genera he would long ago have arrived at the same conclusions. It is certain that the solt parts of Astrangia, Cladocora, Oculina, and Orbicella are almost identical in all essential points of structure and form, as anyone may see by examining the published figures of the animals of these genera, though the living animals resemble one another much more closely than do the figures. Moreover there are species of Astrangia that bud laterally and grow up into branched forms not unlike Oculina, while the species of the latter are always encrusting while young, and have marginal buds, like the typical Astrangiæ, and some Oculinæ remain permanently nearly in this condition.

Nor do the internal structure of the corals afford any marked and constant characters for their separation. The Coenenchyma is often nearly wanting in Oculinidae, though usually characteristic, and it is sometimes present in Astrangiæ, even presenting the radiating surface lines so characteristic of Oculina. In fact it often requires very careful study to determine whether certain specimens belong to Oculina and Astrangia. Such are the genera that have "nothing in common. ." The relations between Caryophyllia and Astrangia, through Paracyathus, Phyllangia, &c., are sufficiently obvious, and as I have fully discussed all these relations elsewhere (Trans. Conn. Acad. I. pp. 512 to 540, 1869), it is unnecessary to say more upon this point.

What Mr. Duncan means by saying that Caryophyllia Smithii was first discovered by the Porcupine Expedition in the European seas, is not evident, if he means the well-known species which has passed under that name in all English works, and which Dana illustrates by a figure copied from Gosse's "Actinologia Britannica" (which is the only figure that Mr. Duncan specially criticises). He also finds fault with Dana for saying that Caryophyllia cyathus is "widely distributed over the bottom of the Atlantic, even as far north as the British isles," and tells us that "those unrecognised workers have shown that it is not Caryophyllia cyathus but C. clavus which has the great horizontal range," referring of course to the "workers" who had described the corals of the Forcupine expedition. But in Mr. Duncan's paper on those corals (Proc. Royal Soc., 1870, p. 289) he united both those species, together with C. Smithii and C. borealis, as mere varieties of one species, and makes a long argument to sustain that view, and concludes thus: "I have placed the species borealis in the first place, and regard the old species C. clavus, C. Smithii, and C. cyathus as varieties of it." Dana's statement was doubtless based on Mr. Duncan's assertions, in the paper quoted, that C. cyathus and C. clavus are identical, and the subsequent discovery of C. clavus in the Straits of Florida by Pourtales. The error, therefore, if such it be, belongs wholly to Mr. Duncan, and his remark that "had Dana waited a little longer he would have had the opportunity of quoting correctly," was, to say the least, quite uncalled for, and unbecoming to him. But the peculiar injustice of the critic is, perhaps, best seen in his studied omission of any credit to Dana for his extensive original observations and investigations upon the structure and formation of coral reefs and islands, and his intimations that the facts and theories are mostly borrowed. Thus he says, "The chapters on the structure of coral reefs and islands add little to the knowledge which Darwin and Jukes and Hochsteth have given us; but Dana's great powers of illustration enable him to reproduce the details with which we are so familiarthanks to these authors-in very engaging forms." Dana has given Darwin full credit and well-merited praise, both in the preface and in many places in the body of the work, for his accurate observations of facts and discovery of the true mode of formation of coral islands; but he also states the well-known fact that his own observations had been made and his report written, in 1842, before the publication of Mr. Darwin's work. The report of Mr. Jukes was published still later (1847). Dana's ob ervations were, therefore, wholly original, and relate mostly to regions not visited either by Darwin or Jukes. The chapters upon this subject are, as they purport to be, mainly a reprint of Dana's original report, with such additions from other and later sources as seemed necessary to make the work complete, all of which are credited to their original authors. In the preface the author says, "The observations forming the basis of the work were made in the course of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition around the world, during the four years from 1838 to 1842." Had Mr. Duncan taken the trouble to examine the original report, he would have found there the true source of most of the facts narrated. The figures of corals were also mostly copied from those in the atlas of his report on zoophytes, which were originally drawn by Dana himself from Nature, so that it is not

