Page images
PDF
EPUB

of Mythology, Cornhill Magazine, April; Discussion upon "Religiosité," Bulletin of the Société d'Anthropologie, 1877, pp. 30 and 56; L'Anthropophagie, Revue Scientifique, No. 10; Trépanation, Bulletin of the Société d'Anthropologie, 1876, pp. 551, 572; 1877, p. 12.

General Treatises.

Part V. of "Descriptive Sociology," Herbert Spencer; "Principles of Sociology," vol. i., same, reviewed by E. B. Tylor in Mind, April; Dr. Mehlis's work on the "Sociology of the Inca Empire," reviewed in Ausland for March; "Ancient Society," L. H. Morgan, Henry Holt and Co. A new edition of Von Hellwald's "Culturgeschichte" has brought the subject down to the present time.

INSTRUMENTALITIES.

APPARATUS.

An Archæological Exchange Club has been organized by Rev. S. D. Peet, Ashtabula, O. Professor Flower, in his lectures on the Comparative Anatomy of Man, drew attention to a stereograph invented by M. Broca for the accurate delineation of crania, etc.

TERMINOLOGY.

A discussion upon the words anthropology, ethnology, and ethnography, Bulletin of the Société d'Anthropologie, 1876, pp. 199, 298, 375; by M. Broca in his opening address before the Cours d'Anthropologie, Paris; and by Topinard in the introduction to his "Anthropologie." In the Journal of the Anthropological Institute Wm. L. Distant discusses the propriety of the use of the word religion by anthropologists.

MEETINGS.

American Association, Nashville, Aug. 29; American Anthropological Association, Cincinnati, Sept. 5 and 6; American Philological Association, July 6; American Geographical Society; State Archæological Association, Ohio, Aug.; State Archæological Association, Indiana, Sept. 12; British Association, Plymouth, Aug. 15; French Association, Havre, Aug. 23; Congrès des Américanistes, Luxembourg, Sept. 10;

Congrès Archéologique de France, Senlis, May 28; German Anthropological Association, Constance, Sept. 24; German Association of Naturalists and Physicians, Munich, Sept. 17; Russian Archæological Association, Kazan, Aug. 12.

TRANSACTIONS.

Davenport Academy, vol. ii., part i.; Wisconsin Academy of Natural Science; Smithsonian Rep., 1876; Peabody Museum Rep., vol. x.; Journal of the Victoria Institute, vols. x., xi.; Journal of the Anthropological Institute, in parts to Nov.; Bulletin of the Société d'Anthropologie; Archiv für Anthropologie; Zeitschrift; Mittheilungen der Anthropologishen Gesellschaft in Wien; Beiträge zur Anthropologie Bayerns, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4; Annales de l'Académie Eth. de la Gironde.

LECTURES.

Course on Prehistoric Archæology, Syracuse University, W. de Hass; Cours d'Anthropologie, Paris, MM. Broca, Topinard, Hamy, Bertillon, Hovelacque, Mortillet, and Dally.

MUSEUMS.

The Smithsonian Institution has issued a circular in order to ascertain the location of all aboriginal remains and of every public and private anthropological collection in America. Beilage zu No. 1 des Correspondenzblattes, 1876, contains a catalogue of public and private anthropological museums in Germany and adjoining countries. The anthropological collections of the National Museum were more than doubled in number and value by the Centennial Exhibition. The president's address at the last annual meeting of the Anthropological Institute was a résumé of the society's work during the year. An Ethnographical Museum has been opened at Helsingfors, Finland. The Museum für Völkerkunde, Leipsic, has issued its fourth annual statement.

PERIODICALS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Professor W. Koner, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Dec., 1877, gives a list of 2000 ethnological and anthropological treatises for 1876. Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana has reached its fiftieth number with the word Jamaica. The same publisher has issued "A Bibliography of Bibliographies."

ZOOLOGY.

By Dr. A. S. PACKARD, Jr.,*

DIRECTOR OF THE PEABODY ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, SALEM, MASS.

GENERAL ZOOLOGY.

Zoological science has advanced during the past year, not only in systematic and biological directions, but also in the more difficult fields of histology, embryology, and physiology.

Treatises.

Among general works are those of Pagenstecher and Jäger, and Huxley's "Manual of the Invertebrates."

Explorations and Researches.

Explorations have been carried on in North America by Cope, Goode, Scudder, Packard, Boucard, Jordan, Verrill, Streets, and others, and in South America by Professor Orton; while Professor Morse has made valuable observations on the lower animals of Japan, and European explorers have been as active in the Old World.

The United States Fish Commission has made valuable discoveries off the coasts of Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, besides prosecuting its work in our inland waters.

