VERTICAL VS. HORIZONTAL INSECT BOXES.-A. Preudhomme de Borre has published a pamphlet on the "Best arrangement of boxes and cartons of collections of insects." While admitting that as far as space and convenience are concerned, the arrangement of boxes on their edges is advantageous, he claims that for the following reasons it is unwise, viz: (1) Specimens become loose and fall, breaking themselves and their neighbors; (2) or they turn on their pins with similar results; (3) infected specimens are not readily detected by the dust.

Dr. G. H. Horn, of Philadelphia, claims that the objections urged by M. de Borre are due, in a great measure, to the improper boxes used for preserving specimens in France and Belgium, and makes the following arguments against de Borre's objections: I. The French boxes are made of thick pasteboard, having false bottoms made of papier maché, or peat, very rarely of cork. The paste-board is objectionable from the fact of its tendency to lose its shape and become convex, while the peat and papier maché, on account of their inelasticity, are unsuitable, the former having the additional bad quality of corroding and adhering to the pins.

2. The danger of the specimens becoming loose may be averted by using shorter pins than the French are accustomed to, and the bottom of the box should be invariably lined with cork of at least one-fourth of an inch in thickness. To prevent the specimen from turning on the pin, dip the pin previously into an alcoholic solution of shellac. In the case of large specimens, slightly flatten the pin by a few blows with a hammer, in addition to coating it with shellac.

3. The presence of infection is readily detected in a vertical box as the dust always falls on the head of the specimen below the infected one.

4. The box for the preservation of specimens should be made of well seasoned pine, nine by fourteen inches and two inches deep, all outside measure. The lining of the bottom should be cork of one-fourth of an inch in thickness, covered with thin glazed paper. In such boxes, specimens may be arranged in the following manner: draw faint pencil lines from one side of the box to the other, dividing it into five or six equal portions, according to the size of the specimens, then beginning at the upper left corner of the box, place four specimens side by side, and so on down. that column, and then the other divisions in succession.

INSECTS AFFECTING THE CHINA TREE.-The China tree (Melia azedarach) has always been considered as perfectly free from any insect attacks whatever. No caterpillar of any kind has ever been found feeding on its foliage; no Buprestid or Scolytid beetles bore in its trunk or branches, and no gall-insects disfigure its leaves or twigs. This tree, with its beautiful dense foliage, is, in fact, to be highly recommended as a shade tree in the South, and especially in those cities which are so badly infested with the

Bag-worm (Thyridopteryx ephemeraformis). This immunity enjoyed by the China tree from the attacks of insects, is not perfect, however, as we have recently received from Alabama some twigs and leaves infested with the scales of a Coccid belonging to the genus Lecanium; but what is more interesting, the twigs are covered with the waxy scales of a Ceroplastes of really beautiful appearance and new to science. The leaf-cutting ant (Atta fervens) shows a decided partiality for the leaves of this tree in Texas.

GALLS ON EUCALYPTUS.—Mr. R. McLachlan has recently described two very interesting galls occurring on Eucalyptus gracilis in Australia; the one a curious modification of a flower bud and possibly Cecidomyidous, the other occurring on the leaf-stem and looking like a capsule with three or four long arms, and supposed to be Lepidopterous. We know of no Lepidopterous galls that take on any such specialized characters as the last named, figured by Mr. McLachlan, the galls made by this Order of insects being almost invariably mere swellings of a stem, a fact which would indicate that the Lepidopterous larva which Mr. McLachlan found in this Eucalyptus gall might be inquilinous.

NORTH AMERICAN ANTHOMYIADE.-Dr. Hagen publishes in the March number of the Canadian Entomologist, a list of the North American species of this family of flies, contained in the Cambridge Museum, and which have been examined by Mr. R. H. Meade of England. In Osten Sacken's Catalogue there are 139 species given, including a number of Mr. Walker's, which seem not to have been yet identified. Mr. Meade makes out 121 species, and Dr. Hagen states that Loew's collection contains 12 not seen by Mr. Meade, so that the whole number of North American species, represented in the Cambridge Museum, is 133, of which 34 seem to be identical with European species. The Anthomyia angustifrons Meig., of the First Report of the United States Entomological Commission, which so commonly infests, in the larva state, the egg masses of Caloptenus spretus, is referred here as in Osten Sacken's catalogue to the genus Chortophila Macq.

