no children in a school may take as a specific subject any branch of study which is taken as a class subject by any other children in the school? If the latter is the case, we are informed that, in some cases at least, managers will find themselves seriously hampered. Provision is made for the assistance of experts in the examination of scholars, in cases where the managers choose an "additional" subject with which neither the inspector nor his assistants are fully conversant. But unfortunately this assistance, which will be given by a colleague, on application to the chief inspector, will be confined to the framing of suitable questions, and marking the answers, and hence will be inapplicable to the case of oral examination, in which it is most wanted. service to the children who attend it and to their parents." | both heads-an obviously reasonable stipulation—or that Taken one by one, the suggestions may seem unimportant; collectively, however, they indicate a policy of taking the parents frankly into confidence, and so, if possible, of establishing a new link of interest between the parent and the school, besides the mere "cash-nexus" of the school pence, which are destined so soon to disappear. Under the head of "class subjects" an explanation is given of the object of the great changes in Schedule II., which, we learn, have been introduced in order to allow of greater freedom to teachers of different tastes and capacities, and to localities of different industries and requirements. "One good teacher of geography may attach special value to physical facts and phenomena; another who lives in a manufacturing or maritime town prefers to make commercial and industrial geography and the interchange of productions the leading features of his lessons." The same standard is, so far as possible, to be kept in view, in estimating the teaching of all the various alternative courses; but, subject to this one consideration, complete freedom of choice and treatment is to be given to teachers and managers. "In sanctioning any modification of the printed schemes it will be necessary to have regard to the experience and qualifications of the teacher, and to any special opportunities afforded in the town or district for instruction by a skilled demonstrator, who visits several schools in succession, or who gives collective lessons at suitable centres." The instructions further confirm the view we expressed when commenting on the Code, that the policy of the Department will be to encourage class teaching at the expense of specific subjects. "Those managers and teachers who desire to continue the object-lessons of the infant school in due order through all the lower standards, and so to lead up to the regular study of natural history or physics in the higher, will probably think it better to treat science as a class subject than to postpone specific instruction until the fifth standard." The recognition of continuity, and the idea of the school course as a connected whole, strikes us as a new and valuable feature in the instructions. From the infant school the child is to be led on through a series of object-lessons to the scientific class-teaching of the upper school, and thence in some cases to specific instruction in the higher standards. But all this is but the beginning. "Teachers should not be satisfied unless the instruction in specific subjects awakens in the scholar a desire for further knowledge, and makes him willing to avail himself of such opportunities as are afforded locally by a Science Class, a Polytechnic Institute, a course of University Extension Lectures, a Free Library, or a Home-Reading Circle." All this is a truism, it may be said; but it is unusual language for an official document, and carries us forward in imagination to the time, which must come sooner or later, when such fragmentary and scattered institutions as are here enumerated will take their proper place as parts of a great scheme of national education. We fear that the realization of the aims of the Department may be materially impeded if a literal construction is to be placed on the clause providing that the same subject may not be taken both as a "class" and as a "specific" subject. Does this restriction merely mean that no child is to be presented in the same subject under Those interested in manual instruction will turn with interest to the thirty-fifth section, which lays down the duties of inspectors with respect to this newly recognized branch of instruction. It explains that the difficulty which has hitherto prevented the recognition of manual instruction as part of the ordinary course of instruction in a public elementary school has been removed by the alteration in the terms of Art. 12 (ƒ), though how such a change in Departmental regulations can alter the sense of an Act of Parliament we are left to conjecture. The instructions suggest such exercises as "modelling, the cutting, fixing, and inventing of paper patterns, the forming of geometrical solids in cardboard, and the use of tools and instruments," which are in use in some foreign schools, and are found to be "not without a useful reflex influence on all the ordinary school studies." The inspector is to report on the working of any system of manual instruction which may be adopted, though "no special grant is made by this Department." The words we have italicized clearly tend to confirm our impression as to the intention of the Science and Art Department to include manual instruction in their next Directory. It is rather strange that under the head of "drawing" no reference is made to the change by which in future drawing will be made compulsory in boys' schools and optional in infant departments. It is true that drawing in ordinary schools will, as now, be paid for by the Science and Ar Department, but power is given by the new Code to Her Majesty's Inspector to exempt schools from the necessity of taking the subject where the means of teaching it cannot be procured. We should like to know what standard the inspector will adopt in using this dispensing power Will the standard be the same in all districts? This is the question to which we return again and again after examining in detail the various changes in the Code and the instructions. All will depend on the inspectors What will their action be? We agree on the whole in the praise accorded in the instructions to the “ability discretion, and fairness with which Her Majesty's Inspectors discharge their arduous duties," but nevertheless. in particular cases, complaints of their action have not been wanting. The inspectors have hitherto been burdened with an amount of routine work which has to some extent hindered them from forming a really intelligent estimate of the value of the school work which they have to assess This burden is now lightened, more visits may be pad without notice, and thus more intimate knowledge mi be acquired of the real work of the school. "It will be largely owing," we read, " to your influence if all who are concerned with the management of schools habitually regard the officers of this Department not merely as critics and examiners, but as advisers and helpers, in the performance of an important public work." That is the ideal to aim at, though there is a good deal of lee-way to make up before it is realized. ORANGES IN INDIA. The Cultivated Oranges and Lemons of India and Ceylon. FOR OR twenty years past Dr. Bonavia has been distinguished in India as a horticulturist. He has been in charge of the Horticultural Gardens at Lucknow, where he has conducted many valuable experiments. Of late years he has tried oranges, and he has also collected information concerning oranges from various parts of India. India, taken as a whole, is very poorly supplied with fruit; really good mangoes and litchis are nearly everywhere dear, and remain in season but a short time. Oranges in several parts of India are cheap and excellent; improvement in their cultivation and extension in their circulation are matters of importance. The book of Dr. Bonavia contains his own experiences and notes, which are valuable. His second-hand information, which he has collected in the fashion of an Indian Secretary to Government or Minister of Agriculture, is of very small value, but is certainly superior to many secretarial compilations about hemp, jute, cotton, &c. The first ninety pages treat of the various groups of oranges, lemons, limes, citrons, &c., with their subvarieties; the next fifty pages treat of their cultivation in India; fifteen pages treat of their uses; eleven of the orange trade in India; twenty-one of the morphology of Citrus; forty of the origin of the Citrus and the derivation of its Indian names. Then follow 120 pages of appendix, containing a miscellaneous collection of "cuttings' relating in some way to the subjects in the book, with a translation of the chapters relating to Citrus in Rumphius's "Herbarium Amboinense." The greater part of this appendix appears of small importance; while Dr. Bonavia has by no means exhausted what first-rate authorities have written regarding oranges. The atlas of plates gives hardly anything but outline drawings of oranges and their leaves; a very small selection of these would have served every useful purpose. Dr. Bonavia has summed up for us the conclusions of his book under seven heads (p. 245) :— (a) The pummelo (Citrus decumana, Willd.), is not specifically separable from the orange (C. Aurantium, Linn.). This is a point of no possible importance, when naturalists know no line between a well-marked variety and a dubious" species"; but Lowe (" Fl. Madeira," p. 73) agrees with Dr. Bonavia. (b) The sweet orange of Europe (C. Aurantium, Linn.) is a distinct race from the Mandarin orange (C. nobilis, Lour)-This is correct, and well brought out by Dr. Bonavia; but it is also done very clearly by Lowe (“ Fl. Madeira" [1857], pp. 73, 74). 