The

strange that "some of them are very correct representations of Nature." When the figures are not original, their source has invariably been given. The charge that Dana does not give due credit to others is simply ridiculous, and in no case more su than when he is accused of treating the works of Edwards and Haime with "supreme contempt, inasmuch as he rarely gives them credit for their good work," for in the list (p. 379) of the species of corals described in his great work on Zoophytes, pre pared at his urgent request by the writer, he has adopted, without hesitation, all the numerous rectifications made by them, 25 well as those made by the writer and others. A considerable number of corrections also appear in that list for the first time, and it must, therefore, be quoted as the original authority for such changes. Nothing less than the complete absence of personal vanity and pride, and entire devotion to the advancement of scientific truth, for which Prof. Dana is so justly distinguished, could have induced him to have published such a list in this book. No doubt instances may have occurred in which he has unintentionally overlooked writings of more or less importance. If so, he will doubtless make amends in the next edition. authority for well-known facts is not always given, because such references would uselessly encumber the book. In other cases, where to mention would be only to condemn, such references have been intentionally omitted when they would have served no useful purpose. Such was the case in respect to the various erroneous European classifications, which were not adopted. Such was also the case when, in describing the extensive coral reefs of Brazil, so well explored by Prof. Hartt, and which were shown by the writer to consist of corals related to and partly identical with those of the West Indies, he does not refer to Mr. Duncan's assertion (Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc. xxiv. p. 30) that "the Orinoco drains a vast tertiary region, and shuts in the coral-life of the Caribbean on the south ;" and that the Florida reefs consist of few species," when more than forty-five species had even then been recorded from them, or more than he sdmits for any existing reefs. Other statements and theories con. cerning the recent and fossil corals of the West Indies, in the same paper, have become equally absurd, in consequence of the recent discoveries of Pourtales, and needed no exposure. His assertion that the isthmus of Panama was deeply submerged during the Miocene, and again forcibly urged in his criticism of Dana, may rest on no better foundation than the other assertions just quoted from the same paper, notwithstanding the careless way in which he misquotes, as to place of publication, and misrepresents, as to the contents, a brief article in opposition to that view by the writer. We still look in vain for such proofs as would be afforded by elevated coral reefs having relations to those of the West Indies, but situated on the Pacific side, even upon the higher parts of the isthmus. The well-known existence of elevated coral reefs in the East Indies and Polynesia, and their presence in the West Indies, known long before Mr. Duncan began to write his valuable papers, proves nothing of the sort. Whatever relations do exist between the fossil corals of the East and West Indies can be easily explained in other ways. We think it singular that while certain geologists find it necessary to force the Gulf-stream across the isthmus during the warm Miocene, others find it quite as important to turn it out of the Atlantic, across the isthmus, during the glacial period. Both assumptions seem equally gratuitous, and may be opposed by numerous facts. A. E. VERRILL

Animal Instincts

ALLOW me to add two or three facts to the interesting store supplied by your correspondents.

Some years ago a dog was sent to me at Taunton from Honiton, distant seventeen miles. It was conveyed in a closed hamper and in a covered cart. It escaped from my stable on the evening of its arrival, and at 11 o'clock on the following morning it was at its home again. The route lay over a ridge of steep hills.

Mr. Robert Fox, of Falmouth, so well known to the scientific world, is my authority for the following:-The fishermen of Falmouth catch their crabs off the Lizard rocks, and they are brought into the harbour at Falmouth alive and impounded in a box for sale, and the shells are branded with marks by which every man knows his own fish. The place where the box is sunk is four miles from the entrance to the harbour, and that is above seven miles from the place where they are caught. One of these boxes was broken; the branded crabs escaped, and two or three days afterwards they were again caught by the fishermen at the

Lizard rocks. They had been carried to Falmouth in a boat. To regain their home they had first to find their way to the mouth of the harbour, and when there, how did they know whether to steer to the right or to the left, and to travel seven miles to their native rocks?

Another, of which the drover is my informant. Large flocks of sheep are driven weekly trom the Welsh hills to the London market. Some time since two escaped in the dark and were supposed to have been stolen. About a fortnight afterwards the two stray sheep reappeared on the Welsh nou stains, whence they had been brought. They had found their way through a journey of at least 100 miles. My informant learned from some of the turnpike-gate keep rs on the road that, when opening the gate at night to a traveller, two sheep had been seen to rush through.

The nightingale returns from Greece, not merely to the same country, but to the same field and the self-same bush. The swallow takes possession of the same nest.

