to remain as pets. No
one is allowed to be idle in an ants’ nest. If aliens, old or
young, are to remain there, they must do something for their
board and lodging like the rest of the colony. So these
captives have, as they have grown up, had to join in the
daily round and common task along with the rest, and they
have had to obey all the rules and regulations to which their
captors conform, thus becoming alike forgetful of self, and

ANTS. 59

anxious for the good of the colony, to the same extent as
the former denizens of the place. From this, as a
starting-point, has gradually developed one of the most
remarkable of the habits acquired by certain species of ants
—for they do not all do it—that of “slave-making.” In
the case of some species of ants the practice has been carried
out so long, and to such an extent, that the “masters” are
entirely dependent upon their “ slaves ”—being, indeed, too
indolent even to feed themselves. Formica sanguinea is the
only British species of slave-making ant, and, let us Britons
be thankful for it, this ant can and does quite commonly
do without slaves at all. Its “slaves” are Formica fusca,
F. cunicularia, and Lasius flavus. The ant just referred to as
helpless without its “ slaves” is Polyergus rufescens,

In the case of a large colony of ants it might be expected
that there would be a further division of labour than
happens in the case where the duties of the citizens have to
be performed by only afew. Accordingly, we find that some
species of ants have gradually evolved more than the three
forms hitherto referred to as the queen, the male, and the
worker. The evolution, as might be expected, starts by a
modification of the last-named form. One curious modifica-
tion arises from the need of having part of the community
told off for what may be termed police duty. This has led
to the gradual evolution of a special form of ant, which does
not appear to perform many of the duties carried out by the
rest of the colony. Another modification has started from
military requirements, which have resulted in the evolution
of a race of ants who are of not much use for anything but
fighting. They can bite and sting wonderfully well; but
they are, so to speak, simply of no use at all as nurses, or
housekeepers, or masons, or shepherds, or purveyors, or any
one of the other multifarious duties that fall to the lot of
the other members of the ant community.

Then another line of modification has had its origin in
the need for some one to attend to the meals while the rest
of the community are otherwise engaged. Even amongst the
commoner species of ants, certain individual workers,
apparently in no way different from the rest, are told off to

60 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

feed not only the young ones, but the other workers as well.
This they do by regurgitating from their “crops” a little of
the syrup upon which so many of them appear to subsist.
The food-ant told off for this work runs from one to another,
feeding them in turn as far as the supply will go. This
must be an old habit with ants, for certain species, such, for
example, as the Honey Ants, Camponotus, have given rise to
a form of worker (as all these modifications under considera-
tion are) which does little else than fill itself almost to
bursting with nectar, and then standing so that any other
worker can get a sip as she requires it. They have
developed, in fact, into animated honey-jars. In some parts
these Honey Ants are collected by the natives and are
actually sold in the markets as a source of mead, or some
drink allied to that. Many other modifications of the
worker ants have been developed. In one species the
modification may take one form, while, perhaps in a closely
allied species which has adopted different habits, it may take a
form quite different. It would require a fair-sized volume
to describe even a few of these, and I must therefore be
content to refer to two or three others by little else than
their title, and leave those who are interested in learning
more about them to gather the information from Lubbock,
White, Romanes, Hiiber, or others. Amongst these ants
may be mentioned the Harvesting Ants; the Hunting Ants,
Eciton, of Brazil; the Driver Ants, Anomma arcens, of West
Africa; and the Amazon Ant, Polyergus rufescens, already
referred to. There is also the Saiiba or Parasol Ants,
Aicodoma cephalotes, of Brazil, described by Bates in his
charming Naturalist on the River Amazons, to which further
reference should be made. Lubbock’s remarks on pp. 21—24
and pp. 237-9, op. cit., ought also to be consulted. There are
five classes of individuals in each nest of this species—queens,
males, the ordinary workers, large workers with very large
hairy heads, and other large workers with large polished
heads. Bates describes some of the habits of these ants as
follows :—“ This ant is seen everywhere about the suburbs of
Parad marching to and fro in broad columns, and from its
habit of despoiling the most valuable cultivated trees of
their foliage, it is a great scourge to the Brazilians. In

ANTS. 61

some districts it is so abundant that agriculture is almost
impossible, and everywhere complaints are heard of these
terrible pests. ... The Saiiba Ants mount the tree in
multitudes, the individuals being all worker minors. Each
one places itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts, with its.
sharp, scissor-like jaws, a nearly semicircular incision on the
upper side ; it then takes the edge between its jaws, and by
a sharp jerk detaches the piece. Sometimes they let the
leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap accumulates,
until carried off by another relay of workers; but generally
each marches off with the piece it has operated upon. .

This habit of the Saiiba Ant of clipping and carrying away
immense quantities of leaves has long been recorded in
books of natural history. When employed in this work,
their processions look like a multitude of animated leaves on
the march. In some places I found an accumulation of such
leaves, all circular pieces, about the size of a sixpence, lying
in the pathway, unattended by ants and at some distance
from any colony. . . . Such heaps are always found to be
removed when the place is revisited the next day. In
course of time I had plenty of opportunities of seeing
them at work. . .. As all take the same road to
their colony, the path they follow becomes in a short
time smooth and bare, looking like the impression of a
cart wheel under the herbage. It is a most interesting
sight to see the vast host of busy, diminutive labourers:
occupied on this work. Unfortunately they choose cultivated
trees for their purpose . ... plants imported from other
countries, such as the coffee and orange trees One night
my servant woke me three or four hours before sunrise by
calling out that the rats were robbing the farinha baskets. . . .
So I took my light and went into the store-room.... Ithere
found a broad column of Saiiba Ants, consisting of thousands
of individuals, as busy as possible passing to and fro between
the door and my precious baskets. Most of these passing
outwards were laden each with a grain of farinha, which was
in some cases larger and many times heavier than the
bodies of the carriers. . . . When engaged in leaf-cutting,
plundering farinha, and other operations, two classes of
workers are always seen. They are not, it is true, very

62 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

sharply defined in structure, for individuals of intermediate
grades occur. All the work, however, is done by the
individuals which have small heads, whilst those which have
enormously large heads, the worker majors, are observed to be
simply walking about, I could never satisfy myself as to
the functions of these worker majors.... I think they serve in
some sort as passive instruments of protection to the real
workers.... The third order of workers is most curious of all.
If the top of a small hillock, one in which the hatching
process is going on, be taken off, a broad cylindrical shaft is
disclosed at a depth of about two feet from the surface.
If this be probed with a stick .. . . a small number of colossal
fellows will slowly begin to make their way up the smooth
surface of the mine. Their heads are of the same size as
those of the former class of worker majors, but the point is
clothed with hairs instead of being polished, and they have
in the middle of the forehead a twin ocellus, a simple eye,
of quite a different structure from the ordinary compound
eyes on the sides of the head. This frontal eye is totally
wanting in the other workers, and is not known in any other
kind of ant. ... I never saw them under any other
circumstances than those here related, and what their
special functions may be I cannot divine.” I have quoted
Bates at some length in connection with the Umbrella Ants,
because the points noticed are not only of interest in them-
selves, but seem to me to serve well to illustrate the fact
that a high degree of specialisation has been attained in the
case of many species of ants. This, I think, points to
the high antiquity of this section of the Hymenoptera—
a conclusion to which further reference will again be
made.

What the Saiiba Ant does with the leaves is a matter
still open to question. Some have maintained that leaf-
cutting ants use the leaves for the purpose of cultivating
some fungi upon which the ants feed. It is likely enough:
but no one seems to know for certain that such is the
case.

In connection with the destructive habit of leaf-cutting,
another matter of interest arises, to which fuller reference
will be made further on.

ANTS. 63

Harvesting Ants occur in many parts of the world; but
I must content myself with a reference here to books which
have been specially written on these, particularly to the
works of Moggridge, Leopes, Forel, and others, referred to at
the end of this Address.

The habits of another species of Ant, the Driver Ant,
Anomma arcens, of West Africa, have been described by
Savage (Z'rans. Entom. Soc., 1847, p. 14). As these serve
{in a much exaggerated way) to illustrate the habits of some
of our British ants, the author’s words may be quoted
here :—‘“ They keep down the more rapid increase of noxious
insects and smaller reptiles; consume much dead animal
matter which is constantly occurring, decaying, becoming
offensive, and thus vitiating the atmosphere, and, which is
by no means the least important in the Torrid Zone, often
compelling the inhabitants to keep their dwellings, towns,
and their vicinity in a state of comparative cleanliness.
. .. Their entrance into a house is soon known by the simul-
taneous and universal movement of rats, mice, lizards, Blap-
side, Blattidee, and of the numerous vermin that infest our
dwellings.... They move over the house with a good deal
of order unless disturbed, occasionally spreading abroad, ran-
sacking one point after another. . . . When they are fairly
in we give up the house, and try to await with patience their
pleasure.” Bates (Naturalist on the River Amazons, vol. ii.
p. 364) describes the habits of the Hunting Ants of Brazil,
Eeiton vastator and £. erratica, in essentially the same
terms. These references will suffice to illustrate the fact that
ants are carnivorous—one might almost say that they are
omnivorous. But the fact remains—and it is a fact of greater
importance than seems to have been attached to it—that
ants in general have an almost insatiable craving after any-
thing sweet. Honey, sugar, treacle, anything of the kind,
including nectar, they must and will have, get it how they
may, and be it their staple food or not. Very much that
is of interest turns upon this fact. Firstly, we may briefly
notice the well-known fact that ants have long been
accustomed to climb trees in order to get at the honey-dew
left there by Aphides, Also that, having once found out
that delicacy, they have gone further and have traced the

64 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

honey-dew to its animal source, and have learnt how to
induce the Aphides to give up the desired sweet stuff direct
instead of wasting it upon the leaves. It has, of course, long
been part of our common stock of natural-history knowledge
that some ants do more than this, and actually tend the
Aphides for the sake of their secretion in much the same
way as we tend our kine, and in certain cases they even
house them, just as we would do in the parallel case of our
milk-producing animals. There is no need, even if there
were space available, to do more than refer to these facts,
seeing that they are already well known to most of us.

Another result of the craving for sweets which is shared
by all ants will be noticed more fully presently. In the
meantime some reference should be made to the parasites,
messmates, playfellows, partners, pets, and what one may
term ‘‘camp followers,” of the ants. Regarding parasites,
properly so termed, they need not be more than referred to here.
But many ants carry about them, in parts of their persons.
which are not easily got at by their own combs and brushes—
or by those of such of their fellows as attend to the toilets of
other ants—individuals of various species of mites (I have
been told) which simply use their host as a means of
locomotion. Lord Avebury tells me that he has watched
these tiny creatures clinging on behind the head of an ant,
and when she reached forward to feed on some nectar, the
mite hurried to the front and shared the feast, and then
withdrew in time to get another ride to a feast elsewhere,
What are we to call these creatures? Ina sense they are
messmates or commensals, somewhat like the Hydractinia
echinata) which live upon Fusus gracilis, or like the Sea-
anemone, Adamsia, on the shell carried about as a house by
one of the Hermit-crabs.

As regards the pets and playfellows of ants, there
yet seems to be some little uncertainty. That other in-
vertebrate animals—chiefly arthropods—living in the
formicaries are there really as playfellows, seems to be
generally accepted as a fact; but we must wait for the
results of further investigations before some of the doubtful
points relating to this are cleared up.

Ants are very clean creatures, and are often to be seen

ANTS. 65

cleaning themselves with the combs and brushes with which
their legs are furnished. These same toilet appliances are
used by them in a friendly way towards each other, and are
also much used in keeping the young ones tidy. With this
love of cleanliness it is perhaps no more than might have been
expected, that when any alien creature has made its way
into the formicary and has shown itself likely to be useful
in the way of tidying up, it has been allowed to remain,
However the thing may have arisen, there the scavengers
are, in almost every old-established formicary where their
services are likely to be useful,

Lastly, there are some few animals occasionally found
along with ants whose use in the household nobody has yet
been able even to guess at. Are they there as unbidden
guests like our rats and mice? Are they pets? Have they
Some odour which the ants like? Do they act in some way
beneficial to the ants, or what ? Some day we may get
answers to these questions. It has been stated that nearly
six hundred different species of arthropods—mostly insects,
and chiefly beetles—have been found living along with ants,
British or foreign; and many of these, especially of the
beetles, are found nowhere else than in formicaries,

Before passing on to make reference to the inter-relation
of ants and flowers, a few words must be said about ants
when sick or dead. With regard to the former case, the
evidence appears somewhat contradictory. Ants have been
Seen to tend and feed and otherwise help an injured fellow-
worker; but in some cases this appears to be done with
an eye to keeping up the number of useful workers rather
than from any disinterested motive, as hopeless cases appear
usually to be left to take: care of themselves, In the case of
the carcases of ants when dead, there can be no doubt that
the living ones do carry them away and sooner or later
deposit the dead body in some place specially set apart for the
purpose. Mr Farren White gives some very interesting
particulars relating to these matters (op. cit., chap. xi.), to
which further reference should be made by those who are
interested in such matters.

There cannot be any doubt that ants do display most
VOL. IL. 5

66 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

remarkable examples of instinct, which in very many
cases closely borders upon reason. At the same time, it
is as well to remember that very much—perhaps nearly
all—of it is evidently the direct result of their habit of
living in large communities, which, I think, they must
have done from periods dating far back into the past.
When ants are placed under unusual circumstances, they,
like bees, show little or no capacity for successfully dealing
with them. They are very timid creatures too, and there
are many records of experiments by Sir John Lubbock
and others, which bring this feature of their disposition
very prominently into notice. It would probably be
correct to say of ants that when they find themselves
placed under conditions to which their ancestors for long
periods back in the past have grown accustomed to deal
successfully with, they may be expected to do the like.
But in all strange circumstances they usually seem as if
they de not know what to do. This, many persons would
think, distinguishes instinct from reason.

We may now pass on to consider a few points concerning
the relationship between the habits of ants and the
structure of plants, and as this subject does not seem to
have attracted as much attention (or, at least, it does not
seem to have been so much written about) as the facts
previously noticed, I propose to take up the remainder of
this Address for the consideration of its more salient features.

The majority of flowering plants reproduce their kind
in greater numbers of individuals likely to thrive if they
are fertilised with pollen carried from some other plant
ot the same species, than if that pollen is derived from
flowers growing from the same root. In the long run,
even a slight advantage gained in this way tells up and
becomes of considerable importance. So it has come about
in the course of very long ages that those plants which
have best succeeded in obtaining cross-fertilisation have
thriven better than those which have had to rely upon
self-fertilisation, and have held their own under adverse
circumstances which may even have led to the extermination
of the less fortunate form. I shall, for the purpose at

ANTS. 67

present in view, speak of plants in this connection as if
they were endowed with volition, for the result attained
in course of long ages may be regarded in much the same
light as if that result had been brought about by the
plant’s constant care for its own welfare.

To secure the end desired, the plant has had to offer
some strong inducements to various winged insects—bees
chiefly—in ‘order to attract them to come and visit its
flowers after these insects have been making a round of
visits to other flowers of the same kind. In order to
attract the bees, the flowers take on showy colours which
can be seen as distinct from the rest of the plant at some
distance away; and when the bee sights the flower and
reaches it, it finds, in many cases, a special arrangement
for it to alight upon, and very often it may find also that
the plant has put up direction-marks pointing out to the
bee which way the plant wishes the bee to go. The
whole arrangement reminds one of what is done with a
well-managed bazaar. There are the flags up to attract
attention, great facilities for getting in, directions showing
the visitor which way to go, and innumerable little devices
to lead him to leave behind him the one thing needful,
for which, as we know, he usually gets some article of
small value in return.

So the bee, after visiting many flowers, all of the same
species (which appears to be their habit), on the same day,
comes to the flower whose history we are supposed to be
considering, settles upon it, pushes its way into the flower
in search of the tiny drop of nectar which the flower, at
some expense to itself, has stored up for the purpose; and,
while rummaging after that, the bee leaves behind some
of the pollen which its hairy body had rubbed off the
flower previously visited, and the needful act is completed.

As just now remarked, the formation of the nectar which
is held out as an inducement to the bees to visit the flowers,
makes a somewhat heavy demand upon the vitality of the
plant, and it cannot afford to give it away without some
adequate return. To secure the desired end, it is essential
that the visitor should enter the flower in one particular
way, and also that the insect should be of such a size, or

68 MR J. G GOODCHILD ON

such a shape, as to be able to take the pollen from one
flower and to leave some of it in another flower of the same
kind. It is now well known that the contrivances by which
this much desired end is attained in different cases are very
diverse, and are, in all of them, so very full of interest, that.
an extensive literature has arisen which deals more or less
exclusively with this one most interesting subject.

As might be expected to be the case, other animals than
bees like nectar, and have found out where it is to be got.
So the plant is constantly liable to receive visits from
animals who want the nectar, and who, in taking it, do not
effect the purpose for which the nectar was provided. Truly
it may be said of the animals coming under this category
that their name is legion. It is also true that the various
devices adopted by plants to let in the welcome guests and
keep out the others is also legion. Kerner’s Flowers and
their Unbidden Guests is one most charmingly written
book out of a great number dealing with this inter-relation-
ship between plants and animals. In that book there will
be found some references to ants in this same connection.
But as the book is not a large one, and there is so much to
treat of in relation to other animals in this connection, the
part played by ants receives somewhat less attention than
might otherwise have been the case.

The leading facts to be borne in mind are that ants have
an insatiable craving after anything sweet, and spare them-
selves no trouble to satisfy that craving. It is probable
that although ants, as we have already seen, are almost
omnivorous, yet their staple food now and in the past has.
been nectar of some kind or other. Furthermore, ants can
be shown to be one of the forms of insect life which dates
far back in the past, and in course of ages they have
therefore acquired a deeply rooted instinct, which leads them
to find their way to the nectar of plants under a great
variety of circumstances, in which special provision has
been made to ward off their attacks. A long-standing
conflict has been waged between plants who want to keep:
their nectar for large flying insects who can render them
useful service, and ants who try to rifle that nectar without
benefiting the plant in return.

a

ANTS. ; 69

So we find an endless variety of devices in connection
with both the flowers themselves and the approaches to
them from the ground, all having as their object that of
preventing the ants (as well as some other small insects)
from getting at the nectar. Some flowers close the corolla
with a valve, which shuts off access to the nectary from any
but strong-limbed insects like bees who can force the valve
open, Other plants surround the nectary with sticky hairs
So arranged as to permit of the visits of Jlying insects, but
to exclude those who climb, Spines, hairs, prickles of
every imaginable shape, have plants developed, usually with
this sole object in view. Viscid hairs about the stem,
tiny basins to catch and hold water across which ants dare
not venture to swim, are among the multitudinous con-
trivances which have been developed in response to the
unceasing attacks of ants. Our little folk are very nervous,
and afraid to make a jump of even an eighth of an inch.
This fact has, so to speak, been discovered by plants and
turned to good account. So, too, has the nervousness of
ants in turning an ugly corner from which it seems to
them they are likely to fall off. In recognition of that
little weakness on the part of ants, many flowers have put
awkward bends in the way of their persevering little
enemies. The subject is almost endless; but one may
summarise the facts in a few words by saying that the
attempts to keep out ants from flowers has led to the
gradual evolution of almost as great a number of floral
Structures and modifications of the external form of plants
in general as has resulted from the beneficial influence of
bees. I am inclined, indeed, to attribute to bees on the
one hand, and ants on the other, the chief agencies concerned
in bringing about some of the most remarkable features in
plant morphology with which we are acquainted.

Ants’ claws, as remarked at the outset, consist of sharply
“pointed forks, which, when an ant crawls over a sensitive
part of one’s skin, are felt to penetrate a little way in as the
“creature clings to the surface, This fact, again, has been
turned to good defensive account by some plants. These
Secrete a milky juice, which js very fluid when it first
exudes, but rapidly becomes viscid on exposure to the air.

70 MR J. G. GOODCHILD ON

Ants, in climbing some of these plants in search of nectar,
perforate the outer part of the stem with their sharp-pointed
claws. Immediately tiny drops of the milky fluid exude,
from which the ant tries to free its claws, but always with
the result that the more it stirs the faster it sticks; and
eventually it is made as fast to the plant as if it had been
purposely stuck on with seccotine.

Ants, too, are afraid to take their walks abroad before the
dew has dried up. If they ventured out they could not get
far without risk of being drowned. Plants, ever on the
watch to circumvent their insect foes, have found this fact
out long ago; and some of them take advantage of it by
opening their corollas to invite bees to come to fertilise them
between the time when the bees are first on the wing and
the time when the dew has dried up. Then these plants
shut up, unless the important business of the day has been
done. It would be interesting to know what British flowers
have adopted this practice. Miss J. L. Scott has kindly
furnished me with a list of mid-European plants which have
acquired this habit; but we still need further observation
upon our own. I would suggest this as a subject worthy of
the careful attention of our Natural History Societies in
general. ;

Other plants, again, not having been able to ward off the
attacks of marauding ants in any other way, have taken to
setting out little drops of nectar on their stems below the
flowering part. Ants climb wp, find what they were in
search of, take their fill, and go away contented.