GALLS AND GALL-INSECTS.-We are pleased to see, that after some years of intermission, Mr. H. F. Bassett, of Waterbury, Conn., continues his descriptions of North American Cynipidæ. He describes in the above-named journal, several Californian species, among others C. q. californica, which attains the largest size, with perhaps one exception, of any hitherto known North American gall. The flies produced from it are all females, but the gall is interesting to the Coleopterist because it nourishes Ozognathus cornutus Lec., a beetle very curious from the fact that the male has a long, erect horn on the base of each mandible, the horns nearly meeting at their incurved tips. Mr. Bassett describes his galls from specimens collected in 1878 and 1880, at Red Wood city,

California, upon what he considers, with a question, Quercus hindsii. Our first specimens of this gall were received some ten years ago from Sonoma county, the oak not being determined, but we subsequently received specimens from San Mateo, Cal., from Dr. L. D. Morse, who is quite a good botanist, and who determined the oak as Quercus douglasii. We exhibited specimens of the gall to Mr. Bassett in 1871, and also presented some to Mr. Albert Müller, of Basle (then of England), who refers to it under our MSS. name of Quercus-californica in the Proceedings of the London Entomological Society for 1872, p. 32.

Aside from the various parasites which prey upon the Cynips, we have always found these galls to be infested with the beetle1 above mentioned. Mr. Müller gives an account of his observations on the habits of this insect, showing that it agrees therein with Anobium. We would further remark that the beetle breeds in the dry galls and still continues its work in galls that have been in our cabinet over five years.

ANTHROPOLOGY."

THE PEOPLE OF ALASKA.-A very important document to the ethnologist is the preliminary report of Mr. Ivan Petroff to General Walker, upon the Population and Resources of Alaska, forming executive document No. 40, 46th Congress, 3d Session. The author was sent out by General Walker last year for this special service, for which he is peculiarly fitted by his thorough knowledge of both Russian and English. In the prosecution of his labors he traveled 4500 miles by steamer, 2500 by canoe, 1700 by sailing vessel; a total distance of 8700 miles. Our entire Alaskan country as far north as the Yukon was examined, and tabulated reports are given, village by village, of the inhabitants. The people of the Territory may be divided as follows: 1. The Innuit or Eskimo race, which predominates in numbers and covers the littoral margin of all Alaska, from the British boundary on the Arctic to Norton sound, of the Lower Yukon and Kuskokvim, Bristol bay, the Alaskan peninsula, and Kodiak island, mixing in, also, at Prince William sound. 2. The Indians proper, spread over the vast interior in the north, reaching down to the seaboard at Cook's inlet and the mouth of Copper river, and lining the coast from Mount Saint Elias southward to the boundary, and peopling Alexander Archipelago. 3. Least in numbers but first in importance, the Aleutian race, extending from the Shumagin islands westward to Atto-the ultima Thule of this country. The grand total of population is: whites, 392; Creoles, 1683; Aleuts, 2214; Innuits of Kodiak, 2196, of Togiak, 1826, of Bristol bay 2099, of Kuskokvim, 3505, of Yukon, 3359, of Behring sea, 1533, of the 1 Anobium cornutum Lec., Proc. Phila. Acad., 1859, p. 87. Subsequently made the type of a new genus, Ozognathus, ibid., 1865, p. 226.

Edited by Prof. OTIS T. MASON, Columbian College, Washington, D. C.

Arctic coast, 2990; Indians 8401-total 30,178. The appearance and habits of the natives are also described, and a map gives the locality of all the places mentioned. The writer is exceedingly happy in his style, and the student will be agreeably disappointed who expects to find in this report a mere mass of arid details.