Carlton Club, March 31

EDWARD W. Cox, Serjeant-at-law

The Sociability of Cats

It may prove of interest to naturalists to record the following

curious instance of the social habits of cats :

I once had two she ca's that were upon very intimate terms with each other, always together, and never appeared to have quarrelled. At one time, one of them being about to add an increase to their number, the other very kindly nursed it, and even performed the function of a midwife, and actually attended to the necesary offices that are in ordinary cases attended to by the parent of the progeny. Feeling some interest in curiosities of natural history, I carefully watched my pets, and can therefore vouch for the truthfulness of this extraordinary manifestation of feline sociability,

I may here mention that, as regards the teachableness of cats, I once saw at the house of an intimate friend a fine, large tabby tom-cat put through a drill which would perhaps outvie similar exhibitions of the genus homo. He was told to "stand up," "shoulder arms," 33 66 present arms," and "stand at ease," which, by observing the hands of the master, he would most obediently do, and with a promptness that was astounding. Another cat was told "to beg," which it at once did by jumping on to a Windsor chair, and performed some curious twistings and rollings that were continued until the morsel of meat was awarded. I have recently introduced a fine kitten to the company of two cats I have had for years. For a long time a deadly feeling of enmity was maintained against the stranger; but now, after a period of three months, the two older cats will not lap their morning's milk until the kitten is in their company; if absent, they actually retire, and refuse to take their meal. Red Lion Street, March 26 J. JEREMIAH

Manitoba Observatory HAVING seen in vol. vii. p. 289 of NATURE a statement to the effect that the American Government had established an observatory at Fort Garry, Manitoba, I have to inform you that the so-called observatory is a telegraph reporting station maintained by the Dominion of Canada. Its tri-daily reports, however, in common with those from several other Canadian telegraph stations in correspondence with Toronto, are always placed at the disposal of the Washington weather office. G. T. KINGSTON Magnetic Observatory, Toronto, Canada, March 11

ST. THOMAS CHARTERHOUSE TEACHERS'

SCIENCE CLASSES

PRIOR to the introduction of Mr. Lowe's revised code, elementary science teaching was always to be found in the curriculum of our best primary schools. The properties of water, the constituents of some of the chemical elements, the first principles of mechanics and the like, were taught with much pleasure by the masters of the schools above alluded to "Payment by results" on the three R's threw cold water upon this class of intellectual teaching, and it has only been revived recently through agitation emanating from enlightened educators. Teachers of late years too have had their studies very much limited by the low requirements of the Education

department, and hence many young teachers were launched out into the teacher's profession unable themselves to impart instruction formerly given in our schools. Teachers have long been clamorous for having the standard of education raised in their schools, and have therefore hailed with great satisfaction the act of the Science and Art Department whereby additional grants are given to any pupils or adults or juveniles who could, after receiving a certain number of lessons from a qualified teacher, pass an examination on the subjectmatter of these lectures. Teachers, however, before they are permitted to give these lectures to pupils, are required to pass an advanced examination on the subjects they propose to teach. To enable teachers to pass these tests, the St. Thomas Charterhouse Teachers' Classes were inaugurated in October last. The idea was organised by Mr. C. Smith, one of the teachers and organising secretaries, and was carried out under the auspices of the Rev. J. Rodgers, M.A. To the credit of our primary teachers it ought to be added that they have since the promulgation of the idea worked most heartily to bring it to this desired consummation. Pro's. Huxley, Ansted, Carruthers, Sir John Bennett, and several other scientific men joined the committee for carrying out the classes. From every part of London masters and mistresses of our elementary schools gladly joined the Science School. Over 230 teachers were initiated, and it is hoped that most of the teachers will qualify themselves in the coming May examination to be able to teach the science subjects they have studied in these classes. Thus from this nucleus it is thought that next year we shall have science classes in connection with nearly every school (elementary) in the metropolis; and undoubtedly in a year or two more the inculcation of elementary general science knowledge will be almost universal.