In other cases, as in that of one of the European
Serratulas and some few other plants, ants serve a purpose
useful to the plants. The Serratula referred to is liable
to the attacks of a flying beetle, which descends upon the
flowers just before they open out and eats away the delicate
and juicy half-developed florets. The case seems to have
been a bad one for the plant, for it has found it advisable
to encourage the visits of a peculiarly warlike ant at this
eritical period. To this end the pointed bracts on the lower
part of the capitulum are provided with a few tempting
drops of nectar for the occasion. The ants referred to
make their way up to the feast set out for the time being

ANTS. 71

for their especial benefit. When the beetle is descried on
its way through the air to eat up the heart of the flower, the
guard turns out, presents arms (and legs), and squirts a little
of that nasty formic acid in the face of the invading foe,
with the effect of causing Mr Beetle to regret that he ever
came that way. In a day or two the tender florets have
passed the critical stage, protection from that kind of attack
is no longer required, the tiny fountains of nectar have dried
up—being no longer required—and the ants make their way
to a similar feast elsewhere.

In some few other cases—the last there is time for
referring to in this Address—one species of ant has been
pitted by the plant against another. Some of the leaf-
cutting ants make it a practice to ascend a certain tree, and not
to leave the tree until they have stripped off every leaf it bore.
This is not at all a good thing for the tree, which cannot
get on at all well without its leaves. So it has encouraged
the visits of another kind of ant, also of warlike propensities
like the one just now referred to. It provides these warriors
with a small but reliable supply of nectar, and it also seems
to make special provision for housing them rent free, so to
speak, The tree grows big thorns, which were probably
intended, in the first instance, to make the tender shoots
unpleasant eating to some herbivorous animals—probably
during some arid climatal conditions. Nowadays the ants
take up their abode in the hollow centre of these thorns.
Mr W. C. Crawford suggests to me that the excretion of
formic acid from the ants may have had something to do
with developing these thorns, and in thereby indirectly
helping them to grow to an abnormal size, just as any other
irritant in the growing tissues of a plant is very apt to do.

Anyway, the ants take up their abode in these thorns,
forming a standing army there; and when the leaf-cutters
begin to ascend the tree on one of their marauding expedi-
- tions, the guards come forth to battle, and the invading force
is usually repelled with great slaughter (see Belt, Z'he
Naturalist in Nicaragua, p. 218).

I wish there had been more time to deal with this subject
in the present Address, and more space available for printing

ins Mk J. G. GOODCHILD ON ANTS.

it afterwards. But those whose interest has been increased
by the remarks here set forth might care to follow up the
subject. In that case the following books may be consulted
with advantage :—

Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), Ants, Bees, and Wasps
(International Scientific Series); Rev. W. Farren White, Ants
and their Ways (Religious Tract Society); Rev. J. T.
Moggridge, Harvesting Ants and Trap-door Spiders, Hard-
wicke; Auguste Forel, Les Fourmis de la Suisse, Genéve ;
Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons; Henry C. Cook,
The Honey Ants of the Garden of the Gods; Hiiber, Natural
History of Ants, English translation by Dr Johnson; G,
Linceum, Agricultural Ants of Texas; Belt, The Naturalist
in Nicaragua; T. 8. Savage, “On the Habits of the Driver
Ants,” Trans. Entom. Soc., 1847; Romanes, Jnstinct (Inter-
national Scientific Series).

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY.

By Davip B. Morris.
(Read 23rd May 1901.)

INTRODUCTORY,

Sir JonN Murray has asked me to speak in support of his
proposals for the investigation of the Natural History of the
Forth Valley. It is desirable that the survey of the Forth
Valley should be made as complete as possible, and if I
apprehend Sir John’s purpose aright, it is that the members
of scientific societies should not be content with mastering
the knowledge already acquired by their predecessors, but
that they should undertake some definite original work.
Sir John suggests a piece of work that lies at our own doors,
so to speak. [t should be our aim to advance the sum of
human knowledge ; to add, each of us, a little stone to the
structure; to endeavour to leave the world richer than we

ee

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. To

found it, even if it be only by one fact, one observation, or
one just inference.

A good deal has already been done in working up the
Natural History of the Forth Valley, largely by this Society.
The maps and memoirs of the Geological Survey already
published cover the greater portion of the area, the sheets
for the Highland District at the head waters of the Forth
and its tributaries being not yet issued. The fresh-water
lochs of the Forth basin have been very fully investigated
by Sir John Murray and the late Mr Fred P. Pullar, while
the botany, entomology, conchology, and ornithology have
‘been more or less fully worked up by various scientific
societies. It is desirable that the results of these efforts
should be brought together, and some general conclusions
arrived at, when sufficient information is available. We
ought never to lose sight of the fact that Nature is one
whole, and‘indivisible. It is convenient to divide the pro-
cess of the investigation of Nature into different branches or
‘sciences, and call them botany, ornithology, geology, and so on.
But, after all, these divisions are purely arbitrary,and the differ-
ent sciences overlap at every turn. A botanist, for instance,
who knows nothing of entomology, geology, or meteorology,
has only a limited idea of his subject. Geological research
would have come to a dead stand long ago but for the aid
-derived from paleontology, which, in its turn, would be an
impossible science, did we possess no knowledge of living
forms of plants and animals. Let us not despise the labours
of the specialist, from whose careful investigation of facts
-only is it possible to build up a science. But take these
for granted, and assume that we are not specialists, then our
wider survey of Nature will be just, adequate, and undis-
‘torted, only as we are able to consider Nature as a whole,
rather than as a thing of parts. Emerson has likened
Nature to a chain of countless rings, The simile is just.
Each link of the chain is connected through its immediate
neighbours with the whole series. We wish, then, to take
a wide survey of the Natural History of the Forth Valley;
to consider the inter-relations of one fact with another, or
“one series with another series; to study the intimate con-
nection that there is between scenery and Natural History

74 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

as manifested in geological structure, vegetation, and im
other ways; to study the effect of geological structure and
climate on the plants and animals of the district; and, not
least, to consider how far the physical conditions of the
Forth Valley, past and present, have had a direct bearing
upon its human inhabitants.

It may be useful to consider to-night certain leading
features of the district, to note what has been done by
some previous observers, and to enquire in what directions
our knowledge might with advantage be widened.

SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FORTH VALLEY.

We may state four special characteristics of the Forth
Valley :—

(1) It occupies the narrowest portion of the island of
Great Britain, connecting large land areas to north and to:
south.

(2) In this unique position it includes the dividing line
between the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. EKm-
bracing portions of both of these regions, the Forth Valley
exhibits the characteristics of both in its geological and
physical structure, in its vegetation, people, language, place
names, and industries.

(3) The great variety of geological structure developed in
its area, with corresponding effects on vegetation and human
industries and population.

(4) The fact that in the Forth Valley the western type
of climate is carried further east than elsewhere.

Let us examine these characteristics in more detail.

POSITION AND AREA,

The Forth Valley is situated at the narrowest part of
Scotland. The breadth between Peterhead and Ardna-
murchan Point is 170 miles; between Berwick-on-Tweed
and Portpatrick, 135 miles; while from Queensferry to

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 75

Dumbarton measures only 43 miles, and from Alloa to
Dumbarton, 31.

The Forth Valley may be divided into an eastern dis-
trict, largely maritime, with northern and southern sections,
and a western or inland district—the whole being bounded
by the watershed of the streams flowing into the Firth of
Forth. My acquaintance with the eastern district is
limited, and I shall therefore to-night speak only of the
western portion—namely, the area drained by the River
Forth and its tributaries, stretching from Ben Lomond and
Stobinean to Queensferry, where the Forth may be said to
end. Between North and South Queensferry the proportion
of fresh water in the estuary becomes so small as to be
barely appreciable. Eastward of this point the Firth may
fairly be described as a projecting portion of the German
Ocean, although influenced to some extent by the fresh
water of the Forth, Almond, Esk, and Leven. The boun-
daries of the district would be marked by a line tracing the
watershed, and dividing the Forth area from the drainage
areas of the Tay and Earn on the north, the Leven (Loch
Lomond) on the west, the Endrick, Kelvin, and Clyde on
the south, and the Leven (Loch Leven), the Keithing
Burn, and the Almond on the east. Beginning at North
(Queensferry, the line of the watershed passes north-westward
by Crossgates, the Saline and Cleish Hills, to the Ochils,
between Glendevon and Gleneagles ; thence westward to Uam
Var, Stuc-a-Chroin, and the eastern ridge of Strathyre; and
southward by Balquhidder to Ben Lomond. It then follows
the ridge to the Pass of Ballat, and mounting the Fintry
Hills, it passes by the Campsie Fells to Kelvinhead, and
thence eastward by the Slamannan Ridges and Bathgate
Hills to South Queensferry.

The district enclosed by this bounding-line embraces
about % of Stirlingshire, } of Linlithgowshire, } of Perthshire,
+ of Kinross-shire, } of Fife, the whole of Clackmannanshire,
and extremely small portions of Dumbartonshire and
Lanarkshire. It comprises fifty-two parishes, with the ex-
ception of certain out-lying portions of these which stretch
beyond the boundary line. The names of forty-nine parishes
are given hereinafter in the table of population. The Dum-

76 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

bartonshire portion of the district is a small piece of the
parish of Cumbernauld drained by early feeders of the
Bonny, and the Lanarkshire portion consists of two small
pieces of the parishes of New Monkland and Shotts, which
are drained by the head waters of the Avon. These pieces
are so small that I have not taken them into account in
subsequent calculations. The district from north-west to
south-east, between the head of Glen Gyle and South Queens-
ferry, measures 55 miles in length. The breadth averages
from 15 to 20 miles; the greatest breadth, south-west to
north-east, being between the source of the Avon and Crook
of Devon. The area of the district is about 1000 square
miles.

GEOLOGY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES.

The Valley of the Forth is a broad plain, split in the
east, as by a wedge, by the estuary. On the north the
plain is bounded by the abrupt line of the Ochils and the
Braes of Doune. On the south lies the equally abrupt
plateau, which at its different parts is known as the
Campsie Fells, the Fintry, Gargunnock, Touch, Denny, and
Kilsyth Hills. To the west lies the rampart of the High-
land Hills, through which for a considerable distance the
Teith and Forth and their early tributaries flow.

The district is very sharply divided into two by the
great geological fault which marks the junction of the so-
called Pre-Cambrian and associated rocks with those of the
Old Red Sandstone, and which stretches across Scotland in
a straight line from Stonehaven in the north-east to Rothe-
say in the south-west. This line enters the Forth Valley to
the west of Uam Var, passes by Callander and Aberfoyle,
and leaves the district at the top of the ridge behind
Balmaha. West of this line the district is “ Highland,” east
it is “ Lowland,” and in that sense these terms are hereafter
used. The Highland area is an eroded plateau. The
valleys and lake basins have been hollowed out, leaving the
intervening rock masses as groups and chains of hills.
These hills mostly attain the height of 2000 feet, which
may be taken as the average height of the plateau. The

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. Th

highest peak is Stobinean, 3827 feet, and there are 12
summits over 3000 feet, and 24 over 2500 feet. [Over
3000 feet are Stobinean, Stob Coire an Lochan, Am Mam,
Stob Garbh, Cruach Ardran, Ben Tulachan, Ben a Chroin (3
summits), Ben Chabhair, Ben Lomond, and Stue-a-Chroin.
Over 2500 feet, the foregoing twelve and Meall ant Scallaidh
(8 summits), Stob Creagach, Stob Glas, Stob-a-Choin (3:
summits), Ben Vane, Ben Ledi, Ben-a-Choin, and Ben Each.]
The eroding forces were the glaciers of the ice age and the
swift flowing streams which succeeded them. There are
three principal valley systems piercing the plateau, each
occupied by its chain of lakes. The most northerly is the
hollow occupied by Loch Doine, Loch Voil, and Loch
Lubnaig, which formed one single loch at no very distant
period. The uext valley contains Loch Katrine, Loch
Achray, Loch Drunkie, and Loch Vennacher. The third has
Loch Chon and Loch Ard. Some of these lochs are of
considerable depth, Sir John Murray and Mr Pullar having
sounded a depth of 495 feet in Loch Katrine. Ancient lake.
basins now drained are not infrequent—for instance, the
haugh at Aberfoyle and the circular hollow in Glenbuckie.
East of the great dividing line before mentioned we enter
upon the Lowland division of the Forth Valley. It is part
of the great hollow of Midland Scotland. The Old Red
Sandstone beds attain great thickness and rise to consider-
able elevations at Uam Var and the Braes of Doune. A
fault, prominently marked by the line of the south-eastern
front of the Ochils, divides the Old Red Sandstone from the
Carboniferous formation, and east of the fault the different
divisions of the latter formation appear in succession. As a
general rule, where the rocks are sedimentary the country
is soft and low lying. Where the rocks are volcanic, the
land rises in rough hills. The cause of this is that the soft
rocks have yielded to denudation to a greater extent, while
the hard volcanic rocks have resisted the denuding forces,
and now form prominent features in the landscape. The
Ochils consist of a succession of interbedded lava flows with
beds of tuff and agglomerate of Old Red Sandstone age.
The general elevation of the Ochils is about 1750 feet, the
highest point being Ben Cleuch, 2363 feet; while 11 summits.

78 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

exceed 2000 feet, and about 40 are over 1500. The
terraced front of the Campsie and Touch Hills shows
successive lava flows of Carboniferous age. The average
height of the plateau is about 1250 feet, rismg towards the
west, where it passes beyond the catchment basin of the
Forth to Earl’s Seat (1894 feet), the highest summit; the
-greatest elevation of this range in the Forth Valley being
Meikle Bin, 1870 feet. Including the whole plateau, 15
peaks exceed 1500 feet. Intrusive lavas appear in the
dolerite crags of Abbey Craig, Stirling Castle, King’s Park,
Polmaise, and Sauchie. The centre of the basin from Gart-
more eastwards is occupied by the flat surface of the 50-feet
raised beach, known as the “carse.” This is an old ocean
floor, and is bounded all round by the old coast-line.
Immediately adjoining the carse there appear at intervals
portions of the more ancient ocean floor, known as the 100-
feet raised beach.

Issuing from their Highland glens, the rivers Forth and
Teith meander across the bottom of the basin, gradually
converging until they meet near Craigforth, whence the
united stream pursues a winding course eastward. The rim
of the basin is broken to the north, between the Old Red
Sandstone heights and the volcanic rocks of the Ochils, and
through the gap the River Allan flows. The Devon in its
crooked course gathers the drainage of the greater portion of
the Ochils, while the Bannock and Carron drain the plateau
of the Touch Hills.

CLIMATE.

As regards climate, Scotland may be roughly divided into
two regions—the western region with a large rainfall, and
comparatively mild winters and temperate summers; the
eastern region with smaller rainfall, and comparatively cold
winters and hot summers. The western climate is purely
insular, its character being the result of the proximity of
such a large body of water as the Atlantic Ocean. It is
also greatly influenced by the Gulf Stream. The eastern
climate approaches the continental type, being affected by
the presence of the great land mass of Europe and Asia,

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 79

notwithstanding the intervening water space of the German
Ocean, The purely continental climate is one of great
extremes of temperature.

The climate of the Forth Valley varies from western to
eastern in character, and it differs from all the rest of
Scotland in carrying the western type of climate further
east than elsewhere. The reason of this can readily be
understood. The rainfall of Scotland is chiefly derived from
the south-westerly winds, which come laden with moisture
from the Atlantic. Reaching our western shores, they find
a great mass of high ground stretching from Cape Wrath
southwards, against which they strike, streaming up the
glens and cooling among the hilltops. Great volumes of
rain are poured down the mountain sides and form the
sources of all our large rivers. The winds pass eastwards,
but the air being largely deprived of its moisture, less rain
falls in the eastern regions. To this rule there is, in Scot-
land, one marked exception. The high-lying plateau
skirting our western shores is broken down in the low
ground between the Forth and Clyde. There the winds
pass eastwards still rain laden, and striking on the hills of
south-western Perthshire and the Ochils, the rain is
precipitated over districts which, but for the absence of hills
to the south-west, would be comparatively dry. Clack-
mannanshire, Kinross-shire, and West Fife, therefore,
though in the east of Scotland, are, as regards rainfall,
subject to western conditions. This is a fact of great im-
portance to agricultural interests.

Our region of heaviest rainfall is in the Highland region
at the sources of the Teith and Forth. It consists of a
group of very high hills, which are approached directly from
the Atlantic by a series of converging glens—namely, those
occupied by Loch Fyne, Loch Long, and Loch Lomond.
The south-westerly winds sweep up these glens, and the
moisture condenses among the hilltops of Glengyle and Glen
Falloch, and produces an excessive rainfall. Last year at
the head of Duchray Valley there fell the enormous total of
10 feet 45 inches of rain. The Touch Hills and the hollow
of Strathallan are considerably drier, and the carse lands
drier still. The only portion of the Forth Valley which is

80 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

truly eastern in its climate is the low ground adjoining the
estuary of the Forth between Grangemouth and South
Queensferry, stretching a few miles inland.

As regards temperature, as [I have said, the eastern
climate has greater extremes than the western. I might
illustrate this fact thus. If aman travelled from the east
of Scotland to the west, say from Dunbar to Oban, in
January, he would pass gradually into a milder climate. If
he performed the same journey in July, he would pass into
a cooler climate. In summer and winter the isothermal
lines run, roughly speaking, north and south. Spring and
autumn are the transition periods, when the isothermal
lines run east and west. The Forth Valley is, like the rest
of Scotland, affected by these conditions. In temperature,
as in rainfall, our Highland area is western in type, though
more subject to fluctuation than the western isles, whose
shores are bathed, summer and winter, by the little-changing
waters of the Gulf Stream.

VEGETATION.

The Forth Valley includes in its area almost every variety
of plant habitat, and the result is a rich and diversified
Flora, and an endless field of investigation. The two regions
least fully represented in the Flora are the Alpine and the
Littoral. The Forth Valley includes a large Alpine dis-
trict, but it is singularly barren. This is due to the want
of those strata of limestone and chlorite schist which give
rise to the rich Alpine vegetation of Ben Lawers and the
Breadalbane Mountains. West of Queensferry the conditions
of the shore are not purely maritime, and many character-
istic seaside plants are wanting, which are found further
down the Firth.

There is much natural wood along the banks of the
streams in the Highland area and in the Ochils and
Touch Hills. Plantations are numerous and extensive, and
some fine specimens of individual trees are to be met. I
would mention the magnificent row of beeches by the banks
of the Teith in Blairdrummond estate, whose massive pro-

Oe

— ae

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 81

portions and smooth silver bark are a delight to the eye; the
fine old cedar in the Abbey garden at Culross ; and also the
famous “big plane tree” of Kippenross, whose shattered
shell still stands. In 1841 its girth was recorded as 42
feet 7 inches, its height 100 feet, and the spread of its
branches 114 feet (Dr Rodger’s Week at Bridge-of-Allan,
p. 223). The Andersonian Naturalists’ Society of Glasgow
have photographed and measured a number of interesting
trees on Loch Lomond side, but I am not aware that they
have made any records in the Forth Valley. We might
take a hint from them. A noticeable feature of the river
scenery of the Forth is the lines of pollard willows that
follow the windings of the stream and give a character to
the landscape unusual in Scotland.

The Flora of the Forth Valley has been well worked up
by many investigators. Dr F. Buchanan White in his Flora
of Perthshire has two districts, designated ‘‘ Highland Forth ”
and “Lowland Forth.” These include all the Perthshire
portion of the Forth Valley, and, owing to the change of
county boundaries, small portions of what are now Clack-
mannan, Fife, and Stirling. The two districts are nearly
equivalent to the Watsonian Vice-County 87, “ West Perth,”
and the dividing line between them is the great Old Red
Sandstone fault already referred to. The plants of Stirling-
shire have been very fully recorded by the late Colonel
Stirling and Mr Robert Kidston in a series of Reports sub-
mitted to the Stirling Natural History and Archeological
Society. They have confined themselves strictly to the
Watsonian Botanical Vice-County 86, which does not
correspond exactly with the political county of Stirling.
These authors divide the vice-county into four districts :—
(1) containing the Carboniferous and associated trap rocks,
(2) composed of the Carse land with peat mosses, (3) the
Old Red Sandstone area, and (4) the remainder of the
county, almost entirely composed of Highland metamorphic
rocks. In Report dated April 1900, the total number of
species recorded was 838, together with 80 varieties. These
include flowering plants, ferns, horsetails, and club mosses.
A first Report of mosses gave 238 species and 15
varieties.

VOL. I. 6

82 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

In the Glasgow Catalogue of Native and Established
Plants, by Mr Peter Ewing, published in 1899, the vice-
county of Stirling is included, and by a tabular arrangement
of records its Flora can. be compared with the botanical
counties of the West of Scotland.

