The Colorado statesman., 1912-01-27

ais and the native
tribes of mankind from all parts of the
world. Not only are the facts new or
Just discovered, but they present shad-
owings Of the dim, yet fascinating.
borderland of partial knowledge;
truths suspected, but not yet demon
strated; the guesses of today, which
may become the established facts of
ticles which this National museum vol
ume contains without wishing to know
more about the strange things with
which they deal.
The mammals collected by DR.. w. l..
Abbott in Borneo and the neighboring
islands are described by DR.. Marcus
w. Lyons, Jr., who writes as well of
the country, inhabitants. life, etc. DR..
Abbott is one of those wonderful
Americans who spend their lives in
the tropical wilds of the old world and
know more about the jungle than the
natives themselves.
The article contains an interesting
account of how the sun bears of the
Tanjong Pamukang country destroy
the palm trees by climbing to the top
palm. At one place. in a grove Of
about ninety trees, it was discovered
that more than half had been de-
stroyed in this manner. There is no
way for the natives to put stop to
this destruction, however, as the
Dutch authorities took away all their
guns some time ago, and so the bears
have everything their own way.
A fight between a hawk and a flying
lemur, resulting in the capture of both
participants, is recorded in an inter
esting manner.
The Dyaks of southwestern Borneo
hunt nearly all the game in the yicini-
ity of their settleme ments with spears,
except in the case of the orang-outang,
which is hunted with guns 1t seems
these wild people are very fond Of the
meat of the orang and consequently
those animals are very scarce in the
neighborhood Of Dyak camps.
Mr.. Hollister, assistant curator of
the division of mammals, United States
National museum, also has a mammal
paper on the long-tailed shrews of the
eastern United States, with descrip-
tions of new species. For the benefit
of the unenlightened, it might be re-
marked that the shrew is one of the
smaller insectivores, resembling close
ly in appearance its first cousin, the
mole.
When Hoffman Phillips was minis
ter to Abyssinia and lived at the capl-
tol of King Menelek at Adds Abeba,
he got together a remarkable collec-
ton Of writings. utensils, ornaments,
art objects. costumes, ETC., of the
Abyssinians, which later came into the
possession of the National museum
AS this is probably the first collection
of this kind brought to America, the
illustrated description of 1t by DR.
Walter Hough is decidedly worth
reading, especially as he points out
the singular survivals of the ancient
culture of northern Africa, the adjoin-
ing part of Asia and eastern Europe,
which linger on in Abyssinia and are
discernible in the various objects of
this collection.
Several articles of interest come un-
der entomology. the scientific study of
insects. One on the collection of bees
of the National museum, by T. d. A.
Sothci Cii Vi INC OhlNtTSlly OI SOlOTd-
do, deals chiefly with the study Of the
Asiatic bees collected by Dr. Abbott,
and forms the second paper in a series
being prepared by DIR. Cockerell
There are papers on millipeds, mem
bers of the same class of many footed
insects as the centipedes, also wasps.
moths and ichneumon flies.
DIR. George P Merrill, head curator
of geology of the museum, discusses
the supposed origin of some extraordi-
nary masses of natural glass, called
moldavites. These strange CLASSY peb-
bles are about the size and shape of
walnuts and the color of dark green
bottle glass. but resemble pieces of
larva. strangely marked and etched
Whether they came from volcanoes or
fell from the sky is a question no
one can answer at present.
The volume also contains other ar,
ticles on fishes, birds, insects. crinoids,
crustaceans, etc. These are chiefly
technical and describe new forms in
the collections of the National mu
scum. The publication has $40 pages
622 plates and 40 text figures.