In March, Congress passed an appropriation providing for a commission of three skilled entomologists to report upon the depredations of the Rocky Mountain locust, and the best practicable method of preventing or guarding against their recurrence. The commission was attached to Hayden's United States Geological Survey, and consisted of Messrs. C. V. Riley, A. S. Packard, Jr., and Cyrus Thomas. Explorations have been carried on between the ninety-fourth meridian and the Pacific coast, and two bulletins of immediate practical interest issued, while a report of the summer's work is nearly ready.

*The chapter on the vertebrates has been furnished by Professor Theodore Gill, of Washington, D. C.

Several volumes on zoology have been issued by the United States Geological Survey, conducted by Professor F. V. Hayden. Of these the most important are: "Monographs of North American Rodentia," by Elliott Coues and Joel Asaph Allen; published as one of the quarto series of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, F. V. Hayden in charge: Washington, 1877. It contains eleven monographs-five by Dr. Coues and six by Mr. Allen, with appendix. "A Synoptical List of the Fossil Rodentia of North America," by J. A. Allen, and Appendix B. "Material for a Bibliography of North American Mammals," by Theodore Gill and Elliott Coues. The volume is carefully indexed, comprises 1091 pages, and contains five plates illustrative of the skulls of the Muridæ. It is a monumental work upon a single order of mammals.

The volume on Zoology of Lieutenant Wheeler's Survey of the Western Territories, carried on by the United States Engineer Corps, is dated 1875, but has but recently been distributed. It is largely devoted to an enumeration of the birds of the Rocky Mountains, with extended remarks on their habits and distribution by Mr. H. W. Henshaw. The mammals are discussed by Drs. Coues and Yarrow, who also report on the batrachians and reptiles, while the fishes have been worked up by Professor Cope and Dr. Yarrow. Much space and several beautiful plates are devoted to the insects, the following gentlemen presenting reports on the species belonging to the orders of which they have a special knowledge, to wit: E. T. Cresson, Edward Norton, T. L. Mead, W. H. Edwards, R. H. Stretch, R. Osten-Sacken, H. Ulke, P. R. Uhler, Cyrus Thomas, and H. A. Hagen; while Dr. Yarrow reports on the shells, and Professor A. E. Verrill on the leeches.

A bulky report on the vertebrate paleontology of Wheeler's survey, illustrated with many plates, comprises the results of Professor Cope's researches in New Mexico and Colorado during a single season.

After a delay of several years, Captain (now Colonel) Simpson's report of explorations across the Great Basin of the Territory of Utah has appeared, containing a list of birds collected on the expedition, by Professor S. F. Baird, and a finely illustrated report on the fishes by Professor Gill.

Dr. Sachs, who was sent to Venezuela by the Berlin Academy of Science, for the purpose of studying the electric eel in its native haunts, has returned, after an absence of ten months, with a rich store of valuable observations.

Professor E. D. Cope has lately visited the Nickajack Cave, near Chattanooga. The cave is as large as the Mammoth or Wyandotte Cave, and is traversed by a large stream. He found an abundance of a blind craw-fish and several small crustacea, some of them allied to Cæcidotœa. He also procured the myriopod Spirostrephon cavernarum, a spider with eyes, and a Raphidophora, etc.

The reports upon the biological results of the Valorous expedition by Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys and Dr. Carpenter, as well as the Rev. A. M. Norman and others, are contained in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. The Valorous was a store-ship sent out with the recent British polar expedition, and on her return from Disco Island dredged and sounded with most interesting results. Living Globigerina were captured on the outward voyage, and "countless numbers of a microscopic mite, which swarmed everywhere, and appeared to be busily engaged in eating the outer layer of the sea-weed, as well as the spawn" of a mollusk and the animal of a polyzoon. Some remarkable brachiopods, a new genus of sea-urchins, new shells and worms, several of which are fossil in Sicily, occurred at depths between one thousand and two thousand fathoms. Thirty-three species of shells were added to the list of Greenland shells, while the lists of Crustacea, Tunicata, Polyzoa, Radiata, etc., were greatly increased, as this is the first time that dredging has been carried on at such depths off the coast of Greenland. Mr. Jeffreys suggests that the marine fauna of Greenland is rather European than American; while Mr. Norman, on the other hand, believes that the fauna of Davis's Strait is American rather than European. It seems to us that the reporters overlook the fact that the polar deep-sea life is neither exclusively American nor European, but circumpolar, with features of subordinate importance characterizing each side of the Atlantic. The map showing the ocean bottom of the North Atlantic is of much interest in connection with recent speculations as to the former existence of a Tertiary polar continent connecting Europe and Greenland with America.

« EelmineJätka »