I daresay you are all familiar with the exceedingly
valuable botanical work done by the late Mr Robert Smith
of University College, Dundee, and it is much to be regretted
that he did not live to complete his Botanical Survey of
Scotland. The two papers contributed by him to the
Scottish Geographical Magazine, dealing with the districts
of Edinburgh and North Perthshire with the accompanying
maps, are the record of much valuable work. All that can
be said is that the survey should be continued to include
the whole Forth Valley.

Let me sum up what I think requires to be done in this
department. To trace and record for each plant its vertical
range, its horizontal range, its habitat, its rarity or common-
ness, its varieties, its local uses, and local traditions
connected with it; to trace for the Flora, as a whole, its
plant associations, its peculiarities and their causes, its
relation to rainfall, temperature, sunshine, and prevailing
winds, its effect upon scenery, its relation to the Floras of
other districts, and its origin, particularly in relation to
the geological history of the country—a sufficiently large
order, you will be thinking.

FAUNA.

The birds of the Forth Valley have been worked up by
several observers. I would refer first to the admirable
collection of local birds in the Smith Institute at Stirling,
and to a most interesting paper on these by Mr James
Sword (Zrans, Stir. Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc., 1893-94,
p. 139). In that paper 121 local birds represented in the
collection are dealt with, and the number has been con-
siderably added to since. In an article by Mr W. Eagle
Clarke, Edinburgh, in Pollock’s Dictionary of the Forth, the

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 83

birds of the Valley of the Forth including the eastern
district are summarized thus :—

Residents . 90 ‘ :
Halt 1 ; 1 | ;
Summer visitors, A oaiy, \ peep ne
Winter visitors, : . 40
Visitors on migration, . ; ap
Casual visitors, . . 69
251

There can be no doubt, as Mr Clarke points out, that the
Forth Valley is singularly rich in number of species and
variety of forms, attributable to the great diversity of
physical features found in the district. Between the lofty
eliffs of Ben Lomond and Stobinean and the extensive mud
flats of the estuary, there is every variety of moor, meadow,
woodland, loch, and river.

Perhaps the most interesting field of investigation in con-
nection with birds is that of migration. This subject has
been carefully investigated by Mr Harvie Brown of Dunipace
and others, who have shown that the hereditary instinct in
birds leads them to follow the same lines of migration as
their ancestors. These lines originally followed plains or
valleys or ancient shore-lines as the necessities of life—the
search for food-—dictated. Now, when the physical features
of the country have changed—-when land has given place to
sea, and coast-lines are different—the birds still continue to
follow the old routes of migration. They still cross from
Africa to Europe at the shallower portions of the Mediter-
ranean, they still cross the German Ocean from east to west-—
in these cases indicating the former presence of land where
now the sea rolls. This, at all events, is the theory of Herr
Weissman. The constancy of these lines of flight is,
however, largely modified by prevailing winds and weather,
and by the present configuration of the land. The Forth
Valley is a most interesting district for the further
investigation of this subject, with its firth open to the east,
and well-marked hill ranges. Mr Harvie Brown states that
the valley between Stirling and Loch Lomond is one of the
favourite highways of the land birds in their annual flight

84 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

(see Trans. Stir. Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc., 1881-82, p. 22;
and 1884-85, p. 43). There is evidence of a distinct line of
migration along the old coast-line of the 50-feet raised beach.

The mammals of the Forth Valley are enumerated by Mr
Eagle Clarke in the Dictionary of the Forth; he gives 46
species. A very interesting account of the mammals of
Loch Lomond side is given by Mr James Lumsden in
Guide to the Natural History of Loch Lomond by
Lumsden and Brown. Although the district dealt with is:
beyond the Forth Valley, it adjoins it, and probably all the
species mentioned are represented in both areas. The dis-
tribution of species in the Forth Valley, and the causes on
which the distribution depends, are worthy of investigation.
An exhaustive comparison of existing species with those
living formerly in the district ought to be made, as there is
no doubt the present Fauna is poorer by many species, and
richer by some. Evidence of early Faunas can be had from
the marls of old lake basins, from peat mosses, from the silt
of the river and the clays of the carse. It may be of interest
to note here that in the clays of the carse of Stirling no fewer
than fourteen whale skeletons have been found, Associated
with five of these were human implements, proving that Man
was an inhabitant of the Forth Valley at the time when the
sea rose fifty feet higher than it does now, and when the
waves of the old Forth Estuary rolled westward as far as.
Gartmore, 38 miles from Queensferry.

The land and fresh-water shells of the botanical vice-
county of Stirling have been recorded by Mr A. M‘Lellan,
and those of Perth South and Clackmannan by Mr Gilbert
M‘Dougall. A tabular statement of the records of these
observers will be found in the Zransactions of the Stirling
Natural History and Archeological Society, 1897-98,
p. 136. It would be interesting to trace the connection
between the distribution of these and the plant distribution.
of the district.

THe River FortTH.

The tides of the River Forth are an interesting subject
of study. At present the tide affects the river as far as.

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 85

the salmon cruives at Craigforth Mill, about three miles
above Stirling. The rise and fall at the salmon dykes are
very decided, at least ten feet in vertical height. Previous
to the construction of the dykes, the limit of the tide would
be a ledge of Old Red Sandstone rock which appears in
the river bed a few yards higher up. There must have
been a fine natural fall here, as now there is a fine artificial
fall, the river being large and the volume of water great.
But for this interruption the tide would rise for a great
many miles farther west. I have never been able to find
any trace of a tidal bore in the river. If there is such
farther down the estuary, it has disappeared long before
reaching Stirling. This is probably due to the irregular
outline of both the northern and southern shores of the
Firth, and especially to the narrow strait at Queensferry.
There is, however, one peculiarity in the motion of the tide,
long since observed, and which I have never seen satis-
factorily explained, Sir Robert Sibbald, in his History of
fife and Kinross published in 1710, puts it thus:—“ In
Forth there are, besides the regular Ebbs and Flows, several
irregular motions, which the Commons betwixt Alloa and
Culross (who have most diligently observed them) call
the Lakies of Forth; by which name they express these
odd motions of the River, when it ebbs and flows: For
when it floweth sometime before it be full sea, it inter-
mitteth and ebbs for some considerable time, and after filleth
till it be full sea; and on the contrary, when the sea is
ebbing, before the low water, it intermits and fills for some
considerable time, and after, ebbs till it be low water. And
this is called a Laikie.”

The phenomenon is probably caused, in some unexplained
way, by the struggle between the river current and the tide
—a struggle which is productive of many other peculiar
phenomena. The rising tide being confined in the wedge
of the estuary, becomes, by a well-known law, a current,
and twice a day at Stirling may be seen the apparently
strange occurrence of a river flowing swiftly the wrong way.
The winding nature of the river course between Alloa and
Stirling increases the effect of the tide. The tide used to
flow up the River Carron for several miles, but the river

86 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

channel was diverted into a straight cut to assist navi-
gation, with the result that the tide does not now flow
nearly so far. A bathymetric survey of the River Forth
would yield interesting results. The layers of fresh and
saline water remain separate in a most peculiar way,
and samples of water taken at different depths and at
different conditions of the tide would furnish most in-
structive data. This subject has been investigated by the
staff of the Scottish Marine Station at Granton, and by the
Fishery Board of Scotland. Those mysterious lines of
smooth water and peculiar markings on the surface of the
river could possibly be explained by an investigation of the
river’s bed, in conjunction with its fantastic windings.

The gradual change from fresh water to maritime
conditions should be studied also in the fish and shell fish
of the river, and the plants of the river and its banks, I
have not noticed the sea pink (Armeria maritima) higher up
than Longannet Point. A few years ago a seal (Phoca
ovitulina) was killed about two miles above Stirling.

The islands of the river and the causes of their formation
are an interesting subject, never investigated so far as I am
aware. Ascending the river, we find the following
islands :—Alloa Inch, Tullibody Inch, “ Alan’s Isle” and
Group at the delta of the Allan, and Group below Craigforth
Mill.

The islands at the mouth of the Allan are clearly formed
of detritus brought down by that river. They possess an
interest through association with Robert Louis Stevenson,
In Kidnapped, Stevenson makes his hero write thus :—‘ In
Allan Water, near by where it falls into the Forth, we
found a little sandy islet, overgrown with burdock, butter-
bur, and the like low plants, that would just cover us if we
lay flat. Here it was we made our camp, within plain
view of Stirling Castle, whence we could hear the drums
beat as some part of the garrison paraded. It behoved us
to lie close and keep silent. But the sand of the little isle
was sunwarm, and the green plants gave us shelter for our
heads.” The burdock and butterbur still flourish on
“ Alan’s Isle.”

The group of islands below Craigforth Mill number

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 87

about a dozen, larger and smaller. I may be wrong, but it
seems to me that these islands, in my own recollection, have
increased considerably in size. All the above are within
the tidal portion of the river.

Above the cruive dykes, which stop the further progress
of the tide, the Forth is navigable by rowing-boats for
many miles, probably as far as Flanders Moss, being not
less than 20 miles by the river above the tide limit. In
that distance it has no islands. It is slow flowing and
deep, with a very slight fall.

The Teith, however, which joins the Forth half a mile
above the cruive dykes, and contributes to the united stream
a larger body of water than the Forth, ceases to be navigable
a few hundred yards above the junction. It is swift
flowing, alternately deep and shallow, and has a rapid fall.
It contains many interesting islands, such as those at Old
Keir, Row, Torrie, Callander, Callander Hydropathic, and
Pass of Leny.

The course of the river gives the opportunity for investi-
gating the formation of mud banks, sand bars, and shingle
beds, and of fords. A noteworthy feature of the river is
the formation of shifting sands, which change their position
from day to day owing to the continual contest of tide and
current. These have been the cause of many drowning
accidents to persons bathing. Scarcely a summer passes
without one or more fatalities. At various parts of the
river course appear ridges of gravel stretching to all appearance
across the stream from bank to bank, so as to appear quite
passable fords. There is, however, always one spot where
there is a narrow break with very deep water and a strong
current—a fact not apparent on the surface, and yet evident
enough, if one reflects that the large body of water finding
its way down the stream could not possibly be all passing
over the shallow bar. I know of at least one case where
a man fishing stepped suddenly into deep water and was
carried rapidly down by the current and drowned, These
gravel bars suggest interesting questions. For instance, at
Abbey Ford, on the east side of Cambuskenneth Abbey,
at low spring tide, there are several acres of gravel and
boulders laid bare in the bed of the stream. Where have

88 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

the gravel and boulders come from? They can hardly have
been brought down by the current, as the channel for many
miles above is simply soft mud. It may be possible that
the river has at this point cut into the boulder clay which
underlies the brick clay and blue mud of the carse. The
unequal size of the boulders and the appearance of the stones
strengthens this view. They seem much liker the washings-
out of boulder clay than river-worn gravel.

The estuary of the Forth has had a marked influence on
the lives of the people inhabiting its shores. It formed a
convenient waterway for commerce, leading directly to the
continent of Europe, and thus brought central Scotland from
very early times into direct touch with the lite and
business of the world. Round its coasts were many
harbours where safe shelter for shipping could be found.
The tides of the Firth were high, enabling large vessels to
be carried far into its upper reaches.

The River Forth, as an internal waterway, has, however,
had comparatively little influence. It was never in such
use as great English rivers like the Thames, Trent, and
Severn were before railways were constructed. The Forth
was too tortuous and vexed by tides and currents, although
it was used much more at one time than now. Striking
evidence of this is to be seen in the succession of old piers
which line the banks of the river up as far as the mouth of
the Allan. These were used by the farmers for the carriage
of lime to their farms and for the export of produce. Such
navigation extended to the limits of the tide. These piers
served a further purpose in protecting the banks from the
wearing action of the current.

POPULATION.

I have divided the area under consideration into three
nearly equal districts, and have named them “ Highland,”
“ Agricultural,” and “ Industrial,” according to the conditions
which most prevail in each. Taking the parishes as
convenient units of division, I have allocated them to these
three districts, and [ give a table showing the area (approxi-

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 89

mate where marked with an asterisk) and population in 1891
and 1901 of each. Portions of some of these parishes are

not in the district drained by the Forth, but as both area

-and population are included, the general result is not

materially affected by the circumstance. In some cases

‘the parish boundaries have been altered between 1891 and

1901, making comparison in these cases difficult.

The

figures for the three districts, as wholes, are, however, not

|

-affected.
Highland,
Anea Populatio | Population
Parishes. in Acres ih ee
in 1891. in 1891. | in 1901.
Buchanan, 47,804 658 487
Drymen, . 30,973 | 1,512 1,390
Aberfoyle, | 29,215 1,023 1,050
Port of Menteith, 23,599 1,092 1,088
Balquhidder, | 56,149 612 605
Callander, | 58,816 2,279 Pei iia
| 241,556 7,176 6,791
Agricultural.
Area | Population | Populati
Parishes, apace opulation ‘opulation |
in 1891. in 1891. | in 1901.
-Kippen, . t1,891 1,486 1,456
Gargunnock, 9,913 674 633
St Ninians, * 35,200 9,571 8,160
Kincardine, * Sai 7,500 1,277 1,308 |
Kilmadock,* 28,800 2,760 2,705
| Lecropt, * 3,200 273 a
| Logie, * 11,360 4,252 4,432 2
: Dunblane, 18,636 3,220 3,812 2
Ardoch, . 22,280 959 916
Blackford, 21,041 1,522 1,539
' Glendevon, 9,154 141 149
Muckhart, 4,960 542 475
| Fossoway,* 25,600 785 1,046
_| Saline, 8,768 760 1,012
217,743 28,222 27,643

+ Now merged in Logie and Dunblane.

* Includes part of Lecropt.

90

MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

Industrial.
|
Area : ?
Parishes: “aay ied Population | Population
- in 1891. in 1901.
in 1891.
Stirling,* . 1,920 14,170 18,609
Airth, 6,388 1,297 1,344
Denny, 8,356 6,373 8,268
Dunipace, 5,629 1,078 2,050
Larbert, 4,054 904 11,683
Bothkennar, 2,645 2,025 s
Falkirk, . 19,822 30,781 36,619 ”
Polmont, . ; 7,289 485 Sail
Grangemouth, . 17,045 +
Slamannan, . 7,148 7,225 5,286
Muiravonside, . 8,015 3,671 5,332
Torphichen, 9,956 1,724 3,225
Bathgate, 10,887 11,359 14,001
Linlithgow, * 12,800 7,520 8,076
Bo'ness, 3,190 5,866 7,715
Carriden, . 2,708 2,453 3,552
Abercorn, 5,265 863 866
' Dalmeny,* 6,400 2,091 1,523
| Alva, 5,473 5,360 5,641
‘Allloa.*_) 5,120 12,484 16,829
| Tillicoultry, 6,976 5,695 4,986
Dollar, 4,795 Peek 2,041
Clackmannan, . 8,841 5,072 2,494
| Tulliallan, 4,176 QE 1,862
Culross, 8,949 1,096 1,120
Torryburn, 4,415 1,032 1,130
| Carnock, . 3,502 987 1,348
Beath, 6,401 8,298 15,811
| Dunfermline,* . 23,040 28,667 31,677
Inverkeithing, . 5,020 2,943 3,412
209,180 175,813 233,545
Summary.
1891 1901
: 1891, | ; 1901 :
* int : Area in > | Popula > | Popula-
Districts. Parishes. sq. ml. ieee | vil per Popes cag per
M+ | sq. ml. sq. mi.
Highland, . ; 6 377 iu76)) 19 6,791 18
Agricultural, .| 14 340 | 28,222 82 27,643| 81
Industrial, 29 825 |175,8138 540 238,545 | 718

1 Now merged in Grangemouth.
3 Now merged in Grangemouth.

2 Grangemouth district deducted.
4 Not a parish in 1891.

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 9

Now, if we look at a geological map of the district with
these figures in our hand, a most interesting fact is brought
out. We find that without exception the Industrial District
with the dense population occupies the area of the Carbonif-
erous formation; the Highland District with the sparse
population is the region of the Pre-Cambrian rocks ; and the
Agricultural District, with a population of intermediate
density, is comprised in the Old Red Sandstone and volcanic
areas. The figures also show the gradual depopulation of
rural districts and the growth of population in towns.

Race, LANGUAGE, PLAcE NAMES.

The people who inhabit the Forth Valley are, like the
rest of the people of Scotland, of mixed Celtic, Teutonic, and
Saxon race. At one time, there can be little doubt, the
whole district was occupied by a Celtic people, and Gaelic
place names are still abundant all over the district, The
great Saxon influx from the south came as far as the
Lowland area of the district, but did not penetrate into the
purely Highland parts. Again, the Firth and River Forth
afforded a most convenient access for the sea-faring Norse
and Danish peoples who, after the period of the Roman
occupation, swarmed to our shores. The three races met
and fought, and ultimately blended. Still, a distinct line of
demarcation remained between the Celtic and the mixed
race, namely, the line dividing the Highlands from the
Lowlands, already defined—a line clearly marked to the
present day, not only by differences of physical features and
geological formation, but also of race and language. North
and west of this line the people remained pure Celts or
nearly so, and the Gaelic language is spoken to this day,
South and east of the line the people are of mixed Saxon,
Norse, and Celtic blood, and their language has for centuries
been Lowland Scotch, a branch of the Anglo-Saxon tongue,
In this matter, we find one of the greatest influences which
the physical formation of the country has had upon its
people. The Firth of Forth let in the Viking colonists, and
the low ground to the south gave easy access to the

92 MR DAVID B. MORRIS ON

Teutonic races spreading north from England. The Celts,
yielding to a stronger, or perhaps a more persistent race,
gradually retreated, until they found shelter in the wild
glens and lonely recesses of the mountains. There they
were able to hold their own, and even in course of time to
make reprisals on the low country. Along this dividing
line between Celts and Teutons, the line of the great
geological fault, the balance of strength seems to have been
adjusted, and it is a remarkable fact that the dividing line
between the two races and languages has remained exactly
the same through many centuries down to the present day.
A change, however, is now in rapid progress. Railway trains
and tourist excursions are doing in a few years what the
swords of Lowland knights and the pikes of their retainers
failed in centuries to accomplish. Gradually Gaelic is
becoming less and less spoken. English is now known
everywhere, and before long, even on the Braes of Balquhidder
and beyond the Pass of Aberfoyle, Gaelic will be but a
tradition.

The census returns for 1891 for the six counties show the
following results. This table is taken from Bartholomew's
Atlas :—

Ponulation Gaelic, — Per- Gaelic and Per-
E * | only. centage. | English. | centage.

|

/
| Perth, 5 é 126,199 304 0°24 13,847 10°97
‘Stirling, . . | 125,608 2 aa) 1.840 1°46
Clackmannan, . 28,432 Is } oe 215 0°76
Kinross, . : 6,280 0 eae 56 0°89
_ Fife, : , 187,346 6 726 0°39
/ Linlithgow, : 52,808 2 486 0°92

These figures show that the portions of our district
comprised in the counties of Clackmannan, Kinross, Fife, and
Linlithgow contain no indigenous Gaelic-speaking people,
the few Gaelic speakers being immigrants from other
districts. The figures for Perth and Stirling are large
enough to show that in the Highland parts of these counties
Gaelic is still to a great extent the daily language of the
people. In the Forth Valley the Gaelic-speaking area is
confined to the six parishes which I have called Highland,

OO SE ss oe S,:t“‘( er

NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY. 93:

with perhaps a little on the Braes of Doune. Mention
ought to be made of the incursion during the present
century of large numbers of Irish people. They are inclined
to form communities by themselves, and do not readily
intermarry with their Scotch neighbours, being separated
from them by differences of religion as well as of race.
Among the older people, those born in Ireland, Irish Gaelic
is still spoken, but the language dies out in a generation,
being seldom acquired by those born in Scotland. It would
probably have been extinct by this time but for occasional
fresh arrivals from Ireland.

In the Highland area the place names are, as might be
expected, purely Gaelic, as Uam Var, Ben Each, Craigmore,
Balvaig, Avon Dhu. The names on the Braes of Doune
also are purely Gaelic. All over the rest of the district we
find a strange mixture of Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon names.
There is less Gaelic as we proceed east and south, and such
Gaelic as there is becomes more and more altered from long
use on Teutonic lips, until, though their Gaelic origin may
be easily recognised, the words can often hardly be trans-
lated. In districts where Anglo-Saxon must have been
spoken for very many centuries, rivers, hills, and other
natural features are still called by Gaelic names, which must
have had no meaning whatever to the generations of people
who used them and carried them down to the present day.
For example, the rivers Avon, Carron, and Devon, and the:
hills known as Ben Cleuch, Dumglow (Cleish Hills), Darroch
(Denny Hills), and Torphichen (near Linlithgow), are all in:
districts where Gaelic has not been spoken within the period
of local written history.