LANDA'S ALPHABET.-The story of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg and his discovery of the Landa alphabet in the archives of the Royal Academy of Madrid in a manuscript entitled "Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan," has been told again and again. Nothing daunted by these frequent repetitions, Mr. Philipp Valentini, the learned Mexicologist, advances to the front in a paper published in the April number of the Am. Antiquarian for 1880. We had occasion to speak of the judicious treatment of this subject by Professor Rau in his Palenque Tablet volume. Professor Valentini sets out with the assumption that the alphabet is a Spanish fabrication, that the Central American hieroglyphics stood for objects and nothing else, and that the believers in this alphabetic table were laboring under a delusion. The literature of the Conquest, particularly the Mendoza codex, is invoked in confirmation of this view. Coming to Bishop Landa himself, Mr. Valentini first examines his text and rejects it as insufficient; the remainder of the paper is devoted to the alphabet. Its genuineness is questioned on the following grounds: 1. The number of letters does not agree with that of the Maya sounds; 2. The succession is the same as in the English Alphabet, though this is allowed to be not improbable; 3. There are various characters for the letters a, b, 1, 0, p and u; 4. Attention is called to the fact that though this may be an alphabet, it is not the Maya alphabet. Indeed, the presumed phonetic key represents nothing else than one of the various attempts made by the Spanish missionaries to teach their Yucatecan pupils how to write the prayers or any other text phonetically by means of symbols. In attempting to substantiate his position, and to interpret the glyphs, however, the author finds himself in the presence of abbreviated and conventionalized symbols without even the Mendoza codex to guide him. Notwithstanding, he plants his foot firmly upon the three following principles previously to making another step: All Central American hieroglyphics are either representations of (1) natural or (2) manufactured objects, or (3) they are symbols-objects conventionally chosen to represent some abstract idea. The twenty-seven letters of Landa are explained as follows: I. a ac, a turtle; 2. a = ach, obsidian knife; 3. a a, the leg (in Quiche), 4. b = be, a path or footprint; 5. b, unexplained; 6. c = tsec, the fifth Maya month; 7. tte, counting years, the sun; 8. é eek, black; 9. hhaab, the year tied up; 10. unexplained; 11. ca caa, to pull out hair; 12. k = cimich, death or skull; 13. unexplained; 14. 1 elel, the pod of the oxalis; 15, 17, 18. unexplained; 16.

=

=

=

n = ne, tail; 19. p = pek, dog; 20. ppppec, stone; 21. cum, the guacal gourd; 22. ku kuk, to bud like the cactus; 23. x= chuy, a bunch, as of bananas; 24. x = xe, to vomit; 25. 26. u = uuc, to bend, to wind; 27. z = tzee, to mash corn.

THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN.-The 27th Annual Report of this society reminds us of the very great amount of good which can be accomplished with limited means. The report of the operations of the society touches anthropology at several points. There is a committee on Indian history and nomenclature, consisting of Messrs. Chapman, Butler, Conover, Durrie and Hutchison; another on prehistoric antiquities, to which belong, in addition to some of those above mentioned, Messrs. Perkins, Allen and Giles. Another committee is charged with collecting the history of the early settlements. The society is the trustee of the State collections, and holds all its present and future collections and property for the State.

66

AMERICA AND THE EAST.-In a paper reproduced in part from Mr. C. N. Holford in the Kansas City Review of Feb., is another of the many occurrences of what might be called the doublecorner" of archæology, from the gaine of checkers. We are in the presence of a vessel or a sculpture from Mexico which reminds one very much of the hoary civilization of Egypt. The interminable game begins between the assumption that similarity of technique demonstrates consanguinity, or at least contact; and that the human mind, being one, unfolds itself similarly under like environments.

HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETINS.-No. 17 of these publications gives a list of the more important accessions to the library during the past year. A goodly number of these are upon anthropology and are accredited to the Peabody Museum of Archæology.

ANTIQUITIES OF PERU.-A. Asher & Co., of Berlin, are preparing to publish in ten parts, folio, a magnificent work by W. Riess and A. Stübel, entitled "The Necropolis of Ancon in Peru: a series of Illustrations of the Civilization and Industry of the empire of the Incas, being the results of excavations made upon the spot." The edition in English is limited to 250 copies, 100 of which have been taken by Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co., who have the exclusive sale of the work in America.

ANTHROPOLOGY IN FRANCE.-The October number of Revue d'Anthropologie, closing the third volume of the second series, is one of exceedingly great interest. The opening article by Dr. Pozzi, is an eulogy upon Dr. Paul Broca, the most distinguished French anthropologist, and the founder of the "Ecole d'Anthropologie," and the "Laboratoire d'Anthropologie," of Paris. Accompanying the sketch is a photograph of Dr. Broca, and a complete bibliography of his writings, pages 592-608, extending from 1847 to 1880, and embracing nearly five hundred titles. At