British Representatives Research Articles

American Library Association Toronto Conference

WHEN I left Toronto on the third day of the Conference it was not known how many delegates would ultimately be found to have attended it. Some had still to arrive. More than 1,700, however, had registered, and it was thought quite likely that as many as 2,000 would be the ultimate total—a “record” figure, outstripping even the attendance at the Jubilee Conference at Atlantic City. The other British representatives were Miss Overbury (West Riding); Miss Anne Rankin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester; Mr. G. T. Shaw (Liverpool); and Dr. Lowe (Leicester).

The Menace of Bolshevism

IT is needless for me to expatiate on the horrors of the bolshevist regime in Russia. Since the publication of the official reports of American and British representatives in Russia, the absolute truthfulness of which cannot be questioned for a moment, no fair-minded person may entertain any doubt whatever as to the reality of these horrors. And now we have an explanation from the lips of Lenin himself of the aims and policies pursued by the bolshevist tyrants of Russia. An extremely interesting report of this interview with Lenin will be found in the files of the New York Times for April 23rd. The report concludes as follows:

The Library World Volume 13 Issue 3

SOCIALLY, the two conferences can only be described as a huge success. The local arrangements for the entertainment of delegates were complete, and the receptions, banquets and excursions gave great pleasure to all who took part in them. To most of the English‐speaking delegates the trip to Brussels possessed the additional charm of novelty, and thus the week's proceedings assumed a holiday character. Save those who were suffering from mislaid baggage, and blistered feet caused by the trottoirs économiques de Bruxelles, a general note of gaiety prevailed, particularly among the British and Canadian representatives. Most of the American delegates were ladies, and they were all looking more or less tired, or were tormented by the thought of lost Saratoga trunks, which gave them a serious and detached appearance. The absence of attentive male librarians may also have contributed to the gloomy aspect which so many of them wore. Is it possible that the overwhelming feminine note in American librarianship is the key to the many discrepancies in library policy and work which have been observed by different writers? However that may be, it was distinctly noticeable that in comparison with their English, Dutch, Swedish and Belgian sisters, the American lady librarians were a tired and unhappy company. There were one or two noble exceptions, but the memory of these we prefer to hug in secret as a precious treasure.

Societies and Academies

LONDON.Entomological Society. June 3.-Mr. H. Rowland-Brown, vice-president, in the chair.-Exhibits.-H. St. J. Donis-thorpe: Pseudogynes of Formica sanguined, caused by fhe presence of the beetle Lomechusa strumosa in the nest, from the New Forest.-H. J. Turner: Living larvae of Coleophora maritimella on artemisia, and also a species of Asilidas and its prey.-C. J. Gahan: (i) Living specimens of a "leaf-insect "from the Seychelles, bred in England by Mr. St. Quentin, probably Pulchriphyllium crurifolium, S.; (2) some Lampyridse of considerable interest collected by Mr. E. E. Green in Ceylon, and including both sexes of the genera Lamprigera and Dioptoma, the females of which had hitherto been unknown, those of both genera being larviform. Attention was directed also to the existence in China, Ceylon, and the Malay Peninsula of remarkable larviform females greatly resembling in form the females of the American group Phengodini, and being somewhat similarly provided with rows of luminous points.-G. C. Champion: Specimens of Dromius angustus, Brull£, and Cryptophagus loyendali, Ganglb., recently recorded by him from Woking and the New Forest respectively; also two species of the Staphylinid genus Leptotyphlus and one of the Curculionid genus Alaocyba, the exhibitor mentioning that these extremely minute blind insects were much smaller than any known British representatives of the S. European groups in question.-Colonel C. S win hoe: Several boxes of butterflies taken during the present year (1908) in the Canary Islands, chiefly from Grand Canary and Teneriffe. Colonel Swinhoe observed that, with the exception of Lycaena wcbbianus, all the species met with suggest a foreign origin.-Papers.-Notes on the value of the genitalia of insects as guides in phylogeny: W. Wesche.-Certain Nycteribiidas, with descriptions of two new species from Formosa: Hugh Scott.-Further studies of the Tetriginae (Orthoptera) in the Oxford University Museum: Dr. J. L. Hancock.-Mimicry in tropical American butterflies: J. C. Moulton.-Heredity in Papilio dardanus from Natal, bred by Mr. G. F. Leigh, of Durban: Prof. E. B. Poulton.-New species of Hesperiidas from Central and South America: H.' H. Druce.