Science teaching in the hands of a skilful instructor is always popular with young people, and as elementary teachers are eminently successful as collective teachers of the young, who could be better entrusted with imparting instruction which so brightens the intellect as these educators? The chief subjects taken this year at this science school are chemistry, mathematics, acoustics, light and heat, magnetism and electricity, botany (systematic and economic), geology, physiology, plane and solid geometry; but next year the promoters of the scheme hope to have classes in all the twenty-five subjects recognised by the Science Department of the Government. Most of the present students of the classes go in vigorously for physiology, physical geography, and acoustics, light and heat, a great many for chemistry. The teacher of chemistry, Mr. Spratling, has got up a first-rate laboratory for chemical experiments. Mr. Payne, teacher of magnetism and electricity, has all the approved auxiliaries for performing experiments connected with this subject. Next year the biology students will have every facility afforded them for microscopical practice. Mr. Simpson, who has done at least as much as any other person in London to train science teachers, is engaged as the special lecturer on Biology.

During the present session several of our leading scientific men have given a professional lecture to stimulate the teachers in their studies. Dr. Gladstone, Dr. Jarvis,

Prof. Ansted, Prof. Carruthers, Mr. Tylor, Rev. W. Panckridge, Prof. Skertchley amongst the number. All the ordinary lectures are given by elementary teachers who have qualified themselves to teach. Two of the students, Mr. Bird and Mr. Powell, who have spent some of their leisure moments in making observations in botanical science, render much valuable ad to their fellow students in furnishing examples to illustrate the lessons given in botany. The students generally are pursuing their studies with great avidity, and as was observed at the Devon Social Society Gathering, by Mr. C. Clarke the importance of these classes cannot be over-estimated

FIG. 23. Sculptured pointed handle, representing an elongated reindeer.

arabs" chalk on the walls, there are some really remarkable ones, which denote at the same time a clever hand and an eye practised in the observation of nature.

Drawing, with this people, evidently preceded sculpture. The figures in relief are much more rare among them than those that are carved, and likewise much less perfect. The latter are common at the Eyzies and Lower Laugerie, but they abound more especially at the Madelaine, where they are also much more correct. These drawings are all carved. Most of them ornament the

FIG. 27.-Skull of the woman of Cromagnon: profile. The wound in the frontal bone is shown.

Three little roses carved on a handle in deer-horn, seem to represent a polypetalous flower. All the other drawings are representations of animals.

The most numerous are those of the reindeer, then those of the horse: the ox and the aurochs are less common. These different animals are easily distinguished; their ways, their movements are sometimes reproduced with much elegance and accuracy; often they are isolated, dispersed in apparent disorder and in numbers over the whole surface of an object; then again they form groups, they are seen fighting together (see Fig. 22), or fleeing from

FIG 24.

FIG. 25. FIG. 26 Bones of the old man of Cromagnon. Fig. 24-Shin-bone. Fig. 25.Flattened tibia. Fig. 26.-Femur: profile view.

surface of different objects in deer horn, such as batons of command, handles of poignards; but some are engraved on pieces of stone, ivory, or deer horn, which were not intended for any other use, and which were pre* Continued from p. 369

FIG. 29.-Skull of the old man of Cromagnon: profile.

tion, which represents an eel or a lamprey (if it is not a serpent), they have a shape which, though not very characteristic, may be intended for a salmon.

The Troglodytes, sometimes so clever in delineating animals, were very inferior artists of the "human form

divine;" they very rarely studied it. Only one study of a head has been found; it is a very small drawing, representing a grotesque profile. Two other drawings, pretty much alike, represent the forearm terminating in a hand with four fingers, the thumb being hidden. I have already told you that the pieces of sculpture are much more rare than the drawings. There are not more than half a dozen, and they all come from Lower Laugerie. One of them, belonging to the Marquis de Vibraye, represents a woman, another represents a reindeer (see Fig. 23).

V.-Race

To complete the study of this interesting people, I should now like to be able to characterise the race to which they belonged. The human bones that have been collected up to the present time are not, unfortunately, sufficiently numerous to satisfy our curiosity. However they suffice to prove that this race was very different from the succeeding ones, and to prove above all how much the learned anthropologist Retzius and his disciples were deceived, in stating that all the population of Western Europe, before the comparatively recent epoch of the Indo-European emigrations, belonged to the type of short heads or brachycephals.