In the carse lands Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon place names
occur mixed indiscriminately together. Blaircessnock and
Ballingrue are not far from Whitehill and Hilton; Fordhead
and Culmore are but a few yards apart, and Thornhill lies.
between Auchinsalt and Drummore.

So far as I can trace, Anglo-Saxon place names, except
those entirely modern, do not extend further up the River
Forth than Gartmore, nor up the River Teith further than:
Deanston. The Allan, above Dunblane, seems to be the:
dividing line between two districts. On the right bank the-

94 NATURE AND MAN IN THE FORTH VALLEY.

names are all Gaelic; on the left bank they are mixed:
Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon. There are, no doubt, some
exceptions, but not many.

A number of the place names are ecclesiastical in their
origin, or are derived from the old saints who exercised so
large an influence on the dawning civilisation of early
Scotland. Examples of such are Inchmahome, St Colme’s
Glen (on Leckie Estate), and Inch Colme, named after Saint
Colme or Columba, St Ninians after the saint of that name,
and Kilbryde and St Bride’s after St Bridget. Kilmadock
and Kildean, Manuel and Abbotshaugh, Corscaplie and
Boquhapple in our district, and Gleneagles and Ecclesmachan
just beyond it, have all an evident ecclesiastical origin.

CONCLUSION.

I may perhaps be expected to give some hints as to how
Sir John Murray’s scheme is to be carried out. It is always
easier to state a problem than to solve it, to set a task than
to do it, and I confess that I am not able to formulate any
well-thought-out plan. I feel that I have taken too much
upon myself in coming here to speak at all. I would, how-
ever, make four suggestions which occur to me, although I
know that in doing so I am simply stating the obvious :—
(1) The records of previous observers should be collated as a
basis for further progress ; (2) the assistance of local observers
in all parts of the district should, where possible, be obtained ;
(3) the camera should be freely used: a good photograph is
worth pages of description; and (4) do not be in too great a
hurry to reach final results.

CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS. 95

CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS.
By W. E. Hoyte.
(Read 4th July 1901.)

THE use of card catalogues is now so widely spread, and
their special advantages are so well understood, that it
seems almost needless to dwell upon them. I need only
recall to your minds the most important, namely, the
facility with which they are kept up to date, as additions
can always be made at the proper point instead of merely
tacked on at the end. The card catalogue, too, is quicker
and easier to consult, 7f (and this is a most important
proviso) the number of guide-cards be adequate.

With the use of card catalogues for ordinary library
work I do not now propose to deal—those who wish
information on the subject will find it discussed at great
length and fulness in the various journals and transactions
dealing with library management and organisation.

I propose in the first instance to show you a simple
application of it to one of the purposes of a scientific
society. I have here a tin box 10x5.x8 inches, which
contains the list for sending out the Jowrnal of Conchology
to the members of the Conchological Society. Each
member has a card 125 x7°5 em., the size and form in
common use for card catalogues; on the face at the top
is the name and address of the member, with title, etc., as
it should be written on the envelope. The back of the card
is ruled, and on it is stamped with an ordinary rubber date
stamp the day on which each number is despatched.
When a new member is elected, a card is placed in the
box in alphabetical order; when a member resigns or dies,
his card is removed. It is obvious that similar cards
ean be used for showing the dates when subscriptions are
paid, or, if offices of secretary and treasurer are combined
in one personality, the same set of cards may serve for both
purposes. The cards are perforated near the bottom, so

96 MR W. E. HOYLE ON

that a rod can be run through them to retain them in
position.

I shall now show you a more complicated arrangement.
in the system adopted for sending out the publications of
the Manchester Museum, with which I have the honour to
be connected.

These publications have to be sent to the following
categories of persons:—(1) The Museum Committee, (2):
the Governors and Staff of the Owens College, (3) the
Manchester City Council, (4) the subscribers to the
Museum, (5) institutions which exchange publications, (6):
the Press, (7) persons who give donations or otherwise
express special interest in the work of the Museum.

These lists are constantly changing, owing to deaths,
resignations, new appointments, elections, etc., and they
must all be checked and brought up to date each time a
publication is ready to be sent out.

Besides, there is yet another complication. Some of
these categories receive all the publications of the Museum,
others only the annual report. The box of cards you see
before you has been arranged to enable this work to be
carried out with the least possible expenditure of time and
labour.

Every person or institution has a card, on the front of
which is the postal address clearly typewritten exactly as
it should appear on the envelope, so that any person who:
can write distinctly may direct the envelopes. Those
persons who receive all the publications have a blue card,
those who receive only the annual report a white card.
Every card has on its upper margin an outstanding pro-
jection or tab, in one of twelve possible positions, and a
particular position is associated with each category of
persons; thus the members of the College staff and
governors have a white card with the tab in the 12th
position, the Museum Committee a blue card with the tab
in the 4th position. When the annual report, for example,
is ready to be sent out, an assistant takes the last issue of
the College Calendar and runs through those cards whose
tabs are in the 12th position, adding new cards if required,
and removing those no longer needed ; the members of the ©

CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS. 97

city council are checked by the official list, and so on. The
list is then ready, and the envelopes are addressed from it.

On the back of each card is placed with a rubber stamp
the number of the publication in question and the date of
its despatch. This information is placed in an inverted
position, so that it may be read by simply looking over the
top of the card.

EHxample 1:—

~ Front of Card.

oe * \

Sir John Murray, K.C.B., F.R.S., &.,
Challenger Lodge,
Wardie,
Edinburgh.

©

Back of Card.

|
FF
wn eevenceccencccncesccccccecccecnccecnnccessccsccccnscnsces secrensseaeterrtterssnsseesenng 66 ‘dag OL "6z
emer ee oo mg BY RE
ee ee cag eit Poe ee
a es
7

I now come to deal with the question of the application
of card catalogues to bibliographical purposes, and shall
VOL. I.

98 MR W. E. HOYLE ON

take for my illustration the elaborate Bibliography of
Zoology published by the Concilium Bibliographicum at.
Ziirich under the direction of Dr H. Haviland Field.

The scheme which Dr Field has been gradually elaborating
during the past ten years is nothing less than a complete
card catalogue of zoological literature, beginning with the
year 1896. It is intended to include not only books inde-
pendently published, but also the thousand and one memoirs,
papers, and notes which are published in journals and in the
transactions of learned societies, irrespective of language and
place of publication. It is calculated that upwards of 8000
titles of zoological works are to be dealt with every year, and
these are distributed over about 1500* different publications.
Besides the zoological bibliography described here, the “ Con-
cilium” publishes two other complete bibliographies upon the
same scheme—the anatomical on cards only, and the physio-
logical, which appears in card as well as in pamphlet form.
The magnitude of this task is appalling, but Dr Field does
not despair of accomplishing it by means of thorough and
careful organisation.

The cards are 12°5 x 7°5 cm., which is the standard size
of the Library Bureau and several other agencies. A single
title is printed on each card, giving on the top line at the
left the name of the author, and at the right a classification
number; then immediately below, the year of publication,
title of the work, name of the journal or other place where
it is to be found, number of pages, plates, and other

illustrations; whilst at the foot of the card is the signature”

and, in the case of cards on paleontology and zoology,
the two first’ figures of the class number, as will be
explained below. Further, if the title does not sufficiently
indicate the nature of the contents, a brief explanatory
note is added (see Example 2); new generic names pro-
posed are given, and if new species are described the fact
is stated, as also the genera to which they belong (see
Example 3).

* The actual number of periodicals {from which the cards issued from 1896
to 1900 were taken was 1576.

i i,

CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS. 99

Example 2 :—

Boulenger, G. A. 14.31.4: 81.2
1896. Remarks on the Dentition of Snakes and on the Evolu-
tion of the Poison fangs. Proc. zool. soc. London, 1896, Pt. 3,
p. 614-616. [Criticism of G. S. Wxst, Proc. 1895, p. 812.
Missing teeth mistaken for diastemata. 5 grooved teeth in
Oxybelis. No fundamental difference between Proteroglypha
and non-venomous Colubride. ]

ree : ul : edidit Concilium Bibliographicum.
In Bibliographia Universali-59 ies) Typographia Concilii Bibliographiei,

Example 3:—

Rothschild, W., and K. Jordan. 57.87 Asota (502)
1897. Notes on Heterocera, with Descriptions of new Genera
and Species. Novitat. zool. Tring. Vol. 4, p. 314-365. 1 pl.
[Asota: 3 nn. spp., 36 nn, subspp.]

The classification number above referred to is perhaps
the most important part of the whole scheme. It is based on
the decimal system of Melvill Dewey, which has been greatly
extended, without being altered, in order to meet the require-
ments of this catalogue. or instance, the large group of
worms, which Dewey left as a unit under the number 595.1,
has been subdivided into seventeen classes in accordance
with the developments of systematic zoology. The heading
“Geographical Distribution” has been greatly enlarged, so
as to include not only particular countries and states, but
also such local categories as deserts, caves, oceans, rivers,
lakes, etc.

To avoid needless repetition, the figures 56 and 59, which

100 MR W. E. HOYLE ON

indicate respectively paleontology and zoology in general,
are omitted from the heading and placed separately with the
signature at the foot of the card.

The classification number is given in full, so as to repre-
sent as far as possible the whole subject of the paper. The
great majority of papers fall under more than one heading.
For instance, the memoir quoted in Example 2 treats of the
teeth of the snake. Its class number consists of two parts—
the number for ¢eeth, 14.31.4, and the number for snakes, 81.2;
and these are both printed consecutively and separated by a
colon, the systematic numbers being printed in heavy type,
so that they may be readily distinguished.

This paper is just as important to the student of teeth as
to the student of snakes, and any one looking up anatomy of
teeth ought to be referred to it, just as should any one seeking
information about snakes. Therefore two cards are printed,
with the numbers transposed. Thus one card has 81.2:
14.31.4, and finds its way in sorting to “snakes”; the other
has 14.31,4 : 81.2, and finds its way to “comparative
anatomy, teeth.”

Example 4:—

Hall Ts. 47.1 Adeona: 14.99
1897. On the occurrence of the Anchoring Tubes of Adeona
in the Older Tertiaries of Victoria, with an account of their
structure. Proc. R. Soc. Victoria N.S. Vol. 9, p. 1-4. 1 pl.

To take a still more complicated instance (see Example 4),
the above paper contains information which may be needed
by the student of bryozoa, of comparative anatomy, of
paleontology, and of geographical distribution. | Hence
four cards are printed with the class numbers as follows :—

(118): 47-1 Adeona.
(94.5): 47-1 Adeona.
14.99: 47.1 Adeona.
47.1 Adeona: 14.99.

CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS. 101

In sorting the cards into their places by the numbers,
the first will find its way to Tertiary period; the second to
Australia, Victoria; the third to appendages of the body-
fixing organs ; and the fourth to bryozoa, gymnoleemata, genus
Adeona. Thus it will be seen that the information it contains
will be supplied to the seeker from whatever avenue he may
approach it.

This facility for double and multiple reference is perhaps
the most striking feature of Dr Field’s system.

The rule which applies to the arrangement of books in
a library—classify every title in the most minute division
possible—is of paramount importance in a work like the
present, where it is so necessary to restrict the number of
cards to be examined by any one in search of definite infor-
mation. The need for subdivision is seen when we consider
such a group as the butterflies, a favourite object of study by
naturalists, both professional and amateur, in all quarters of
the globe, on which as many as 1200 works have been
published in a single year. To meet such cases a special
method of classification has been devised. The limits and
number, and even the very names of families, are by no means
agreed upon among naturalists, hence it is out of the question
to carry out the decimal scheme to groups of such small
systematic value. An alphabetical arrangement has therefore
been adopted in the case of papers dealing with a single
family or genus, the name being affixed to the class number
in order to serve as a guide to placing the cards in sequence
(see Example 3).

In order to facilitate reference, the catalogue is provided
with guide cards such as are familiar to every one who has
worked with a card catalogue. Dr Field has published a
series of these guides, of graduated sizes, with a tab project-
ing above the level of the cards, and having on it the name
of the main division, so that this at once catches the eye.
Each main card, too, bears a printed list of its subdivisions
with their numbers.

102 MR W. E. HOYLE ON

Example 5 :—

\

6 Vertebrata \

\

7 ~ Pisces

76 Amphibia
8 Sauropsida
81 Reptilia
82 Aves

9 Mammalia

As a further help there has been issued a descriptive
pamphlet, containing explanatory paragraphs and a number
of indexes. There is first a conspectus methodicus, which gives
a bird’s-eye view of the whole scheme with the proper
numbers affixed to each division. Then follows an alpha-
betical index, in Latin, English, French, and German, in
which are included the names of all parts of the body whose
anatomy and physiology may be treated, geographical names
and systematic divisions of the animal kingdom, besides
general topics such as heredity, degeneration, evolution, and
the like.

As an instance of the utility of this catalogue we may
quote a recent report of the Swiss Society of Naturalists. It
endeavours to estimate in a specific case the saving of
time afforded by the card catalogue in obtaining references
to recent publications in regard to the trout. The saving is
estimated at half a day. But in regard to other cases the
saving is far greater. Let any zoologist familiar with past
bibliographical resources consider how he would go to work
to ascertain what has been published in the past five years
in regard to some minute question, such as the fauna of
Sumatra. A moment’s reflection will suffice to show that it
would be a task of many weeks to obtain an answer to such
a question. Yet a subscriber to the faunistic part of the
bibliography of the Concilium would only require a few
seconds to find 62 publications dealing with the question.
The titles of ten of these publications would, it is true, bear
no mention of Sumatra; they are classed here because on
perusing the text important references to Sumatra were
found. Some, indeed, bear titles that would seem to

CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS. 103

absolutely preclude any notes on the fauna of Sumatra, as,
for example, a work on “The Insects of Germany.” Sub-
scribers to any considerable portion of the bibliography
would have received these references for 80 centimes (8d.),
and any person, whether a subscriber or not, could receive
the information for 3 fr. 10 (2s. 6d.). Surely no comment is
mecessary to prove the value of the work and the extreme
cheapness of the service.

There is no doubt that when the admirable qualities of the
catalogue become more widely known in England, more and
more zoologists will subscribe to it and provide themselves
with the cards bearing on the subjects of special value to them.

For subscribers receiving from 1000 to 1500 cards per
annum the charge is 2°25 franes (about two shillings) for
white cards and 1°85 franes for thin brown cards per hundred,
whilst for those undertaking to receive the whole set the
prices are as low as 1°30 francs and 90 centimes per hundred
respectively.

I should recommend the Society to subscribe to a duplicate
series of Field’s ecards relating to their special objects, one
being arranged systematically, the other according to author.
On this latter might be advantageously indicated those
libraries in Edinburgh in which the publications are to be
founc.

Finally, may I say a few words on the use of cards in
systematic catalogues, a point which seems to me of special
impoitance in view of the object which I understand this
Society has set before itself of compiling an account of the
natural history of the Forth and its basin? I would suggest
that 1 card catalogue should be kept of all the species
recorded from the area in question, each species having its
own zard, behind which could be ranged slips giving
refereaces to literature, notes of occurrence, habits, ete.

The scheme might be carried out in some such way as
that shown in the accompanying specimen. Each genus has
a blue card, with a projecting tab at the left hand one-third
of its breadth, on which the generic name is written or
printed in clear bold letters. It will be convenient to add
the name of the creator of the genus, its date of description,
and perhaps the name of the type species.

104 MR W. E. HOYLE ON

Example 5 :—

Epeira.

Walkenaer 1805.

Each species has a buff card, with a projection either in
the centre or towards the right-hand side of the card. As
species are more numerous than genera, it is convenient to
have tabs which come alternately right and left, so that as.
many as possible can be used without overlapping eéch
other.

Cards are made with tabs occupying one-third of the
upper edge for this purpose, and in large genera all three
positions can be profitably used. On each species card
should be given its author and a reference to the place and
date of its original creation, as well as to the best description
and figure of it. Synonyms, ete., may also be added.
Specimens of two such cards are shown in Exampks 7
and 8.

Example 7 :—

diademata \
Clerck. \

Blackwall, 6-614, p. 358.
Cambridge, *79-81, p. 266.

Epeira.

le
ee

CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS. 105
Example 8 :—

umbratica
Clerck.

Blackwall, ’61-64, p. 333.

Epeira. ay %

The generic name is written at the bottom of the card, to
enable it to be easily replaced if it should become separated
from the others. It is not needed when the card is i situ
in the catalogue.

The genus card may with advantage be fairly stout,
but the species cards may be much thinner than those
usually employed as guides in card catalogues so as to save
space.

Every member who is willing to co-operate in collecting
materials should be provided with a supply of slips of
manila paper, cut to the same size as the cards and per-
forated like them.

On these he may make notes as to characters, occurrence,
and habits, or references to literature, regarding any species
he may come across. Care must be taken to use a separate
slip for each species and to place the name of it at the foot
of the card. References to literature are very compactly
and conveniently made by giving in heavy type or under-
lined the last two figures of the date and the page referred
to; or, if the publication is one referred to in Dr Field’s
vatalogue, the year and the class number. Further particulars
regarding the former mode of reference are given by Prof.
K. L. Mark (Science, vol. xiii. pp. 31, 32, 1901), and by Dr
H. H Field (Bull. Soc. Zool. France, vol. xix. pp. 44-47, 1894).

106 CARD CATALOGUES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS.

Example 9 shows a slip thus filled up.

EHaample 9 :—

Tyninghame, E. Lothian,
Luffness House,

Carpenter & Evans, ’97 19 (41.44) : 54.4.

Epeira umbratica. a

After an excursion of the Society, or after the holidays
of an individual member, a number of these slips would be
handed to the official in charge of the catalogue, who would
file them in their proper places.

The catalogue would soon come to contain an immense
mass of valuable information ready for immediate use and
easy of access. z

In addition to cards for genera and species, others can be
provided for general topics, which members may be studying,
such as commensalism; or a set of guides can be arranged
geographically, and names of species found there filed between
them. The systematic catalogue of genera and species is,
however, the backbone of the whole work, and other
developments may be added subsequently as occasion
arises.

i a ee |
’

THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES. 107

THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES.
By W. B. Drummonp, M.B., C.M., F.R.C.P.E.
(Read 3rd October 1901.)

(With lantern illustrations.)

‘StncE Schleiden and Schwann promulgated the cell theory of

the structure of living tissues, our knowledge of the form,

appearance, and life-history of cells has continued steadily

to advance, and is still advancing at the present day.
There are few cells which are more easily obtainable for

examination by means of the microscope than the corpuscles

of the human blood. This fact, together with the recognition

of the important part played by the corpuscles in the

functions of the blood, has led to the most careful and pains-

‘taking investigation of the microscopic structure of these

bodies. To anyone who is acquainted with the energy with
which this branch of research has been pursued, and the
mass of details with which it has been rewarded, it may

appear somewhat surprising that even by this, apparently the

most superficial and obvious method of studying the blood,

additions to our knowledge still continue yearly to be made.

The subject of the paper which I have the pleasure of
submitting to you this evening may perhaps seem a little

outside the scope of the ordinary work of this Society. If

this is indeed so, I would beg you to think of the cor-
puscles of the blood as being, in a certain sense, independent
living organisms which possess, from the biological point of
view, the same intrinsic interest as an amceba or other
unicellular animal. It would, I suppose, be impossible for
us to embrace, and apply to the cellular elements of the
blood, the more extreme of recent speculations on the so-

called “psychic life of micro-organisms.” But even if we
-cannot think of the corpuscles possessing any “ consciousness ”
of the larger life in which they play so notable a part,

‘we must at least admit that each of them has a life-history

108 DR W. B. DRUMMOND.

of its own, only a part of which is spent in the circulating
blood. Each corpuscle has a place and period of birth;
each corpuscle has a period of growth and development, a
period during which it displays all the essential char-
acteristics of living things—respiration, absorption, assimila-
tion, excretion—a period, lastly, of decay and death.

The whole story of the life-history of a blood corpuscle
involves the study of many other structures besides the
blood itself. It is some chapters of this story which I desire
to bring before your notice to-night.

The Structure of the Blood.—Blood consists of a fluid, the-
plasma or liquor sanguinis, in which float corpuscles of
several kinds. The corpuscles are chiefly of two sorts,
coloured and colourless; and in addition to these there are
very minute particles, much smaller than the corpuscles,
known as the blood platelets. To these latter we need not
again refer,

The white or colourless corpuscles are found in the-
blood of all animals. In the invertebrates all the corpuscles
are colourless, and the same is true of the blood of the
lowest vertebrate, Amphiowus lanceolatus. In all other
vertebrates both white and red corpuscles are present,.
and the red are the more numerous.

The history of these white corpuscles has during recent
years excited the keenest interest, and it is with regret
that we pass by the romance of their emigration from the
blood vessels, of their wanderings in the tissues and spaces
of the body, of the battles they fight with the invading
hosts of bacteria, of their devotion even to death in the
cause of the body they serve. Of these things we may
not speak now. A brief description, however, of the
chief varieties of white corpuscles will assist us in under-
standing the structure of human blood.