Scientific Serial

Journal of Botany, October.—From the collection of plants made by Mr. T. Kassner chiefly along the railway from Mombasa, in British East Africa, Mr. Spencer Moore selects for description the more interesting species of the Composite and Acanthacese, and proposes seven new species.—Mr. W. E. Nicholson refers some miniature mosses gathered near Crow-borough, Sussex, to Ephemerum stellatum, a species first recorded by Monsieur Philibert for specimens collected at Bruailles, in France.—A note on the genus Sematophyllum signifies Mrs. E. G. Britton's approval of the revival of that genus of mosses by Dr. Braithwaite.—Mr. G. C. Druce gives a brief account of the plant establishments on the shingle near Dungeness, and a list of Kentish plants which adds a few new localities to those recorded in Hanbury and Marshall's “Flora of Kent.“—Mr. S. T. Dunn, by an inductive method of argument, deduces that only one species of the British representatives of the deadnettles, Lamium Galeobdolon, has maintained its original habitat and may be considered naturally indigenous.—A list of West Lancashire plants, by Messrs. J. A. Wheldon and A. Wilson, provides new county records and localities.

The History of Fossil Crocodiles 1

IN this communication the author endeavoured to summarise the main facts already known regarding the palæontological history of the Crocodilia, with full references to the principal literature of the subject. After some preliminary remarks upon the structure and distribution of the living members of the order, the leading types of each geological period were successively considered; and the paper concluded by discussing the bearing of these facts upon the evolution of the Crocodilia, as determined by Prof. Huxley in 1875. The earliest crocodilians hitherto discovered are Belodnn, Stagonolepis, and Parasuchus, from the Upper Trias—the firstnamed being met with on the Continent, in India, and in North America; the second, solely known from the yellow sandstones of Elgin; and the third, only recorded as yet from India. The Rhætic Beds and Lower and Middle Lias do not appear to have yielded any remains of this order, but numerous examples have been found in the Upper Lias, and some in a remarkable state of preservation. At present, however, the precise systematic relationships of the Liassic forms have not been very satisfactorily deter mined, and those from British deposits are especially in need of further study: there are probably two generic types, Mystriosaurus and Pelagosaurus , and, if the latest researches are to be followed, it would seem that only two species of each are definitely known. In England, according to M. Deslongchamps, two distinct forms, Mystriosaurus chapmani and Pelagosaurus brongniarti . have been continually described under the name of Teleosaurus chapmani . With the Lower Oolites, Teleosaurus proper makes its appearance, and ranges at least as far upwards as the Kimmeridge Clay, from which Mr. J. W. Hulke has described a characteristic snout ( T. megarhinus). Steneosaurus is also a Lower Oolite form, ranging to the Oxford Clay; its British representatives are some what imperfectly known, though very complete descriptions have been published of well-preserved cranial fossils from French deposits. Metriorhynchus is another genus, from the Middle and Upper Oolites, very fully elucidated by M. Deslongchamps in France, but scarcely determined hitherto in English strata. Two forms described by Prof. Phillips under the names of Steneosaurus palpebrosus (Kimmeridgian), and Steneosaurus gracilis (Portlandian) are truly referable to Metriorhynchus , and fragments agreeing specifically with some of the French Metriorhynchs are also recorded. The Upper Oolites also yield the remains of Crocodilia with comparatively short and stout skulls, and very complete specimens have been discovered in the Kimmeridge Clay both of England and the Continent. They belong to the genera Dakosaurus and Machimosaurus , the former having also been described by Sir Richard Owen under the name of Plesiosuchus . Teleosaurians occur rarely in the Wealden and Purbeck Beds—though one or two well-preserved crania of Macrorhynchus are known in Germany—and they finally disappear in the Upper Cretaceous series, where they are represented by the scanty remains of Hyposaurus and Enaliosuchus . Broad-faced crocodilians, adapted for a moie terrestrial mode of life than the Teleosaurs, occur somewhat abundantly in the Wealden and Purbeck Beds, and are represented by Goniopholis, Nannosuchus, Oweniasuchus, Theriosuchus , and a remarkably interesting genus— Bernissartia—recently described by M. Dollo from the now classical deposit of Bernissart in Belgium. The latter, though decidedly Mesosuchian, approaches the living crocodiles and alligators much more closely than any of its congeners, both in the characters of its dermal armour and in certain parts of the skull. The earliest evidence of procœlian crocodiles hitherto made known is from the Cambridge Greensand and the nearly equivalent Gosau Beds of Vienna; Prof. H. G. Seeley has described a few vertebræ, teeth, and fragments of limb-bones, and regards these as referable to at least three specific types. The Upper Cretaceous beds of France and the United States have yielded still more satisfactory remains—including skulls—howing that the Eusuchian sub-order dates back beyond Eocene times; and some of these fossils appear almost indistinguishable from the living genus Gavialis. The early Tertiary deposits, both of England and the Continent, are remarkable as affording traces of gavials, crocodiles, and alligators (or alligatoroid genera) associated together, while the three families share no common area of the earth's surface at the present time; the Eocene types, moreover, appear to be rather less differentiated than is the case in the existing fauna. In conclusion, it may be said that the abundant acquisitions of fossil Crocodilia during the last ten years have fully confirmed the views of Prof. Huxley, laid before the Geological Society in 1875; and the Wealden and Purbeck discoveries, particularly, have brought to light facts which were then little more than probable surmises based upon very fragmentary materials.

