Abstract
THE contents of vol. lv. part 2, No. 4, of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, are varied. They commence by a memoir on the land shells of Perak, by Dr. O. F. v. Möllendorff, in which 58 species (many new) are enumerated or described. Then follows an account of solar thermometric observations at Allahabad, by S. A. Hill, Meteorological Reporter to the Government of the North-West Provinces. The third memoir is an historico-geographical study on probable changes in the Punjab and its rivers, by R. D. Oldham, of the Indian Geological Survey, a paper on which much research has been expended, tending to prove that a second large river, independent of the Indus, once existed in the Punjab, and that the geological changes which converted a once fertile district into a desert probably date so recently as the early centuries of the Christian era. The next is a very important entomological investigation of the butterflies of Cachar, by Prof. Wood-Mason and Mr. L. De Nicéville, enumerating no less than 247 species obtained between the end of March and the beginning of October. A remarkable feature is the large number of Hesperiidæ, of which 53 distinct species were obtained. There are valuable notes on seasonal and local variation, and a considerable number of new species are described, and mostly figured on four plates, one of which is a chromo-lithograph executed in London, the others “autotype,” and apparently very successful examples of what may be produced by the process as applied to natural history subjects. Dr. King follows with a short paper on some new species of Ficus from New Guinea, in which the author largely quotes from and anticipates a monograph on Indo-Malayan and Chinese figs prepared for the Linuean Society; the remarks are worthy of very careful study, and open up much new light on the somewhat obscure subject known as “caprification.” The concluding paper is a very short one by Mr. J. S. Baly on a new species of Hispa destructive to the. “dahn” crops in Chittagong. On the whole this part is one of the most valuable that have been issued by this long-established Society.
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Scientific Serials . Nature 36, 93 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/036093b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/036093b0