M. Elie Massenat discovered, some months ago, at Lower Laugerie, the skeleton of a man who appears to have been buried in a landslip. But the anatomical description of this precious skeleton has not yet been published; and I regret it the more, that it is the only discovered remains of the Troglodytes of the latest epoch. The skulls and bones, of which I show you the models, belong to a much earlier date. They were found in the ancient burying ground of the station of Cromagnon, of which the geological, palæontological, and archæological characters have been ascertained with the greatest nicety by M. Louis Lartet. This sepulchre, henceforth celebrated, contained the remains of at least five people. But only three skulls, two male and one female, were sufficiently well preserved to make useful studies. One of the men had attained a great age; the other man and the woman were adults; near them lay a young child. Their stature was very lofty, and far superior to our own. The length of the femur of the old man indicated a height of more than 180m. The volume of the bones, the extent and roughness of the surfaces of muscular insertion, the extraordinary development of the branch of the jawbone, where the masticatory muscles are inserted, prove an athletic constitution.

Fig. 28.-Skull of the woman of Cromagnon The tibias, instead of being triangular and prismatic like our own, are flattened like those of the gorilla (see Fig. 24. The upper part of the cubitus, very powerful and arched, supports a very small sigmoidal cavity, and its characteristics again recall the shape of the gorilla. But the conformation of the femur differs radically from that of the monkey tribe. The femur of anthropomorphal monkeys is flattened from front to back-that is to say. much wider than it is thick, and it does not present, on its posterior surface, that longitudinal elevation which in man is called the rough line. In the existing human races, the thickness of the femur is in general rather greater than its width, but the difference is inconsiderable. At Cromagnon this bone is much thicker than it is wide (see Fig. 25). The rough line, enormously developed, is no longer a simple elevation; it is a regular bony column, thick and projecting, which considerably augments the solidity of the bone and the extent of the muscular insertions. In this respect, therefore, the Cromagnon race differs much more from the Simian type than do the existing races. The skeletons of these robust Troglodytes bear the traces of their deeds of violence. One of the femurs of the old man presents, towards the lower extremity, a cavity such

With them, the sutures of the anterior region of the cranium are very simple, while those of the posterior region are rather complicated; besides which the former have a manifest tendency to close long before the latter. These two characteristics are observable in people and in individuals who live principally an animal life. The Cromagnon Troglodytes were then savages. But these savages were intelligent, and open to improvement; side by side with the proofs of inferiority I have just given, we find among them sure signs of a powerful cerebral organisation. The skulls are large. Their diameters, their curves, their capacity, attain, and even surpass, our medium skulls of the present day. Their form is very

elongated.

The alveolar process of the old man is oblique, but the upper part of the face is vertical, and the facial angle is very open. The forehead is wide, by no means receding, but describing a fine curve; the amplitude of the frontal tuberosities denotes a large development of the anterior cerebral lobes, which are the seat of the most noble intellectual faculties. If the Cromagnon Troglodytes are still savages, it is because their surrounding conditions have not permitted them to emerge from barbarism; but they are not doomed to a perpetual savage state. The development and conformation of their brain testify to their capability for improvement. When the favourable opportunity arrives, they will be able to progress towards civilisation. These rough hunters of the mammoth, the lion, and the bear, are just what ought to be the ancestors of the artists of the Madelaine.

I have just glanced over the principal facts in the history of the Troglodytes of the Vézère. For want of time, I have been obliged to shorten several and omit a number more. I hope, nevertheless, that you have been able to follow with me from Moustier to Cromagnon, from Cromagnon to Upper Laugerie and Gorge d'Enfer, and from thence finally to the three stations of the Eyzies, Lower Laugerie, and the Madelaine; the progressive evolution of an intelligent race, which advanced step by step, from the most savage state to the very threshold of civilisation. The Troglodytes of the latest epoch had, so to speak, but one step to take in order to found a real civilisation, for their society was organised, and they possessed arts and industry, which are the two great levers of progress.