All white corpuscles are minute nucleated masses of
protoplasm. Several kinds of these can be recognised
without difficulty.

1. The Lymphocytes—These form from 20 to 25 per
cent. of all the white corpuscles in normal human blood.
They are small cells, spherical or nearly spherical in form,.
and their protoplasm is very scanty, forming, as a rule,.

THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES. 109

‘merely a thin layer round the nucleus. The nucleus is
round, or occasionally somewhat oval in outline, and contains
‘such a dense network of chromatin that it stains very
deeply. One or two nucleoli may be present within the
nucleus.

2. The Large Mononuclear Leuecocytes—These form only
about 1 per cent. of the white corpuscles. They possess a
large oval nucleus and a relatively abundant protoplasm
without granulations. They are two or three times as large
as the red corpuscles. In the blood they change into

3. Transitional Forms, which have a more indented and
more deeply staining nucleus, and a few granules in the
protoplasm.

4, The Polymorphonuclear Leuwcocytes—These form about
70 per cent. of the white corpuscles. They are char-
acterised by the presence of a multipartite nucleus which
stains very readily. Their protoplasm has a dense granula-
tion which stains red with eosin, but much less intensely
than the granules of the true eosinophile cells. These
cells are capable of active amoeboid movements, and
possibly the form of the nucleus is associated therewith,
for a cell with a multipartite nucleus must be able to .
make its way through small spaces more readily than
one with a single large round nucleus.

5, Hosinophile Cells——These form 2 to 4 per cent. of
the white cells. They resemble the last, with the exception
that their granules are much coarser and stain very
intensely with acid dyes such as eosin.

6. The Basophile Cells (Mast Cells)—These form not
more than } per cent. of the white cells) They have a
nucleus which does not stain readily, and granules in their
protoplasm which stain with basic dyes (methylene blue,
thionin, etc.).

7. Unuswal Forms.—Besides these varieties of leucocyte,
all of which may be met with in normal blood, there are
some other cells which may be discovered in some forms
of disease. Of these the most important is a cell which
looks like a giant white corpuscle, and which is derived
from the marrow of the bones. It has a large faintly
staining nucleus, and neutrophile granules in its protoplasm,

110 DR W. B. DRUMMOND.

like the polymorphonuclear cells. Such marrow cells Tf
shall have to speak of again when describing the origin of
the red corpuscles.

The Red Corpuscles of the Blood—We rust now turn
our attention to the coloured corpuscles. It is to these
corpuscles that the blood owes its red colour, but although
the corpuscles are ved when seen in mass, they are yellow
when seen singly under the microscope by transmitted
light. Their colour is due to a pigment termed hemoglobin.
In all animals except mammals the red corpuscles are oval
cells, each containing a nucleus. The protoplasm is non-
granular and contains the hemoglobin. In mammals, on
the other hand, the red corpuscles are non-nucleated. They
are oval in form in the camels, but in all other mammals
they are circular biconcave discs.

Red corpuscles vary greatly in size. The largest are
found in the Amphibia, the largest of all being those of
Amphiuma, which measure 35 inch in their long diameter.
The smallest corpuscles are found in the mammals. Those
of Man are only 3399 inch in diameter. What they lack in
size they make up in numbers. Every cubic millimetre of
blood contains 5,000,000 of them.

When a drop of blood is examined under the microscope,
the concave character of the discs is indicated by the fact
that each disc looks paler in the centre, where it is thinnest,
than at the periphery. This character can also be readily
made out when a corpuscle is found standing on its edge.

The corpuscles have a strong tendency to stick together
by their concave surfaces, so as to form masses or rouleaux.

The Origin of the Red Corpuscles—With this brief de-
scription of the appearances presented by the red corpuscles,
we may pass on to consider the different stages of their
life-history. First of all, let us ask where they come from.
Where are they born ?

Red corpuscles are recognisable in the embryo at
quite an early stage of development. They are described
as originating in the substance of nucleated masses of
protoplasm, which are situated in the middle of the three
layers of cells of which the body of the embryo is composed.
The nuclei of these masses subdivide, and the multinucleated

THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES. 111

structure thus formed becomes differentiated into an outer
envelope which forms the wall of an embryonic blood
vessel, and an inner mass of small nucleated cells which
are the young blood corpuscles. Even in mammals al)
the blood corpuscles are nucleated during the early stage
of development, and even after birth some nucleated red
cells may be found in the general circulation, but in a
short time only the characteristic non-nucleated, biconcave
dises are to be seen.

What relation do these discs bear to the nucleated
corpuscles of the embryo? This is a question which has
led to a great deal of debate. It was at one time believed
by many of the best observers that the ordinary red cor-
puscles were derived from the nuclei of cells which had
lost their protoplasm and had become pigmented. There
can, however, be no doubt that this view is incorrect, and
that the red corpuscles of the adult really represent the
protoplasmic portion of nucleated corpuscles from which
the nucleus has disappeared.

The question of the origin of the red corpuscles after
birth was very obscure until comparatively recently. The
spleen and the lymphatic glands were supposed to play an
important part in the formation of red corpuscles, which
were described as arising either from the cells of the
leucocyte class, which are so numerous in these organs, or in
the interior of large blood-forming cells, as they do in the
embryo. At the present day it is regarded as quite certain
that red corpuscles are not derived from leucocytes, and
it is very doubtful whether an intracellular formation of the
red cells ever occurs in extra-uterine life. Much more
probably, all the ordinary red corpuscles arise directly from
nucleated red cells.

As long ago as 1868 Neumann and Bizzozero inde-
pendently discovered nucleated red corpuscles in the bone-
marrow of mammals. This discovery naturally excited a
great deal of interest, and led to much investigation of the
structure of marrow. The earlier researches were much
hampered by difficulties of technique, and it was not until
the paraffin method of cutting sections was introduced that
satisfactory preparations could be obtained, showing the

LAD DR W. B. DRUMMOND.

various cells present in the marrow in their natural relations
to one another. The result of these investigations has been
to establish the supreme position of the bone-marrow as a
blood-forming organ, and to displace the older theories of
blood formation. The bone-marrow, then, is the birth-place
of the red corpuscles of the blood. Whether all the red
corpuscles are born there, we need not discuss at present.
We do not know of any other site for their formation in
Man in normal conditions.

The Structure of the Bone-marrow.—When a thin section
of marrow is examined under the microscope, it is found
that the marrow tissue proper is arranged in a network of
thin strands, in the meshes of which are the large fat cells
of which the marrow is so largely composed. The marrow
tissue is formed almost entirely of cells, there being scarcely
any supporting stroma. These cells are of several kinds.

First of all, there are the marrow cells proper, which make
up a considerable proportion of the substance of the
marrow. These are colourless cells, each possessing a single
large rounded or oval nucleus and finely granular protoplasm.
The nucleus is relatively poor in chromatin. It has a
distinct nuclear membrane, and contains a fine nuclear net-
work, with some scattered fragments of chromatin, and one
or more nucleoli. The protoplasm contains exceedingly
minute granules, which stain with eosin like those of the
finely granular leucocytes of the blood.

In addition to these ordinary marrow cells, a few coarsely
granular cells may be noticed, which differ from the first
only in the character of their granules.

The cells of most striking appearance in the marrow are
the giant cells—very large cells which measure in diameter
four or five times as much as the marrow cells.

Now we come to the cells in which we are specially
interested at present, the nucleated predecessors of the red
corpuscles. These cells are sometimes divided into coloured
and colourless varieties, according as they contain hemo-
globin in their protoplasm or not; but it is not possible to
make any such absolute distinction, as the hemoglobin may
be present in such small amount that one cannot be quite
certain whether it is there or not. The typical coloured variety

PTE

THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES. 113

of these cells, the ordinary nucleated red corpuscles, differs in
important respects from the marrow cells. They vary con-
siderably in size, Some are of the same size as ordinary
red corpuscles, others are considerably larger, and all inter-
mediate sizes may be found. The protoplasm of these cells
is tinged more or less deeply with hemoglobin, and is
entirely free from granules, and in both respects presents a
marked contrast to that of the marrow cells. The nucleus
is quite circular, and stains very deeply on account of the
great density of the chromatin network. The cells differ
somewhat among themselves. When a large number of cells
is examined, it is possible to make out that these differences
depend upon age. The youngest cells are the largest. In
them the protoplasm is comparatively scanty, and the
hemoglobin tints it very faintly. The nucleus is pro-
portionately large, and has a distinct chromatin network.
These cells undergo active subdivision.

As the cells get older they become smaller owing to their
repeated subdivisions. The protoplasm becomes more deeply
coloured with hemoglobin. The nucleus, also, becomes
small, dense, homogeneous in structure, and stains very
intensely with nuclear dyes. These may be regarded as
signs of age.

From the appearance presented by these older nucleated
red corpuscles there can be no doubt that they give rise to
the ordinary red cells by the loss of their nuclei. How this
change comes about is by no means certain, and in spite of
‘a great deal of lively discussion, the fate of the nucleus still
remains something of a mystery. Some writers believe that
the nucleus is extruded, and either disappears by disintegra-
tion in the blood, or, by the aid of a small remnant of proto-
plasm which surrounds it, gradually forms a new nucleated
red corpuscle. The latter theory (that of Rindfleisch) is not
probable, as the nucleus in the older corpuscles has all the ap-
pearances of age. Extruded nuclei may be found in sections
and other preparations, and this favours the view of their exit
from the protoplasm, whatever their ultimate fate may be.
Some observers (Pappenheim, Israel) believe that the nuclei
undergo disintegration and absorption within the corpuscles,
and explain the occurrence of nuclei without protoplasm as

VOL. II.

114 DR W. B. DRUMMOND.

due to artificial or accidental extrusion, which, they admit,
may readily be produced.

The Arrangement of the Cells of the Marrow.—The arrange-
ment of the different cells described in the marrow is not.
by any means easy to make out, especially in mammals. In
birds the marrow cells form a tolerably compact parenchyma,
through which pass venous capillaries containing a moving
stream of blood. ‘These capillaries are lined by layers of
rounded cells which undergo subdivision, and of which the
more superficial are gradually set free in the passing blood
stream as nucleated red corpuscles. The marrow cells and
the cells which give rise to the red corpuscles are thus
separate from one another.

In mammals the arrangement of the cells appears to
be similar, but it is by no means easy to make this out
distinctly. The different parts of the marrow are not.
distinctly marked off from one another. The venous
capillaries are represented by comparatively wide vascular
channels, which in some parts appear to be bounded by
nucleated red cells; in others, by the marrow cells
proper ; in others, by a giant cell or a fat cell; while in
some places they may have a proper endothelial lining.
There is no absolute separation between the parenchyma
of marrow cells and the groups of nucleated red cells.
The latter may be found among the marrow cells, and do
not anywhere form a complete boundary to the venous
capillaries as they do in the marrow of birds.

Seeing that the nucleated red corpuscles thus lie exposed
in many places to the stream of circulating blood, one might
expect to meet with them frequently in the general circula-
tion. But this is not so, and their absence may be explained
as follows. In the first place, the cells have probably a
certain amount of cohesiveness, so that they are not readily
loosened from their places until they are ripe—that is to
say, until they have lost, or are just about to lose, their
nuclei. In the second place, the stream of blood in the
vascular channels must be exceedingly slow, and the current
very feeble, for the total area of these channels is enormously
greater than that of the small arterial twigs which supply
the marrow with blood.

Le eS S—“‘ PO

THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES. 115

Under some abnormal conditions—for example, after a
severe hemorrhage, when there is a great demand for more
blood—nucleated corpuscles may be found in the general
circulation. Possibly the more watery blood passing through
the marrow in such circumstances loosens the corpuscles in
the vascular channels from their attachment before they
have reached maturity.

The bone-marrow, then, is the birth-place of the red
corpuscles, which are derived from specialised cells which
give rise to nucleated coloured cells. These ultimately lose
their nuclei and pass into the general circulation.

The Red Corpuscle in Circulation.—When the red
corpuscle passes into the circulation, it becomes, so to speak,
lost in the crowd. For a time its life is spent in a pilgrim-
age through the blood vessels in the capacity of a carrier
of oxygen to the tissues. Though still living, it possesses
none of the active propensities of its white brethren, but is
passively carried along with the circulating blood.

Here I should just like to remark that the circulation is
not the mechanical thing which we are apt to represent it.
The heart is a pump, the blood vessels are tubes, and the
circulation of the blood consists in the pumping of the blood
through these tubes so that it comes back again to its point
of departure. Such is the idea one is apt to form in one’s
mind, but such an idea is very far indeed from the truth.
The circulation of the blood is very far from being a mere
mechanical process. Rather we should picture it to our-
selves as altering every instant of the day. The vessels are
under the control of nerves, and by them the exact supply
of blood to each organ of the body is regulated to a nicety.
All over the body the blood vessels are continually dilating or
contracting, so as to increase or diminish the blood supply
of each part. We cannot think a thought, or breathe a word,
or move a limb, without at the same instant altering the
supply of blood to the parts concerned.

The precise duration of life of a red corpuscle varies con-
siderably, and is not easy to determine accurately. Sutffice
it to say that it is not indefinite. Some corpuscles are
destroyed within the body, others may be lost by hemor-
rhage.

116 DR W. B. DRUMMOND.

The Spleen, which was at one time credited with being an
active blood-forming organ, is now generally believed to
play an important part in the destruction of red corpuscles.
Quite recently a good deal of attention has been attracted
by certain small glands, which appear to perform this office
even more actively than the spleen. These are the
hemolymph glands, and to them we must now turn our
attention. _

The Hemolymph Glands were discovered in 1884 by
Heneage Gibbes, who gave a brief description of them. No
further observations were made upon them till six years
later, when W. F. Robertson discovered them again and made
the first detailed description of them. His observations were
made chiefly on glands obtained from the sheep and bullock,
where they are very abundant. Some specimens were ob-
tained from the human subject, but were not in a sufficiently
good state of preservation for microscopical work. Robertson
suggested that the glands were concerned in the formation
of red corpuscles, though he admitted that he could find no
positive proof of this.

Clarkson, in 1891, and again, in his Text Book of
Histology, in 1896, added some fresh points to the descrip-
tion of the hemolymph glands, and declared that there was
little doubt that they were local centres for the production
of blood corpuscles, both white and red. This statement,
however, he did not substantiate by any observation tending
to prove it, and it must be regarded as quite hypothetical.

In 1897 Vincent and Harrison published a much more
detailed account of the glands than had hitherto appeared,
and pointed out reasons for believing that they took part,
not in the formation, but in the destruction of the red
corpuscles.

This view was further supported by myself in an article
published in 1900, in which the structure of the glands in
several animals is detailed.

Finally, in the present year Warthin has published a pre-
liminary report on the structure of hemolymph glands found
in the human subject in various pathological conditions.

The hemolymph glands are small bodies which are found
most abundantly in the prevertebral region of certain mam-

THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES. LAT

mals. In general appearance and structure they resemble
lymphatic glands, the essential difference being that the
former contain sinuses filled with blood. In some specimens
the lymphoid tissue is very abundant, aud these often cannot
be distinguished from lymphatic glands by the naked eye.
In others the blood sinuses are of comparatively large size,
and may even occupy the bulk of the gland. Such
specimens can be distinguished by their red colour, and may
even be quite conspicuous, as is the case in the sheep, where
they form a striking contrast to the fat in which they are
embedded.

When a section of a hemolymph gland is examined
under the microscope, the general arrangement of its
structures is what is shown in the diagram, The parts of
the gland which we are specially interested in at present are
the blood sinuses. If these are examined under a high
power, it will be found that the blood contained in them
differs from ordinary blood, in that cells of the white corpuscle
class are more numerous. In the case of animals like the
sheep, where the glands are abundant, and the sinuses of
large size, this difference may not be very marked; but in
the case of the dog, whose hemolymph glands are few in.
number, various kinds of cells may be exceedingly abundant
in the sinuses. Among these cells, lymphocytes, eosinophile
cells, and the ordinary wandering leucocytes may be
recognised ; but the cells which are most noticeable, both
from their size and from their numbers, are those usually
designated hyaline cells. These cells have a large amount:
of protoplasm. They are amceboid and phagocytic, and their
form varies greatly. Very frequently inclusions of various.
kinds are present in the protoplasm. The most common of
these are red corpuscles, which are recognisable by
their size and shape, and their staining reactions. Some-
times twenty or thirty red corpuscles may be seen in a
single hyaline cell.

Fragments of nuclei in various stages of degeneration,
and pigment in the form of minute granules or of large
masses, may also be present within the cells,

In the case of the dog, the sinuses are sometimes almost
completely blocked by these hyaline cells, so numerous do

118 THE STORY OF THE RED BLOOD CORPUSCLES.

they become. In such a case practically all the red blood
corpuscles present may be within the hyaline cells.

Function of Hexemolymph Glands——The structure of
hemolymph glands suggests that they may perform some
of the chief functions of ordinary lymphatic glands. For
example, they are obvious centres for the manufacture of
white corpuscles (lymphocytes, at least), and the vascular
arrangements are such that these may readily escape into
the circulation. In the second place, their structure is
suggestive of some function with reference to the blood.

There is no sufficient evidence that they take part in the
formation of red cells. Warthin, however, in his recent
paper, says he thinks they may do so in some pathological
conditions, and describes a special variety of “ marrow-lymph ”
gland which may assume the functions of the bone-marrow.
He admits, however, that even these glands do not form red
cells under normal circumstances.

On the other hand, the glands seem to play a very
important part in the destruction of red corpuscles, and
this process of destruction is sometimes very active indeed.
This is indicated by the very large numbers of red cells
which may sometimes be seen engulfed by the hyaline cells.
It is further borne out by the quantity of pigment which
may be present, especially in the glands of old animals.
This pigment contains iron, and is evidently derived from
the red corpuscles. It is occasionally present in such
extraordinary abundance as to completely block some of
the sinuses.

We thus see that the body is provided, not only with
organs for the production of red corpuscles, but with others
whose main function would appear to be their destruction.
Under what conditions this destruction occurs, and whether
it involves only old and worn-out red cells, or whether all
the red cells which reach the hemolymph glands are liable
to promiscuous disintegration; and further, whether the
products of this destruction are made use of again in the
body, or whether the whole process may not be a stage in
the manufacture of some substances of use within the
body, are questions upon the discussion of which it is
impossible to enter at the present time.

DR ROBERT MUNRO ON PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 119
REFERENCES.

. Gibbs, Quart. Journ. Micr. Soc., 1884.

. Denys, “‘La Structure de la moelle des os,” La Cellule,

tom. 3.

. Robertson, “ Hemolymph Glands,” Lancet, 1890.

. Gulland, ‘“‘ Nature and Variety of Leucocytes,” Lab. Rep. R.C.P.
Edin., 1891.

Ehrlich, “Untersuchungen zur Histologie und Klinik des
Blutes,” 1891. 7’. Kanthack.

. Muir and Drummond, ‘ Structure of Bone-Marrow,” Jowrn. of

Anat. and Phys., vol. xxviii., 1894.

. Vincent and Harrison, “ Hemolymph Glands,” Journ. of Anat.
and Phys., vol. xxxi., 1897.

Drummond, ‘‘ Hemolymph Glands,” Journ, of Anat. and Phys.,
vol, xxxiv., 1900.

. Muir, ‘‘Bone-Marrow and Leucocyte Production,” Journ. of

Path. and Bact., 1901.

ee ft St SD St ite eS

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS AND WHAT
THEY TEACH US.

By Rosert Munro, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E.

(Read 7th November 1901.)

Human records may be divided into two great divisions,
viz., the written and the unwritten. The former, whether
entombed in the volumes of a library, or engraved as
hieroglyphics on the granite rocks of Egypt, or stamped on
the brick tablets of the Assyrians and Babylonians, we at
once lay aside as coming within the province of the
historian. Of the latter, much also lies beyond the scope
of this address. What a flood of light is thrown on the
human past by the grave and its contents, the ruined
temple and its religious emblems, the traditions and folklore
still surviving among existing races, and the fragments of dead
languages found fossilised in the nomenclature of the
physical features of a country! But all these interesting
studies are only indirectly associated with the subject of

120 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

Kitchen-middens—a title so unprepossessing, that I fear
some of you are present here to-night more from the spirit
of curiosity than with the expectation of deriving scientific
information. Let me, however, remind you that the science
of anthropology is only in its infancy, and that its evidential
materials are not yet sufficiently sifted to enable us to
decide which are the most important. Of course, the
farther back we go in our researches the human element
becomes less pronounced, until its “waifs and strays” are
scarcely distinguishable from the works of Nature.
Kitchen-middens are not peculiar to any stage or phase
in human civilisation, for as soon as the members of a
family or tribe selected a suitable place of abode, whether
cave, rock-shelter, or hut, food-refuse and other débris
would begin to accumulate around them. The Troglodytes.
of the Reindeer period, who lived chiefly on the flesh of the
reindeer, scattered the bones and other waste materials all
over the floor of the cave. When huts and houses began
to be constructed, it is probable that some semblance of
house-cleaning would be inaugurated, the effect of which
would be to remove useless débris, at least the coarser
materials, into a refuse heap. Thus, in most of the Scottish
crannogs investigated by me, there was a localised midden
outside the entrance to the wooden dwelling-house—a habit
which is not yet extinct in many localities within the so-
called Celtic fringe. That, however, in early times, even
when a high state of culture and civilisation was reached,
people were not very particular on this score, we have
ample evidence to show. The authors of The Mycenzan
Age, after informing us (p. 68) that Mycenzan houses had
been constructed with two stories, the lower of which was
used as a receptacle for rubbish such as broken dishes and
the bones of various animals, make the following remarks :—
“Tt would seem from this that these upper-story people were
not over-nice at table, and habitually flung their leavings
downstairs or through chinks in the floor. However, we
need not be shocked at this, considering the table manners.
we sometimes meet with in Homeric society. The noble
wooers of Penelope are no more refined in their feeding.
Not only do we see them flinging the bare bones on the

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 1214

floor, but there lie the hoofs of beeves ready to hand when
a missile is wanted, and the bloody hides for non-combatants
to shield themselves withal, not to mention other matters
scarcely befitting a royal banquet-hall.”