On some New Macrurous Crustacea from the Kimmeridge Clay of the Sub-Wealden Boring, Sussex, and from Boulogne-sur-Mer

It has always appeared to me to be a point of special interest to geologists to record those forms found in a fossil state which have a considerable vertical range, and yet belong to genera existing at the present day. Among higher groups now living, we find the vertical range exceedingly small; but when we examine the Invertebrata, we meet with such genera as Lingula, Pentacrinus , and Limulus having an extremely high antiquity; but the higher forms of these types follow precisely the same general law, having a much more restricted range in time than the lower and humbler genera. One of the Crustacea about to be described by me belongs to a very interesting group, the family of the Thalassinidæ. Most if not all of the members of this family are fossorial in their habits, burrowing in the sand or mud with great rapidity and remaining concealed in their burrows, save their large claws, which have in many instances been caught and devoured by fishes, or have been cut off by the dredge, whilst the animal itself in its burrow escaped. Of living British representatives we have four genera:— 1. Callianassa , Leach (1 species): C. subterranea , Leach. 2. Gebia , Leach (2 species): G. stellata , Leach; G. deltura , Leach. 3. Axius , Leach (1 species): A. stirhynchus , Leach. 4. Calocaris , Bell (1 species): C. Macandreœ , Bell. Formerly only one fossil species of this remarkable group of burrowing Crustaceans was known, the Callianassa (Pagurus) Faujasii , from the uppermost Chalk of Maestricht, first noticed in an admirable

Sexual Selection

MR. DARWIN in his recent work on the “Descent of Man has shown that throughout the animal kingdom the male generally displays the stronger passions and is always the most eager. The males, moreover, whenever secondary sexual characters occur, are, as a rule, the possessors of weapons for defence or offence, brilliant colours, or other ornamental appendages, all of which Mr. Darwin supposes to have been acquired through sexual selection, either for the purpose of charming the female or for struggling with other males for the possession of the females. In a few exceptional cases among birds, the females are the wooers, and these are then more brilliantly coloured than the males. In Westwood's work on insects* I met with the following passage:—“M. Donzel has published a curious memoir upon the flight of butterflies whilst coupling (Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, 1837, P. 77.) showing that whilst the males of Pontia Brassicæ, &c., Colias, and Polyommatus support the females, it is the latter which support their partners in the genera Thais, Thecla, Argynnis, Melitæa, Hipparchia, and Pieris.” Now this is strictly analogous to these exceptional birds, because, among our British representatives of these genera whenever a considerable sexual difference of colour occurs, the female is always the more brilliantly coloured. Thus, the female Thecla Quercus has the bright purple patch, and the female Thecla Betulæ the brilliant orange blotch on the fore wing, while the females of Hipparchia (Satyrus), Janira, and H. Semele are considerably brighter than their partners. The female H. Megæra is rather brighter than the male, and the same is true of Colias Edusa and C. Hyale, since the females of these species have orange or yellow spots in the black marginal border, represented in the males by thin streaks only. The females of the whole genus Pieris also are ornamented with black spots on the fore wings, which are only partially present in the males. I must confess that I am not convinced of the action of sexual selection in producing the colours of insects, but it cannot be denied that these facts are strikingly corroborative of Mr. Darwin's views. With few exceptions the rule holds good throughout the exotic species of these genera.