This people have, nevertheless, disappeared, without leaving a single trace in the traditions of man. They did not die off by degrees, after having passed through a period of decadence. No, they perished without transition, rapidly, perhaps suddenly, and with them the torch of the arts was suddenly extinguished. Then began a dark period, a sort of middle ages, the duration of which is unknown. The chain of time becomes broken, and when we seize it again, we find, in the place of the reindeer hunters, a new society, a new industry, a new race. They are beginning to understand agriculture, they have some domestic animals, they are raising megalithic monuments, they have hatchets of polished flint. It is the dawn of a new day; but they have lost every remembrance of the arts. Sculpture, drawing, ornamentation, have alike disappeared, and we must descend to the later period of polished stone to find, here and there, on the slabs of some very rare monuments, a few ornamental lines which have absolutely nothing in common with the remarkable productions of art among the Troglodytes. The extinction of the Troglodytes was so complete and so sudden that it has given rise to the hypothesis of an inundation; but against this geology protests, and, to explain the phenomenon, we need only refer to the influence of man himOur peaceable reindeer-hunters, with their gentle manners, their light weapons, which were not adapted for fighting, were not calculated to resist the invasion of barbarians, and their growing civilisation succumbed at the first shock, when powerful conquerors, better a med for war, and al eady provided perhaps with the polished hatchet, came to invade their valleys. It was then seen, as it has often since been proved, that might conquers right.

se f.

also simpler than the molars, and there is an extra lobe to the last milk molar. The number of existing species is very great; they tend to divaricate in two directions, one culminating in the Pigs, and the other in the Cave corn Ruminants. The Hippopotamnus and Chevrotain at first sigh: do not look much alike, but the links between the two are very complete. The existing species are the most differentiated members of the order. Of the Suina, the Pigs are very exceptional among existing mammalia in retaining the typical number of forty-four teeth, Gymnura, an insectivorous animal, alone resembling them in this point; however there are spaces between some of them, so they do not form a regular series. The upper canines are very peculiar in being directed upwards instead of downwards, and in the Babirussa, where they pierce the upper lip, this is carried to an extreme. The molars are tuberculated, the tubercles being four in number in the Peccary, but much more numerous, especially in the last molars of Sus, where the extra ones represent the third lobe of the same teeth in the Ruminants. In a fossil pig from Pikermé the canines were similarly developed in both sexes, so the sexual differentiation must have been of later origin. In the Wart-hogs the incisors are rudimentary, and late in life the only molars persisting are the enormous columnar last molars; the great size of the canines is well known.

In the true Ruminantia there are no upper incisors, and the canines are but rarely developed. In the lower jaw there are eight teeth in a row along the front of the mouth, the two lateral can be proved to be canines, because in older types they are found of a different shape from the six true incisors. The anterior premolar is never developed. Kowalevsky has recently given the names Bunodont and Selenodont to the non-ruminating and ruminating members of this class, on account of the differences exhibited by their molar teeth, those in the latter presenting the ridges as a double crescent instead of in tubercles. The temporal bone and its surroundings give excellent characters whereby to separate these sub classes; the shape of the glenoid cavity and the direction of the external auditory meatus differing considerably in them. There is also no lateral notch in the palate of the pigs like those in the Ruminants. The Cervidae and Cavicorn Ruminants also have the odontoid process of the axis peculiarly spout-shaped, whilst in the pigs it forms a simple peg, much as in man. It does not seem to have been remarked before that in this respect the Tragulidae differ from the typical Ruminants, and resemble the pigs, the odontoid in them being a peg. With regard to the feet of Sus, Dr. Kowalevsky has made some important observations, having shown that the approximated sides of the two median metacarpals, which are the largest, send in towards one another processes which interlock, and that the shape of their distal articular surfaces causes them to be pressed together when the foot is to the ground. In the pigs the fibula is separate and complete, but in the Ruminants it is represented only by a small piece of bone outside the ankle; a rudiment is sometimes present above. That the deer approach the original type more than do the antelopes is evident from the facts that the upper canines are sometimes present, the crowns of the molars are shorter, and the lateral toes are present, being best developed on the fore-limb. The Tragulida are less differentia ed in having the anterior metacarpals free and the fibula entire, though slender; the canines are wel deve-. loped in the male at least, and the glenoid cavity is as like that of the pig as of the deer. Dicotyles approaches the ruminants from the other s de, the metatarsals uniting to form a canon bone, and the foot al ogether closely resembling that of Hyomoschus, though an outer toe is lost in the former. The camels are developed in a ditterent direction, approaching the more generalised type.

Artiodactylates appear first in the middle Eocene, and therefore do not go so far back as the Perissodactylata.