Before manure came to be utilised for agricultural
purposes, kitchen-middens were allowed to accumulate to
any extent ; and after the inhabitants abandoned the locality,
these often became the habitat of a rank vegetation, which
in course of time buried many of them under an accumula-
ation of humus. Other natural causes have also contributed
to conceal such remains from the purview of the
archeologist. I have recently examined a kitchen-midden
on the coast of Fife which had been buried under a sand-
dune, over which ultimately a thick covering of grass had
grown. Peat is another substance which has played an
important part in the preservation, or rather concealment,
of antiquarian remains; and it is not an unfrequent
occurrence to find huts and their appurtenances buried under
a bed of this material. In lake-dwellings built over piles
all the refuse was allowed to drop into the water, under
which it found a resting-place in a deposit of fine mud; and
thus some of the most fragile objects have ever since been
effectually preserved from decomposition. The most remark-
able accumulations of the débris of human occupancy
known to me are the Terramara-deposits of Italy and the
Terp-mounds of Holland, both of which will be subsequently
more particularly noticed.

The size and contents of kitchen-middens depend, of
course, on a variety of circumstances, such as the number
of members of a family or individuals congregated together,
the duration of the occupancy, and the kind of food procur-
able in the locality. If people made edible molluscs the
staple ingredients of their diet, the resulting midden would
be composed largely of the discarded shells, which, being a
bulky refuse and little liable to decomposition, would soon
form vast heaps. On the other hand, if they were pastoral
farmers or hunters, the food-refuse would be mainly com-
posed of the osseous remains of domestic and wild animals.

The former class of remains or shell-heaps are always
located near the sea, or what was formerly sea—generally on

122 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

the shores of an inland bay or the embouchure of a river.
Since the Danish savants have so successtully proved the
archeological importance of their Kjdkkenmoddings, analogous
remains have been discovered and recorded from nearly all
quarters of the globe. In Scotland they have been observed
and partially described on the shores of the Dornoch and
Moray firths, especially on Loch Spinie, now drained but
formerly connected with the sea (Proc. 8. A. Scot., vill. p.
63; Prehistoric Times, 4th ed., p. 234); on both banks of
the river Ythan, Aberdeenshire (Proc. S. A. Scot., vi. pp.
241, 423; viii, p. 180); in a cave near the mouth of the
river North Esk (Prehistoric Scotland, p. 79); the Stanner-
gate, near Dundee (Proc. S. A. Scot., xii. p. 303); the
Ghegan Rock (ibid., viii. p. 377); on the island of Inchkeith
(ibid., ix. p. 453, and Trans. of Scot. Nat. Hist. Society, vol.
i. p. 29); ina rock-shelter at Ardrossan (Prehistoric Scotland,
p. 81); on the islands of Coll and Oronsay (Proc. S. A. Scot.,
xv. p. 152, xvii. p. 354, and xxxii. p. 306); in some of the
eaves of Oban (ibid., xxix. p. 211); at the foot of the
fortified rock of Dun Fheurain, near Oban (ibid., p. 278);
the Borness Cave (ibid., x. p. 476, xi. p. 305, and xii. pp.
628, 669), etc. Shell-mounds at considerable distances from
the present sea-shore have been noted as occurring at the
Den of Dun, Forfarshire (ibid., xxxi. p. 240), and at Inver-
avon on the borders of the Carse of Stirling (Prehistoric
Scotland, p. 66). Beyond the confines of Scotland, deposits
of a similar nature have been described in one or more
localities throughout England, Ireland, France, Spain and
Portugal, the United States of America, Florida, Brazil,
Terra del Fuego, the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman Islands,
Japan, Australia, etc.

It must not, however, be supposed that all the above
enumerated shell-heaps belong to the same period, or possess
the same archeological value, as those of Denmark. . The
latter are now generally admitted to belong to the period of
transition—the so-called hiatws—between Paleolithic and
Neolithic times. Excluding the caves and rock-shelters
frequented by Paleolithic man, only a few inhabited sites
associated with kitchen-middens have been hitherto
discovered which can, with certainty, be assigned to this

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 123

period, although within recent years their number has been
considerably increased, especially in France.

One of these early Neolithic haunts of man has been
discovered in the vicinity of the villages of Salvaterra and
Mugem, in the valley of the Tagus, Portugal. (Congres Inter-
national d’ Anthropologie, etc., Lisbon volume, 1880, p. 279.)
The shell-heaps of this district are grouped on the left bank
of the river at from 25 to 30 métres above sea-level, but
distant some 40 miles from the highest point to which the
salt water now ascends. The shells are of marine origin,
and it is supposed that when the shell-fish were gathered
and used as food, the sea extended up the valley as far as
the shell-mounds. The industrial remains disclosed by
excavations are of a very rude character. They consist of
primitive implements made of flint, quartz, bone, and horn—
no pottery, nor any indications of the domestic animals, not
even the dog, which, as we shall afterwards see, was the
only animal domesticated by the people of the Danish
Kjokkenmoddings. It appears that these refuse-heaps were
‘subsequently used as cemeteries, and on the human remains
disinterred important ethnological deductions have been
founded. (See Prehistoric Scotland, p. 460.)

The shell-mounds of Omori, near Tokio, Japan, described
by Professor Morse (Memoirs of the University of Tokio,
1879), indicate a more advanced civilisation than that in
‘the valley of the Tagus, as may be inferred from the
following quotation from Professor Morse’s memoir :—

“The Omori deposits are also specialised. First: by the
presence of enormous quantities of pottery of many
different shapes, and of an almost infinite variety of
‘ornamentation. Second: by the great scarcity of stone
implements, and the absence of arrow-heads, spear-points, and
other pointed implements of stone. . . . Not a single arrow-
head, flake, or chip has been found by the various parties
who have been there in the interests of the University ; and
‘the combined time spent there, if represented by a single
individual, would equal over eighty days’ work of seven
hours each. The men of the Omori period were also
cannibals, the evidences of which will be presented further
-on. Peculiar clay tablets or amulets, to be described else-

,

124 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

where in this memoir, are also unique. The Omori deposits
are not only peculiar for what they possess, but for what.
they do not possess.”

The following is a list of the objects thus far found at
Omori :—

Earthen.—Cooking and hand vessels; ornamental jars,
a bead, and tablets; spindle-whorl (?), and a disk, shaped
from a fragment of pottery.

Stone.—Hammers, celts, rollers, skin-dresser (?).

Horn.—Awls, a handle, prongs of deers’ antlers, and other
implements, use unknown.

Bones.—Fish-spine needles; bird bone with two holes
in side; cube from metatarsal of deer; os calcis of deer,
probably used as a handle.

Objects not found at Omort.—F lint and obsidian imple-
ments; mortars and pestles; drilling-stones and net-sinkers.;
pipes, worked shells, wampum, stone beads.

In America, where the inhabitants may be said to have
lived in the Stone Age up to the time of its discovery by
Columbus, some of the shell-mounds may be comparatively
modern. Mr E. R. Reynolds, in his account of the pre-
Columbian shell-mound at Newburg, Maryland (Congres
international des Américanistes, 1884, p. 292), gives the
following description of the Clifton shell-mound on the
Potomac :—

“ The deposit of shells is found upon a bank twenty-five
feet high which faces the creek on the south, and extends
northwards parallel with the Potomac. The southern
portion of the mound contains the greatest quantity of
shells; from thence it diminishes in depth, until it is
finally merged into a shell-field a quarter of a mile away.
The eastern side is bounded by a long, deep ravine which
drains into the creek. The mound itself covers many acres
of ground, and, overlying the shells, is a stratum of earth
which varies from one to three feet in depth.

“From the best information that I have been able to
obtain, it appears that the soil resting on this mound has
been under cultivation since about 1730, prior to which date
it was thickly covered with a portion of the primeval forest,
the remnant of which still bounds it east of the ravine.

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 125

“The greatest depth of the deposit is about eight feet,
but in most portions it will probably not average more
than five feet. A lime-kiln has been constructed in the
south-western angle, and, as a result, nearly the entire
southern extremity of the mound has been opened, which
greatly facilitates an examination of the contents. The
lower portion is composed almost exclusively of the shells
of the common oyster (0. virginiana), intermixed with which
the shells of the quahang or hard clam (Venus mercenaria)
and the carapace of the tortoise are occasionally found.
Bones of beasts, birds, and fish are also sparingly found.”

The relics, which were also sparingly found, consisted of
stone axes, hammer stones, fragments of rude pottery;
drilled gorgets, tobacco-pipes, scrapers, knives, and broken
arrow-points.

These remarks will suffice to give you some general
ideas of the social and economic circumstances which led
to the formation and distribution of kitchen-middens along
the highways and byways frequented by mankind during
their long career on the globe. Judging from the position
of those already discovered, we have every reason to
believe that many more of these temporary halting-places
still remain concealed from the eyes of present-day investi-
gators by various kinds of deposits due to organic growth,
rock-weathering, blown sands, etc. On the other hand,
some may have disappeared altogether, by the encroachment
of the sea on the coast and other denuding agencies. This
kind of research has therefore a promising future before it:
- and hence it is desirable that students of Natural History
should be conversant with its objects and methods, so as
to be in a position to utilise their knowledge should they
happen in their country rambles to come across any such
trail of our prehistoric forefathers. I shall therefore devote
the remaining portion of my lecture to short descriptions
of the characteristic features of a few typical examples of
kitechen-middens, with lantern illustrations of some of the
relics found on them. The following are the stations
selected :—

(1) The Kjékkenméddings of Denmark.

(2) The Neolithic Station of Butmir, Bosnia.

126 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

(3) The Terremare of Italy. (Karly Bronze Age.)

(4) Terp-Mounds of Holland. (Roman and post-Roman
times. )

(5) A Kitchen-Midden near Elie. (Romano-British period.)

I. DANISH KJOKKENMODDINGS.

Various shell-heaps scattered along the sea-coasts were:
long known in Denmark, but, being regarded as raised
beaches, they attracted little attention till they were dis-
covered to be artificial and to contain relics of human
industry. Consequently a Committee, consisting of the
late MM. Forchammer, Worsiie, and Steenstrup, three
distinguished representatives of Geology, Archeology, and
Biology, was appointed in 1850 to examine them. They
had scarcely commenced their labours when it became
apparent that these deposits were the culinary débris of a
population who lived in the Stone Age, and fed largely
on shell-fish and such animals as could be procured by
hunting. Hence they became known under the name of
Kjokkenmiddings—i.e. (Anglicé), Kitchen-middens.

Over 150 of these refuse-heaps are known in Denmark,
of which about 40 were more or less excavated by the
Committee. They are mostly distributed along the shores
of the numerous fiords which intersect the country. In
Sealand all the examples are on the Ise-fiord, where about.
a dozen have been noted chiefly along its inland reaches.
But the greatest number have been found in North Jutland
—four being on the Lim-fiord at considerable distances from
each other, and nine on the beautiful Mariager-fiord grouped
together about its middle third. The stations of Meilgaard,
Fannerup, and Kalievig are located within a peninsula
formed by the sea and fiord of Randers, which embraces
some of the finest wood scenery in Jutland. In some
instances the shell-heaps are situated several miles inland,
but in such cases there is good reason to believe that
formerly the sea extended to these localities. The site of
the one at Fannerup, now some 10 miles from the sea, is
on the border of a flat district, known within historical

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 1PArG

times to have been an arm of the sea which subsequently
became a fresh-water lake, but is now entirely dried up.
One of the largest and earliest explored is that at Meil-
gaard, situated in a beautiful beech forest, between which
and the sea (some 2 miles distant) there are now high
dunes of drifting sand. It measures 340 feet in length
and 120 feet in breadth, with a maximum depth of 10 feet.

The most common industrial remains hitherto found on
these sites consist of roughly chipped flint implements—
hatchets, flakes, scrapers, and some angularly chipped nodules
(supposed to have been used as slingstones); also a few
pointed implements of bone and horn. Only one or two
stations have yielded objects which point to an overlap
into a more advanced civilisation. In the collection of
Kjokkenmoédding objects in the Museum in Copenhagen,
I noticed a polished axe and a worked dagger from Havno
on the Mariager-fiord; and from Havelse there is a flint
scraper, evidently made from a portion of a polished celt.
Among the relics from Meilgaard are three small combs
with short handles made of bone, which remind one of
the long-handled combs found in Hunsbury Camp and in
the Glastonbury lake-village (both late-Celtic stations),
as well as in some of the Scottish brochs; stout portions
of stag’s horn, some perforated, appear to have been used
as hammers or axes; and a few fragments of rude pottery
and pointed implements of bone. As indications of hearths,
there are some round stones of granite or sandstone showing
marks of fire.

The following animals were identified as having their
remains more or less represented :—

1. Shell-fish—The most common were oyster, cockle,
and mussel. A few other species were also collected.

2. Fish.—Herring, cod, eel, and flounder or dab.

3. Birds.—Kagle, cormorant, mew, wild duck, and goose
(most common); also swan, capercailzie (Tetrao wrogallus),
and great auk (Alcea impennis).

4, Mammalia.—Stag, roe, and wild boar (most common) ;
also urus (Bos primigenius), dog, fox, wolf, marten, hedge-
hog, otter, seal, porpoise, water-rat, mouse, beaver, wild.
cat, lynx, and bear (Ursus aretos).

128 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

It will be observed from this list that, except the dog,
the ordinary domestic animals, such as the common barn
fowl, domestic ox, horsey sheep, goat, and pig are un-
represented. We have also to note the absence of the
mammoth and all the other extinct or emigrated mammalia
of the Paleolithic period, including the reindeer, bison, elk
(Cervus alces), musk ox, and hare. Of special interest
among the birds are the great auk and capercailzie, neither
of which is any longer an inhabitant of Denmark, nor
even a casual visitor to it. The presence of the bones of
migratory birds, such as the wild swan, which visits
Denmark only from November till March, shows that the
Kjoékkenméddings were inhabited all the year.

Except ashes, charcoal of a species of pine, and charred
remains of some kind of sea-plant, no products of the
vegetable kingdom were found in any of the Kjokkenméd-
dings. The association of pine-charcoal with the bones of
the capercailzie in a kitchen-midden—a bird which feeds
chiefly on the buds of the pine—suggests that the people
who left these remains behind them were contemporary
with the pine forests, which, on other substantial archzo-
logical evidence, are shown by Danish antiquaries to have
flourished in their country in early Neolithic times.

Among Professor Steenstrup’s many valuable deductions
derived from the organic remains, perhaps the most interest-
ing are those which he founds on the condition of the
osseous remains. Thus, all the long bones and those that
contained marrow, belonging to the stag, roe, and pig, were
systematically broken for their marrow. That they were
so treated by the hand of man was proved by the frequent
detection of the conchoidal indentations left on the spot
where the blow had been struck. On the other hand, the
long bones of birds, the shafts of which alone were found
in the débris, were not at all broken—a fact which he
attributed to their not containing marrow. Again, all the
bones, whether broken or not, had their cartilaginous
portions more or less gnawed by some kind of carnivorous
animal, whose teeth-marks, in many instances, were still
visible. Professor Steenstrup was so much struck at the
uniformity with which the identical parts of the same bones

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 129

always turned up, that he had no hesitation in ascribing
the absence of the softer parts to the agency of dogs, whose
presence in greater numbers than any other carnivora had
already been established by the relatively much larger
proportion of their bones. That the disappearance of the
soft and juicy portions of the bones was not due to casual
visitors was inferred from the fact that the bones through
the entire mass were similarly treated. The gnawers of the
bones must therefore have been constant companions of the
people during all their feasts; and hence the inference that
they were a breed of domestic dogs. The Professor further
strengthened this important generalisation by proving
experimentally that when dogs have free access to the bones
of mammals and birds, the portions left are precisely the
same as those found in the Kjékkenmdddings. In order to
make these interesting deductions still more forcible, he
constructed diagrammatic skeletons of an ox and a duck,
indicating by degrees of linear shading the portions of the
bones respectively gnawed by dogs and broken by man.
Alongside of the bird skeleton is placed that of a young
pigeon (copied from Flourens’ work, Sur le développement
des Os et des Dents), showing the portions of the bones
which become first ossified. From these diagrams it will
be seen at a glance how closely the portions of the bones
eaten by dogs correspond with those that become last
ossified in the young animal.

IJ.—TuHE NEOLITHIC STATION oF BUTMIR.

The site of the prehistoric settlement of Butmir lies some
8 miles to the west of Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia) in
the vicinity of the thermal spring and baths of Ilidze, a
much frequented and fashionable watering-place. The
medicinal qualities of this spring had also been recognised
by the Romans, a fact clearly proved by the discovery in
recent times of various Roman remains—mosaic pavements,
baths, conduit-pipes, ete.—around the spot where the hot
water gushes out of the earth. The surrounding plain is a
fine alluvial basin, about 7 miles in length and from 4 to 5

VOL. II. 9

130 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

in breadth, formed by the accumulated débris washed in by
a number of streams from the adjacent hills. In earlier
times it is probable that it was a lake, and, indeed, in winter
portions of it still become submerged. Almost in its very
centre, and only separated from the hotels and pleasure-
grounds of Ilidze by one of the meandering streams which
traverse it before they unite to form the Bosna, there is a
cultivated field slightly more elevated than the surrounding
land. This field was selected by the Government as the site
for a model dairy; and when, in 1893, excavations were
begun for the foundations of the requisite buildings, it was
ascertained that the whole of the raised area (some 5 acres)
was due to the accumulated débris of a population who lived
in the Stone Age. At the time of my visit (1894) several
portions of the field were occupied by these completed dairy
buildings, but the greater part of it was simply arable
land.

During the excavations, which were superintended by
the late Mr Radimsky, an enormous quantity of pottery,
stone implements, and other débris of human occupancy was.
collected and preserved in the Museum at Sarajevo.
Impressed with the importance of these and other discoveries.
found in the early Iron-age cemeteries of Glasinac and
Jezerine, the Government resolved to convene, at Sarajevo,
a special Congress of Archeologists, consisting of some
twenty-five gentlemen from various countries in Europe, to
discuss the archeological value of the antiquities thus brought.
to light, and, if possible, to determine their relative position
in early European civilisation. Among the gentlemen
invited I had the honour to be one, and it was through the
facilities thus afforded to me that I was enabled to write my
book on Bosnia, the main object of which is to give an
account of the remarkable archeological remains submitted
to this Congress.

A perpendicular section through the Butmir deposits,
specially prepared for the benefit of the members of
Congress, showed the following beds from above downwards.
First, 12 to 16 inches of a clayey soil; secondly, a blackish
streaky mixture of clay, mould, charcoal, etc., arranged in
more or less parallelstrata. The depth of this heterogeneous.

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 131

mass was from 3 to 5 feet; and it was in it, dispersed
apparently throughout its contents regardless of depth, that
all the relics were found. Beneath this, again, was a natural
bed of fine yellowish clay, very adhesive and homogeneous,
recognised by all to be the virgin soil prior to the deposition
of the relic-bed.

The relics consist of a large assortment of objects made of
clay or stone, a few animal bones, and some charred grain
and seeds.

Clay Objects——The articles manufactured of clay comprise
a series of remarkable rude human figurines or idols (one
only being of quadrupedal form); large quantities of dishes,
whole or broken ; weights, spindle-whorls, etc.

Stone Objects——The assortment of objects indicating
human industry manufactured of stone is large and varied,
comprising knife-flakes, saws, scrapers, borers, lance- and
spear-heads, arrow-points, polished axes and _ chisels,
perforated hammers, chipping tools, whetstones, polishers,
etc. The material out of which the majority of the arrow-
points are made is jasper, next in order being flint, quartz,
and clay-slate. None of the polished stone implements are
of flint; and only two entire perforated hammers, among
twenty-five broken ones, and not a single core, have hitherto
been found.

Organic Remains——The remains of animals were in a
state of great decay, but among them those of the following
animals were recognised :—ox (bos taurus, B. brachyceros, and
B. primegenius), pig, roe, stag, and sheep.

The vegetable remains disclosed the following :—wheat,
barley, lentil, brome-grass, knot-grass, crab-apple, hazel-nut,
silver-fir.

IJL.—TuHe TERREMARE OF ITALY.

Shortly after the middle of last century, certain artificial
deposits of an earthy substance found scattered over the
provinces of Parma, Reggio, and Modena, in the shape of
large flattish mounds, became known to agriculturists as
possessing great fertilising power—a property which hence-
forth was turned to advantage by using their contents as

SZ DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

manure. ‘To such an extent has this practice been carried,
that many of these deposits, covering in most instances
many acres in extent, have now entirely disappeared. In
the course of the excavations various objects of antiquity
were found by the workmen, such as Roman coins and tiles ;
implements of bone, horn, bronze, etc.; the bones of
domestic and wild animals, and, occasionally, human bones.
But such discoveries failed for a long time to lead to any
scientific investigation ; and when these mysterious mounds
happened to be referred to by the early writers of this
century, each had a theory of his own to account for them,
Thus the celebrated naturalist, Venturi, assigned them partly
to the Boii, a Celtic race, who here, according to him,
cremated their dead warriors, and ceremoniously threw their
weapons and animals taken in war into the burning pyres;
and partly to the Romans, who selected these heaps for
their dwellings and burial-places. Others supposed them to
be the sacred and traditional cemeteries of successive races ;
and it is a curious fact that many of these mounds are to
this day crowned by a modern church or convent, around
which the Christians have been in the habit of burying their
dead. Nor did the opinion of Gastaldi, published in 1861,
throw much light on the matter. Seeing that the Terremare
were invariably situated near a running stream, he considered
them the heterogeneous débris of different ages—Roman
graves, cremations, and funeral feasts—which had been
washed down and re-arranged by floods. But these, and all
similar theories, based on the supposition that they were the
abodes of the dead, were not in harmony with the domestic
character of the pottery and implements turned up. The
starting-point of a long series of researches by Professors
Pigorini and Strobel, which have now completely cleared up
the problem, was the announcement in 1861 that the remains
of a palafitte, analogous to those found in lakes and peat-bogs,
were to be seen beneath the true Terramara-deposits at
Castione dei Marchesi. Nearly 100 of these mounds have
now been more or less investigated, with the result that
there can no longer be any doubt that they are the sites of
ancient villages constructed on piles, and fortified by an
earthen dyke and a ditch. In their construction one

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 133

uniform plan was adopted. Having selected a suitable site,
always four-sided and orientated, but, of course, varying in
size according to the requirements of the community, the
constructors proceeded to surround it with a ditch, the
excavated material being thrown up in the form of a dyke
on the inner side. The area thus enclosed was then thickly
planted with stakes, the tops of which were brought to a
common level, and over them a wooden platform was laid.
On this platform cottages made of light timbers and clay
were erected. Thus, in a very simple manner, was con-
structed a fortified village, access to which was secured by
one or more wooden bridges spanning the surrounding ditch.
The vacant space beneath the common platform became
a convenient receptacle for all sorts of refuse, including lost
and worn-out objects of industry. When, in the course of
time, this space became filled up, the Terramaricoli, in order
to avoid the labour of having to remove the débris which
would otherwise accumulate around them, adopted the
ingenious method of constructing a brand new platform
above the former. It seems that a preliminary step to the
carrying out of this project was to set fire to the entire
village, thus at one cowp getting clear of all sanitary
difficulties, as well as of a number of uninvited guests.
Having thus started with a clean bill of health, they elevated
the dyke to the requisite height, and planted stakes, as
formerly, for the support of the new platform and huts—
the stakes in this case penetrating only into the accumulated
rubbish of the former village. This mode of procedure
appears to have been repeated over and over again, until, in
the course of ages, the successive deposits accumulated to a
height of 15 or 20 feet.

The industrial remains found in these mounds show that
the Terramaricoli flourished in the early Bronze Age. That
the weaving of cloth was largely practised by them is
proved by the extraordinary variety and abundance of:
loom-weights and spindle-whorls which were collected from
the débris, They made buttons of terra cotta, horn, and
bone ; as well as pins, combs, and other objects of the two
latter materials and bronze. Wood was used in the manu-
facture of handles, dishes, spoons, flooring, agricultural

134 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

implements, ete. The amount of foundry material, such as
bronze slag, stone moulds, etc., shows that they were
workers in bronze. They had an extensive knowledge of
the ceramic art, and the vessels in daily use—jugs, teapots,
cups, bowls, basins, saucers, vases, etc.—were varied and
elegant. Their chief food was derived from agriculture,
pastoral farming, and hunting. For further details of
these interesting remains, I must refer you to The Lake-
dwellings of Europe, pp. 238-276.

IV.—TuE TrEerp-Mounps or HOLuanp.

Before the construction of the great sea-dykes in
Holland, nearly the whole of West Friesland would have
been in that hybrid condition described by Pliny, in which
it was difficult to say whether it belonged to sea or land
(dubiumque terre sit, an pars maris). “Here,” says this
writer, “a wretched race is found, inhabiting either the
more elevated spots of land, or else eminences artificially
constructed, and of a height to which they know by
experience that the highest tides will never reach. Here
they pitch their cabins; and when the waves cover the
surrounding country far and wide, like so many mariners
on board ship are they,” etc. At the present time this
region is richly cultivated, and looks as if it were a dead
level, and it is only on close inspection that certain eleva-
tions of considerable extent, called Terpen, scattered
irregularly over the country, can be detected. It is on
such elevations that villages and churches are generally
built, and, till they accidentally attracted the attention of
agriculturists within recent years, nobody seemed to have
thought anything about their origin. They are now proved
to have been originally constructed as pile-dwellings, pre-
cisely similar to the Terremare, and some of them are
probably the actual mounds seen and described by Pliny.
They might therefore be more appropriately designated as
marine-dwellings. Modern investigations have shown that
the modus operandi in their structure was to raise a
circular mound of mud during ebb-tide. When this ring

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 135

was sufficiently elevated to keep the waves outside, huts
were erected over wooden platforms supported on piles,
and as the rubbish accumulated, the process was repeated
until the interior of the mud-ring became a solid mound.
Some of these mounds were found to be intersected with
marine strata, showing that occasionally the waves broke
down the circumscribing mud-wall and made havoc of the
interior.

Like the Terremare of Italy, the Terpen are largely
excavated on account of their rich ammoniacal deposits,
which are used by agriculturists as guano. The industrial
remains found in the course of these operations are of a
very miscellaneous character, and give a vivid picture of
the civilisation of their inhabitants from Roman times
down to the twelfth century. Among the relics I noticed
such objects as the shells of eggs (hen and goose), some of
which were unbroken ; a flute made of the shank bone of
an animal; Anglo-Saxon, Byzantine, and Roman coins; large
casks, canoes, loom-weights, toilet-combs, iron bridle-bits,
beads of glass and amber, bronze pots, pottery, etc., ete.

V.—ANCIENT KITCHEN-MIDDEN NEAR ELIE, FIFE.

While wandering one day early in the summer of last
year on St Ford Links, some 2 miles to the west of Elie,
I discovered the edge of a bed of dark earthy matter, con-
taining decayed bones of various animals, which extended
beneath a grassy knoll composed of blown sands. Upon
removing the superincumbent sand with the assistance of a
number of workmen supplied by the proprietor, W. Baird,
Esq., it was ascertained that the underlying stuff was a
veritable kitchen-midden, in which not only food-refuse, but
other relics of man, were discovered. No structural remains
of any kind were found in connection with the débris,
although the circumstances unmistakably pointed to human
occupancy of some duration. The midden measured about
16 yards in length and 11 yards in breadth, with an average
thickness of 2 feet. It lay over fine sand within the area
of the 25-feet raised beach, and its distance from Shell Bay,

136 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON

the nearest part of the present sea-shore, would be about a
quarter of a mile. The following are the principal worked
objects collected in the débris :—

Stone.—Except a large number of water-worn pebbles,
most of them showing evidence of having been subjected to
fire, and a few pieces of cannel-coal, there were no imple-
ments.

Bone.—Portions of two double-edged toilet-combs, orna-
mented with incised lines and small circles with central
dots ; two polished pins and a few pointed objects ; a spindle-
whorl turned on the lathe; a curious vessel made from the
end of a femur of an ox.

Deer-horn.—Two dagger-like implements, one made from
the horn of a roe, and the other from that of a young deer;
a number of cut tynes and other portions of stag-horns ;
three portions of bones of a cetacean, one showing marks of
a sharp axe.

JIron.—A small chisel, an eel-spear with three barbed
prongs, and a curved object of unknown use—all greatly
oxidised.

Pottery—Two fragments of red ware, supposed to be
false Samian, which appear to have belonged to the same
vessel, were the only pottery found ; the red glaze had nearly
all disappeared, apparently by decomposition.

From a careful examination of a large hamper of selected
bones the following animals were identified by Dr R. Tra-
quair, F.R.S., viz.:—ox (two varieties, one being the Bos:
longifrons), sheep, pig, horse, deer, roe, dog, fox, and a few
smaller animals. Shells of the entiawey: edible molluscs,
that of the limpet being most common, were scattered’
throughout the débris, but not in such quantities as to
suggest that the inhabitants derived much of their food-
supply from this source.

The archeological facts disclosed by the investigation
seem to warrant the following general conclusions :—

1. The date of the kitchen-midden can with tolerable
certainty be assigned to the 7th or 8th century A.D.

2. The dwelling-house had been constructed of wood and!
probably covered with thatch, all traces of which have ba
appeared by the process of ordinary decay.

PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS. 137

3. The inhabitants appear to have lived on the produce
of herds of cattle and sheep, together with a good supply of
venison. There is no evidence that they were agriculturists.
The presence of an eel-spear among the relics, similar to one
dredged from the neighbouring Loch of Kileonquhar, which
abounds with eels, suggests that in addition to hunting they
practised the sport of eel-spearing.

4, Cooking food in boiling water seems to have been
effected by dropping stones previously heated in a fire into
the liquid, a custom which has survived in some parts of
Scotland and elsewhere up to the present day.

-VI,—CoNCcLUDING REMARKS.

From the above series of object-lessons culled almost at
random from a large stock of similar materials, you have,
I trust, gathered something more than a vague idea of the
methods and means by which anthropologists are striving
to throw light on the past history of humanity. I have
shown you that the most significant and far-reaching
deductions are often founded on the meanest object,
provided it bears evidence of having been utilised by man.
Indeed, the heterogeneous contents of a prehistoric kitchen-
midden are to the archeologist what a well-stocked library
is to the historian. But, unfortunately, the extremely
diversified qualifications necessary to decipher such crypto-
graphic materials can hardly be looked for among the
attainments of any single investigator. To elicit all the
information possible from an assortment of semi-decayed
bones, horns, shells, nuts, seeds, etc., we have to call in
the assistance of the most highly qualified representatives
of the collateral sciences — Anatomy, Zoology, Botany,
Geology, and Paleontology. Then again, besides food-refuse,
the midden is the final resting-place of all sorts of odds
and ends—lost, broken, and worn-out objects—every one
of which carries with it more or less evidence of the
social, domestic, or military economy of its original owner.
In our efforts to explain such fragmentary remains, we
are confronted with all manner of complicated and con-

138 DR ROBERT MUNRO ON PREHISTORIC KITCHEN-MIDDENS.

troverted problems, often ranging over the entire field of
human civilisation. From the scientific stand-point Pre-
historic archeology is therefore a most difficult study.
There is, however, one thing which makes it fascinating
to all its votaries, and that is, the human element which
permeates all its methods and materials. Moreover, like
many other outdoor pursuits which have fresh discoveries
as their goal, it has its incidents, episodes, and disappoint-
ments—according to the success or failure of the day’s
operations. Indeed, persons who have never taken part
in the excavation of a prehistoric site can hardly realise
the pleasurable excitement called forth by this kind of
work. Each turn of the spade is watched with absorbing
attention, and every inch of the stuff is pulverised and
scanned for objects showing traces of the hand of man.
Nor are scenic charms of the country to be dissociated
from the inherent interest of these explorations, for, as a
rule, prehistoric man in selecting a home had an eye to
the more romantic regions. But, notwithstanding all these
attractions, antiquarian literature is regarded by many as
dry and uninteresting, and even the antiquary himself is
still often looked upon as a Dr Dryasdust. The cause
of this unprogressiveness among the Scottish people may
be traced partly to ignorance of the improved methods of
research now in use, and partly to Sir Walter Scott, whose
amusing descriptions of the antiquarian dilettantism prevalent
in his day have still a prejudicial influence on public taste.
But whatever may be its true explanation, there can be
no doubt that the principles of scientific archeology have
not yet taken a deep hold on the minds of even the more
cultured and literary members of the community. Indeed,
I have a shrewd suspicion that, had the author of The
Antiquary lived at the present time, he would have found
as much reason to satirise the methods of some of our
present-day antiquaries, as he had when he penned the
crushing retort of Edie Ochiltree to Monkbarns’ Roman
speculations on the Kaim of Kinprunes—* Pretorium here,
pretorium there, I mind the biggin o’t.”

REV. W. SERLE ON MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 139

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

By Rev. W. Serie, M.A, B.D., M.B.O.U.
(Read 9th January 1902.)

Marcu and October are perhaps the two most important
months in the ornithological calendar. At these seasons
migration in all parts of the world is at its height. In
March the singing birds that had been making Africa and
India their winter home, and the waders that had tenanted
the marshes of the Upper Nile or had distributed them-
‘selves over the sea-shores of the South Pacific, become pos-
sessed of a mysterious influence that drives them northwards
into the woods of temperate regions or to the bleak tundras
of northern Siberia; whilst the harmless wrens and the pip-
ing plovers that had been rearing their broods—the former
amid the tangled growths of Terra-del-Fuego, the latter on the
shores of southern seas—retreat before the rigours of winter
up the Chilian coast to the milder regions of South America,
In October the order is reversed. As soon as the first snows
cast their mantle of whiteness over the dreary waste, or the
nipping night-frosts destroy the insect-life of the forest, cer-
tain birds move south in flocks of thousands. The flight
has been mostly in the night-time, and we only know of it
by seeing an extra number of familiar birds gathered along
the hedgerows and showing little inclination to fly, so
thoroughly exhausted are they. In southern Chili the
‘German colonists welcome their harbingers of summer with
the same feelings of pleasure as we do the cuckoo or the
swallow.

Of course this grand movement of birds is not shared in
by all. There is a region lying on both sides of the Equator
—the Tropical region—where such movements are not so
evident unless at the dry and rainy periods. The climate,
on the whole, is equal in these quarters; the landscape is a
‘continuous monotonous green; and the birds that have adapted
themselves to these lands, and to the various kinds of tropi-

140 REV. W. SERLE ON

cal food, are in no way disposed to migrate. They are what are
called residents: so indisposed are they to take flights, that
but a narrow strait of sea will mark very striking differences.
in the species of birds. I suppose there is hardly an island,
or group of islands, of any dimensions but has its list of
peculiar birds—a feature so very different from what holds
in temperate and Arctic regions. Besides these residents there
is a class of birds, extending into temperate parts, that are
known as local migrants. It may be that they only follow
summer on to the higher grounds and retire to the adjoining
valleys during winter, like many of the smaller birds of India,
or like our familiar songthrush that retires regularly in Sep-
tember from the moors of Peeblesshire into the wooded
valley of the Tweed, whilst the marsh birds of the mountain
and the interior draw during winter to suitable feeding
grounds at the seaside, and in open weather make short
visits to these summer haunts to see that all goes well there.
There is also the brave class of birds—sometimes called
gipsies—chiefly of the hard-billed order, aud more or less
fond of seeds, that in winter wage continual battle with
the elements. The rigours of winter force them southwards,
but they yield no more than they can help, and fight con-
tinually, and, I must say, fairly successfully, for an existence
on the border of the debatable land. Every now and again
a wild winter rises into white fury, and it is on such
occasions we hear of the Little Auk being washed in along
our shores, or of Mountain finches of North Europe seeking
shelter around our homesteads.

These facts warrant us in asserting that migration is in all
stages. Some birds do not migrate, some only from the
hillside to the valley, and some, thousands of miles, like
the Knot of the Arctic Circle that passes twice a year from
one pole to the other. Such variation, moreover, may be a
clue to the cause of migration. May it not be that there
was a time when species of birds had a contracted area in
which to live and multiply; the home became too small for
all members of the family, and the struggle for existence
compelled emigration to a short distance, or let us call it
expansion? Thus new favourable environments were
discovered, or if not, the less favouring circumstance of

MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 141

newly inhabited localities might gradually produce a hardier
race; winter forbade them staying in their new home all
the year, but their absence from their first home had made
it possible for the home food-supply of winter to be greater.
Thus, both what we might call the mother-country birds
and the colonials might be able to live together for the short
period of winter. That habit of expansion once begun—
and northern regions, or in turn southern, becoming warmer
as the glacial periods passed away—might give rise, very
likely did, to the habit of migration. It might be when the
colonials came home, they, because they were hardier, and
in a reduced home-supply of food, might exterminate the
home birds, so that in time, after the habit of expansion had
become inborn, the whole family of the species would become
colonials and yet return to their ancestral home, though
having now no wish to stay there all the year round. But
this is anticipating.

The method of enquiry into the cause of migration,
I believe, was along another line. Enquiry began where
the imagination was most arrested; for example, the
‘stork and the swift know their appointed time, the
swallows are back to their familiar haunts all over the
country at once, and from all parts of the copses are heard
the pleasing melody of the willow-warbler. It was therefore
the insect-feeding birds, or what we actually know now to be
the long-distance migrants, that set men a-thinking on the
mystery of what we now call migration. Hence we had,
to begin with, the Hibernation Theory—-a theory that has
given no little fascination to the pages of Gilbert White of
Selborne. Let me quote from his immortal book: “A
‘clergyman of an inquisitive turn assures me that when he
was a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down the battle-
ments of a church tower early in the spring, found two or
three swifts among the rubbish, which were, at first appear-
ance, dead, but on being carried towards the fire, revived. He
told me that out of his great care to preserve them, he put
them in a paper bag and hung them by the kitchen fire,
where they were suffocated.” Of course that clergyman was
telling a lie. Again: “As a gentleman and myself were
walking on the 4th of November 1771, round the sea-banks at

142 REV. W. SERLE ON

Newhaven near the mouth of the Lewes River, in pursuit of
natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three house-
swallows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather
chilly, with the wind at N.W., but the tenor of the weather for
some time before had been delicate, and the noons remark-
ably warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts.
I meet with, I am more and more induced to believe that
many of the swallow kind do not depart from this island,
but lay themselves up in holes and caverns.” Besides,
there was the belief that swallows at the approach
of winter descended in a body to the bottom of lakes,
where they remained till the following spring. In all
falsehood there is an element of truth, otherwise the false-
hood would not persist. I have no doubt boys took dead
birds from the rifts in the chalk cliffs of Sussex, thought they
were swallows, and the next person declared they were
swallows, and it only required the next person to declare
that they were sleeping. Then, remember that in those
days England was largely under marsh, and in winter-time
had wide expanses of shallow lakes ; remember that swallows
in September begin to form large flocks and are very fond of
roosting together for the night in beds of reeds at the sides
of lakes; there is only wanted now a man to swear that he
saw these swallows descend, not into the reeds, but into the
lake itself; add to all this the sudden disappearance of the
swallow, and you account for the Hibernation Theory. If
the truth-loving Gilbert, one of Nature’s best investigators, had
difficulties in throwing away such a theory, especially regarding
swallows, it is certain he did not believe it altogether. He
says: “But then we must not, I think, deny migration in
general; because migration certainly does subsist in some
places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me,”
etc.

Nobody now believes in the hibernation of birds, and if
Gilbert White believed partly in it, he, by that last quotation,
put scientific men on to the right road to explode the idea.
He compared notes with his brother in Spain, who was in
the best of regions to see the enormous flocks of British
migrants that streamed during the early spring months over
from the continent of Africa. Travel and investigation

MIGRATION OF BIRDS, 143

abroad yielded the facts that led to the giving up of the first
theory of what is now called migration.

But travelling in foreign parts, that exploded the Hiber-
nation Theories, brought into notice new difficulties, At
Gibraltar, for example, it was noticed, during February in
particular, vast numbers of our common birds flocked across
in continuous lines from the continent of Africa: familiar
swallows, familiar warblers, familiar birds of prey, were all
seen in the course of a single day, where a month, or even
a week, previously not one was to be seen. It was the
Same in the valley of the Nile, but to a more wonderful
extent. The huge Sahara desert is a barrier that birds do
not care to cross over. Even our temperate region birds
that winter along the Guinea coast, and that might, as we
think, easily at migration times follow the west coast of
Africa northwards or strike right across the Sahara, do not.
Instead, they strike east till they mark the sources of the
Nile, and then force northwards down the Nile valley.
This week every bush along the river-side is filled with
small birds that had not been seen for several months, and
by another week all will have disappeared, not to be seen
again till the month of September. The same phenomenon
came across your vision, whether you stood in the valley
of the Mississippi or in the valleys of the rivers that pour
their waters into the Indus or Ganges. The phenomenon
was to an extent world-wide. There must be a reason to
account for this grand ebb and flow of bird-life. But what
was the reason or underlying principle ?

Love of home was given as the cause. These northern
regions formed the ancestral home, and from these the
feathered inhabitants were driven out by the awful rigours
of the glacial periods or by the inclemencies and
desolations of the winter season. When the warmth
of spring came again, the desire to return home became
the pervading passion: hence migration. Others said
the regions more or less near to the Equator were the
ancestral homes, and, as might be expected, the regions
became congested, and hence the necessity for an emigration
either north or south for a longer or shorter period of the
year. When food-supplies were exhausted by wintry

144 REV. W. SERLE ON

weather, birds naturally returned home. In these opinions
there might be a large amount of truth, but time was to be
the revealer, and I need not say biological research into the
primary forms of the various families of birds is to lead us
far along the road to the determination of the truth. In
this ebb and flow of bird-life, as far as the Old World is
concerned, there naturally arises the question—Supposing
the north to be the ancestral home, what accounts for the
varying distances to which birds travel in winter? Why
should the blue-throats and willow-warblers of the Norwegian
northernmost regions, or the myriad armies of waders of the
Siberian tundras, travel to the very south of Africa or further,
and other birds should go no further than the basin of
the Mediterranean ? And if our northern birds penetrate
so numerously into the southern hemisphere in winter, why
do so few southern birds, or, rather, why do practically none
of them, spend their winter with us? Observe, in reply,
that hard-billed birds are better fitted for the struggle of
existence, and winter would not therefore drive them so far
south; also, as they feed largely on seeds during winter, or
even during all the year, the land area as they are driven
south suffers no contraction, and naturally, therefore, from
their most northern nesting homes to their most southern
winter quarters there is a continuous connection; they
therefore do not migrate so far. It is a very different
matter with the class of wading birds. Their nesting quarters
in the desolate regions of Siberia and North America are
unlimited—the whole vast extent is bog and lake and
sea-shore; birds are hatched and reared by the millions.
When winter forces this vast army south, it forces them
into regions where food is not so abundant ; the vast tracts
that are under forest or cultivation are destitute of food.
Notice also there is less land south of the Equator than
to the north, and you will easily see why these Arctic birds
are many of them cosmopolitan. Seebohm accounted for
the lengthy migration of these birds by the fact that, being
accustomed to long light in Arctic regions, they naturally,
when they did migrate, went as far as they could. The distri-
‘ution of land is in all likelihood the reason. Many of these
birds remain with us—for example, turnstones and ringed

MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 145

plovers—and it seems quite a natural thing to see them
crouching on the bleak rocks when the north-east winds or
winter are blowing ; but it seems very unnatural to hear
of grey plovers wintering in the tropics of Central Africa, of
turnstones tinkling out to sea when disturbed from the
heathen rocks of the Cape Verde Islands, Again, if soft-
billed birds of feeble flight even journey as far as Cape
Colony, and their species form no continuous line north-
wards, it will be sufficient to note that when winter drove
them south to North Africa, and further east towards
Persia, it drove them on to that arid zone that practically
reaches round the world. There is a vast desert tract
that stretches from Morocco across Arabia into the Punjanb
of India. Soft-billed birds had either to cross this arid
region or starve. Once across it, such prolific birds as the
willow-warblers would require a wide area, and such highly
developed flying birds as swallows would think little of
distances ; and lastly, not a hundred birds out of a million
hatched in the southern hemisphere visit us—in fact, I only
know of some shearwaters of the North Atlantic. The reason
is, they have no need to; when winter forces them north-
wards, it forces them into increased land areas and across no
arid zones,

So far it seems possible to understand what is called the
mystery of migration, but when birds found regions of
plenty in these tropical and sub-tropical parts, why did not
they remain there 2 They do not remain in these quarters
till food is exhausted, but with the signs of spring they
move off, just as they leave their northern haunts, some of
them, long before the food-supplies are exhausted. By way
of explanation, first it may be noted that the lapse of ages
had formed a definite habit that had its beginnings in very
small things. It is easy imagining the development of
habit. To begin with, when they were forced to migrate
yearly, they lingered in their haunts till they could linger
no longer—the yearly supply would not always exhaust itself
on the very same day, and that would produce an unsettling
effect ; they would need to strike, as it were, an average
time for leaving, and in some way it would be noted that
that time of leaving corresponded with decided changes of

VOL. II. me CL

146 REY. W. SERLE ON

the atmosphere—rainy seasons or spells of frost. I do not
say that birds could argue these things out, but all through
Nature there are seen mysterious laws that fit things to
ends, and issue in what are called fittest arrangements.
The arrangements we see; it is the process that has cul-
minated in the arrangement that we wish to show. Of course
that is not the sole explanation. In fact, I should have
mentioned first that experience had told of congested areas.
The mortality among the feathered tribes must have been
enormous before the habit of migration was formed. We cannot
trace this as we can that of the extinct oxen of South America,
for example, whose bones are found huddled together in such
great abundance in some districts. From time to time we hear
of it on a small scale, when the locust flights in South
Africa suddenly fail, and the locust birds that were rearing
their young in thousands suddenly forsake their young
altogether to ward off starvation from themselves. The
memories of these things remain with birds, and in time,
through influences of heredity, lead to the habit of migration.

Thirdly, if the failure of the food-supply drove birds
southwards, it is the lack of suitable food for their young
that brings them back in the summer season. Even the
birds that remain in tropical regions all the year round
lay fewer eggs than birds in temperate parts, and some of
the larks that remain on the burning plain of Africa lay
but one egg. The common water-hen of our marshes, which
with us has a clutch of nine eggs, in more tropical parts is
content with a clutch of four. Young birds require soft food,
whether warbler or finch; and insects are abundant in our
summer season. It is only now and again that our summers
are so dry that the parent birds are nearly exhausted in
catering for the wants of their young.

Fourthly, there is less danger in the rearing of young birds
in these temperate parts. No monkeys are in our forests to
pry into every hole and corner for the callow young or tit-bit
of an egg; no lizards darting about in all directions to find
the prize in the open clearings where monkeys feared to go;
no scorpions to enter the holes in African solitudes where the
rockchats brood in the darkness over their blue spotted eggs ;
or if art and cunning have concealed the nests from all

MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 147

these, still there is no intense heat to dry up the very yolk
in the eggs and cause so many to be forsaken,

The second great difficulty in the subject was also
presented by the increased information that flowed in upon
us. Birds travel by certain well-known routes—yea, there
are cross routes, and yet no mistakes are made. Birds from
Iceland strike the north of Scotland and pass down the
west coast, thence the east coast of Ireland, and cross over
on to the Welsh coast. Birds from the north of Europe
cross the North Sea, strike the British coasts between
Shetland and Norfolk, and cross to the Continent on their
south journey again at the Straits of Dover, Birds that
cross the Mediterranean hug the north shores of Africa and
pass down the valley of the Nile. And all these birds have
their peculiar routes. Birds of certain species that breed in
North Europe amidst the birds that Visit us in autumn
never join these autumnal flocks, but pass south over the
island of Heligoland towards the Frisian coasts. In these
regions they encounter the numerous birds that are flocking
from Central Europe westwards to England and Ireland,
but they do not get into these flocks but keep to their own
course. It is comparatively a rare thing for birds to get
out of their course, and when they do, and are shot, it is
then we read of rare birds in the public prints. How do
these birds know the exact routes and are not influenced
into wrong routes by passing birds? There we get the
Theory of Tradition as stated by Darwin, Wallace, Seebohm,
and other well-known naturalists. In every flock that
migrates there is always a percentage of old birds that have
been over the journey before. Birds are provided with
good memories. When they have been over the route a
few times they have the knowledge of the way thoroughly
in their minds; they have extra good eyesight, and from
the height in which they travel they have a wide view of
the chief physical features of the land below them—they
note the mountain ranges, the arms of the sea, the headlands,
and by these they guide themselves till they come to their
familiar haunts. If the difficulty is suggested that many
birds migrate by night, still they do not choose very dark
nights for their movements: what light there is of the moon

148 REV. W. SERLE ON

and stars is always sufficient to guide them; and this is to
be said in favour of that last statement, that as long as you
see it clear above, there is no chance of birds coming down
on the land during the night. It is only when the nights
become cloudy or mists set in that birds seem to lose them-
selves and descend on lighthouses, or hover in distracted
bewilderment over the lights of our large cities. Of course
these things when stated were not universally received: they
seemed to make birds mueh wiser animals than they were
conceived to be. Middendorff, for example, a distinguished
Russian naturalist, who had studied bird phenomena
amidst the desolate wilds of Siberia, and had also made
himself an authority on the wandering tribes of these
parts, observed, first of all, that these natives never lost
their way in their perennial wanderings: civilised beings
would be constantly lesing their way. Not so the Samoiedes ;
they had inherited an animal faculty of direction. It was
the same with birds in migration: whether they migrated
by day or night they would not go wrong, for they possessed
a mysterious faculty of direction. The same naturalist,
whilst resident in the Taimyr Peninsula, which is south of
the magnetic pole, was struck with the number of birds that
flocked to that district. It was near to the magnetic pole.
He chose seven well-known birds, and got their first appear-
ance recorded at various points east and west in Russia
and Siberia, and he arrived at the conclusion that all birds
are attracted to the magnetic pole. It was an ingenious
idea. Unfortunately it does not hold good for West Siberia
or North America. How long the Theory of Tradition is
to hold ground I should not like to say. Ido not say that
most recent facts have destroyed it, for these facts are yet
too few innumber; but certainly the latest facts have thrown
doubts upon the theory. Observations on the Continent
have been adduced to show that young birds alone, which
know nothing about the way, are the first to migrate.
These young birds set out on their long journeys from six
to eight weeks after leaving the nest; the female parents
follow later, and last of all the males. In the spring
the order is reversed. Of course this may not be with all
birds, for swallows, old and young, congregate promiscuously

MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 149

and seem to leave altogether, and other birds migrate in
families; but what, in fact, we want is a theory that will
explain the facts, and if that of tradition is disproved, as it
now seems to be, I can only see that we are thrown back
on a Theory of Heredity, and I rather think that in the end
the influence of heredity is to explain all the mysteries.
But the science of the subject is yet in its infancy, and the
work is too great for one man to work out; areas of
distribution will have to be defined differently from what
they are at present. If you consult the bird-cases in the
Museum you will see little maps coloured red showing the
distribution areas of the families of birds. These will have
to be improved on the principle of our contour maps, and
that in two directions. First, on one coloured map I should
have the colours varied in proportion to the number of
species: that might be a clue to the original centre of
distribution. It would at least have this valuable commen-
dation, that it would tell the student where the species were
most numerous. On the second coloured map I should
have it told at once to the eye what biological research has
to say regarding primary forms and their developments; we
could not go further back than that in discovering the
original centre of distribution. Take, for example, the Thrush
family, which is cosmopolitan. Of these there is no doubt that
the ground thrushes are the primary forms, and these are
found in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia, etc.

It is well that we go on amassing our facts, but it is not for
scientific men to tell us to defer making theories till we have
got the facts; the imagination has its work to do all along
the investigations, and after all facts are supposed to be
gathered, it is the imagination that will have to form the
theory. Facts without imagination are ultimately of little
scientific use, and even the person that is crying yet for
facts more and facts only, shows thereby that he is possessed
of a theory if he only knew what it was.

At this stage let me give some quotations, Brehm
says :—“ Hunger and love dominated the migratory move- ©
ments of birds.” These forces alone would not suffice, for
birds migrate often long before winter sets in, and the passion
of love does not possess many birds till their second and third

150 REV. W. SERLE ON

years, and yet they migrate. Palmén maintains “that
originally birds lived in latitudes which supplied them through-
out the year with everything necessary to their existence ;
that in progress of time some of them accidentally came to
stray so far beyond the northern limits of their homes, that on
the approach of winter they were compelled to retrace their
path in order not to succumb to cold and hunger; that a
habit of migrating was developed from such accidental
erratic wanderings, and that the habit, together with the
experiences made on these journeys, had been passed on by
inheritance from the old birds to the young.” We do not
believe that such phenomena were the result of accidents.
Seebohm, who did not always hold the same idea, said
latterly :—‘ The origin of migration probably does not date
back to a period before the glacial epoch. As birds gradually
began to increase and multiply to an extent sufficient to
produce a struggle for existence in the form of a fight for
food, they seem to have adopted a custom, which they still
retain, of leading away or driving away their families every
autumn to seek food and a home elsewhere, As the circle of
bird-life constantly widened, in due time the abundance of food
tempted many birds to stray into the Arctic regions to breed
during the long summers of those climates at that period.
Probably during the darkest months of mid-winter—if the
cool season of the pre-glacial period may be called winter
—gome local migration took place and birds wandered back
again for a month or two into the adjoining districts, but
these little journeys can scarcely be dignified with the name
of migration. Then in process of time winters became
severe at the poles, and birds had to learn to migrate. Then
came the glacial period, when birds were driven south before
ice-fields and crowded into the tropics of Asia and Africa.
After the glacial period had passed its meridian and the
edge of the ice gradually retreated, so did the birds, leaving
here and there colonies which formed tropical allies.”
Wallace, a living naturalist of considerable eminence, says :-—
“ Migration is an exaggeration of a habit common to all
locomotive animals of moving about in search of food,
but greatly exaggerated in the case of birds by their power
of flight and by the necessity of procuring a large amount

MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 151

of soft insect food for their untledged young.” These are
samples of the most worthy quotations that I have culled
from my reading.

To me, since boyhood, the subject has always been full of
fascination, and I have formed ideas and re-formed ideas.
My conclusions at present are not difficult to understand.
To begin with, you have your centre or centres of distribution.
As far as migration is concerned, it matters little whether
you had a single pair of birds to be the parent stock of all
subsequent species of birds, or had many pairs. Scientific
research is in favour of the evolution of species. As long
as there was abundance of food around the original centre
there was no need for movement, and there would be little
or no differentiation of species; but let the food-supply fall
short through the increase of birds or through physical
causes that may have sprung up, and immediately birds
were called upon to exert themselves if they would survive.
It may be that during some short period of hunger some in
a favouring locality took to a new form of food for the time
being. If the congestion continued, these birds that had
taken to the new food of a certain locality would have to
take to it for a longer period of the year, and naturally
their bodily frame would alter to suit their new life, just as
any man’s frame would who left one kind of work to
take up another. In birds there would be a development
in the hardness or softness of the beak, and in the structure
of the feet, to suit tree-climbing or ground habits. There is
a large family of birds in the Sandwich Islands that has
- given ornithological classifiers much trouble. Some have
classed them among finches, and some among honey-eaters—
certainly very different opinions; but the trend of latest
research into the, subject has been that, to begin with, the
form was distinctly that of honey-eater, and that as food
failed the birds took to insect-eating, and having to bore in
the ground for these, or into rotten tree-trunks, the bills
became hard. Jf birds should happen not to differentiate
in their original centres, and had to continue the struggle
for existence, they had to leave their haunts for a season—
it may be, for a month or two; perhaps moved east or
westward, keeping to isothermal lines as most likely to give

152 REV. W. SERLE ON

them their natura] food. In the end the tendency would be
for birds to differentiate—and that, if they were constrained
to take to the habit of migration. Not all would migrate, as
I said at the beginning. Some, where winter had little
sway, would become fitted with certain qualities which would
give them in these regions a decided advantage over those
that had to migrate for a period of the year. The lapse of
time would still more specialise these birds, and if they
became isolated at certain centres they would also become
highly specialised. It is this, no doubt, that has accounted
for the number of peculiar forms on the islands of tropical
and sub-tropical seas: witness the many peculiar forms of
birds in the islands lying round Borneo, or in Madagascar.
But, after all, congestion in original centres would force
migration just as it would structural differences among birds,
and you have to remember that the ever-changing conditions
of the glacial periods would have effects that to-day would
declare that certain finches had their original centre in some
temperate region, and a vast army of waders and ducks and
sea-birds had theirs in more northern regions. Satisfactory
knowledge on all these points it is forever impossible to get.
But for the migrants the natural progress of events is likely
to have been that the first migrant moved north or south,
according as it was the more suitable. They would move
along the line of least resistance—that is, along the lines
where their peculiar wants would be most easily supplied.
Migration, or better, emigration, would tend towards distance
from the Equator.

Nor is this a thing that has taken place wholly in past
ages, but is going on on a greater or less scale every year:
perhaps more markedly now than ever, seeing that civilised
man so easily changes the face of Nature. In our northern
counties, where large tracts have been put under forest
cultivation, birds have made their appearance, and promise
to become common where they had never been seen before.
Nor has the migration ever tended northwards exclusively,
as is sometimes asserted; for when circumstances have been
favourable, birds have shown a willingness to halt and breed
in lands that they have passed over. There is the notable
instance of the short-eared owl a few years ago nesting

MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 153

so commonly around the upper waters of the Clyde and
Tweed during the vole plague ; and at present, widgeons and
scoters are showing an inclination, in small numbers, to halt
and breed with us. In other places where the natural
conditions have remained the same yet, some birds have
moved on—eg., when cattle or sheep have been allowed to
disturb their haunts.

As for the routes that are taken, these mark the direction
of expansion from the original centres: all birds do not
_know the way back to these centres from experience, as
in many cases the young birds lead the way. What we
might call the sense of direction is a hereditary possession
of birds, not there originally, but has, through an ordinary
law of Nature, become a part of their being. It is implicit
obedience to this law, unconscious obedience, that prevents
birds from losing their way or following other familiar bird-
routes. Wheatears and white wagtails from Iceland will
ever continue to reach the Continent by the west coast of
Scotland. Fieldfare, redwing, ortolan, and Richard’s pipits
may travel together till they reach the south coast of
Norway; but thereafter, while the first two species will
come over to our country in vast thousands, the ortolan
and pipit will still bend southwards over Heligoland, down
the coast of Holland. The warblers and red-backed shrikes
that have nested together in the fields of France, and that
will winter together round the sources of the Nile or further
south, will travel thither by different routes; the warblers
may cross at Gibraltar, the shrike never will, but will go
south by Italy to cross the Mediterranean at Sicily or Greece.
The rose-coloured pastor and the black-headed bunting of
the south of Europe will not get mixed with the millions
that are making for Egypt from their nesting haunts, nor be
diverted by the millions that cross their route making for
the same region, but will continue to pass over Asia Minor
through Afghanistan to winter in the North of India. The
Arctic tern, that breeds right across North America to Alaska,
never passes at the approach of winter down the Pacific
coast, where it would find an easy subsistence, but crosses the
Continent to pass down the Atlantic coast to winter along

the coasts of Brazil, These and many other things are
VOL. 11. 1M

fe

154 REV. W. SERLE ON MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

strange, and seemingly are only explainable by the influence
of heredity, which, Seebohm declares, “has developed into
something like a reasoning faculty which is generally right but
occasionally wrong.” I should say, “rarely wrong.” Other
matters affecting migration I have not touched, such as the
influence of weather, the rate at which birds migrate, the
various routes they take, questions of geology that are
raised. I have confined myself to the Theory of Migration
and traced the development of thought concerning a subject
that puzzled thinkers of ancient days, and continues the
wonder of the light-keepers on our rocky headlands, and
of beings like myself who, under the midnight light of a
gas jet, see nothing but think many things.

PRESENTED

ong

x: atte ¢,

The Floras of the East and West of Scotland cone 38 J ohn
MacRae, M.A., . : - ' 4H

The Skull as a Basis for Race Classification. An ivasireas by David.
Hepburn, M.D., F.R.S.E., V.-P.R.P.S.E, Lecturer on Regional
Anatomy, University of iidinpiiak

Regeneration of Lost Parts in Animals, By J. Arthur Phonon a Mi -%
M.A., F.R.S.E., Professor of Natural History, Cas of 5
Aberdeen, Vice- Presid

Ants, By J. G. Goodchild, of the Gecibedadl SurveyI.G.5., 1 1S, PaO.
Custodian of the Collections of Scottish Geology and Mineralogy
in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, Past President, —

Nature and Man in the Forth Valley. By David B. Morris’ —
Card Catalogues and their Applications. By W. E. Hoyle,

The Story of the Red Blood pa te te By W. B. Drummond,
M.B., C.M., F.R.C.P.E., %s

Prehistoric Kitchen-Middens and What They Teach Us. Py Robert
Munro, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E., 4 bs

Migration of Birds. By Rev. W. Serle, M.A., B.D., MBOU,
A, B. we

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