579 (c) The India name "suntara," for C. nobilis, is not a corruption merely of Cintra. ably derived from Malay words. (e) Huge forms of Citrus fruit may have risen from a fusion of two ovaries [p. 187, "My view would require that the Citrus fruit should have originated in two whorls of carpels, the outer or rind-whorl and the inner or pulp-whorl"] (f) The true lime (C. acida, Roxb.) has more probably descended from C. hystrix, Kurz, than from C. medica, Linn. (g) The juice-vesicles of the Citrus pulp are probably homologous with the oil-cells of the rind and leaves, and perhaps with the ovules. clusions (e) and (g) and over the whole chapter on morpho- duces two kinds of fruit on the same tree and on the same known in India as a cultivated foreign orange, and is not been in India from ancient times, and is possibly in- Ceylon is in flavour, structure of carpels, colour of (5) In the plains of Upper India (Delhi, Lucknow, &c.) vated, but requires irrigation (well-water being better the Indian orange (C. nobilis) can be successfully cultiparation of the soil by lime or manure, &c. than canal-water), budding, trenching, shade, special pre Every page of Dr. Bonavia's book offers opportunity of comment: the remaining space here available is devoted to the practical subject of the Indian sweet orange, C. nobilis, which we shall call the " Mandarin," ing it. and, for shortness, state first our own beliefs concern There are (according to Dr. Bonavia) three great Sylhet, i.e. South Khasia; (2) Central India ; (3) Delhi and centres of cultivation of the suntara " in India, viz. (1) Oudh. From Khasia (file Bonavia) about 4000 tons, worth £4 a ton, are exported to Bengal, mainly to Calcutta. From Central India about 800 tons go by rail 582 Bengali the is often degraded into b-a linguistic Turning lastly to the question how far Dr. Bonavia's book assists the cultivation of the orange in India, we may doubt, with every admission of his horticultural skill and assiduity, whether he is on the right tack. The Khasi Mandarin can be grown almost without labour, and of a quality that is not likely to be approached by any horticultural skill and labour on non-volcanic soil in the plains. These oranges are now picked unripe, and occupy a month (often more) in reaching Calcutta in a native boat. A fruit-steamer would take them down in 2 or 3 days from Chattuck to the rail at Goalundo. Bombay would surely take many more oranges from Nagpore if the railway rates were lowered, and the "perishable fruit" accelerated in transit. Mr. Medlicott made only a hurried march across the Khasi Hills when he laid in his three patches of Sylhet trap, and he only visited a very narrow strip of country. More of this trap certainly exists-perhaps at a low level, suitable for oranges; and the Government Geologist at Shillong might, in the cold weather, possibly discover some more patches. For the present, however, the known area of Sylhet trap is by no means nearly covered with oranges, except in the Chela valley, where the boundary of the orange-groves coincides very closely with the C. B. CLARKE. outcrop-line of the trap. A NATURALIST AMONG THE HEAD- Being an A Naturalist among the Head-hunters. ILL within the last twenty years the Solomon Islands itants were considered to be exceptionally uncivilized and 1 So long as they fought with native of cannibalism. weapons, spears and wooden clubs, the destruction of life was not very great; but the traders have armed them all with Snider rifles and steel tomahawks, the result being that entire villages and tribes are sometimes massacred; and this wholesale destruction, aided by infanticide anci other causes, is leading to a steady decrease of the population. The excellent reproductions of photographs with which the book is illustrated show that the Solomon islanders are typical Papuans, hardly distinguishable physically from those of the western and central portions of New Guinea Their state of civilization appears to be about the same They cultivate the ground assiduously, growing chiefly yams, taro, and plantains, and they even terrace whole hill-sides for the taro, a stream of water being admitted at the top, and conducted down from level to level with considerable ingenuity. As domestic animals they keep dogs, pigs, and fowls, and they had all these animals when The dog Mr. first visited by the Spaniards in 1568. Woodford believes to be the dingo of Australia; the pig the Sus papuensis of New Guinea; while the fowl was no doubt derived from the Malays. They build excellent canoes, fifty or sixty feet long, of planks hewn out of solid trunks, beautifully fitted together and fastened with rattan. Their houses are fairly built and comfortable; and they construct baskets, shields, wooden bowls, and various weapons and ornaments, with the usual savage ingenuity. Mr. Woodford's chief occupation in the islands was the collection of specimens of natural history, and his account of the zoology of the group presents several points of interest. It is here we find the eastern limit of the marsupials, which are represented by a species of Phalanger hardly distinguishable from one inhabiting New Guinea. Bats are numerous, seventeen species being described, of which six are peculiar; and there are four species of native rats, one of which is the largest species known. About the two large rats, Mus imperator and Mus rex, Mr. Oldfield Thomas, who described them, makes the following interesting remarks: "It is, however, in their relation to each other that their chief interest lies, for they seem to be clearly the slightly modified descendants of one single species that, once introduced, has been isolated in Guadalcanar for some considerable time, while it has apparently died out elsewhere. Of this original species, some individuals would have adopted a terrestrial and others an arboreal life, and their respective descendants would have been In this way I would explain the modified accordingly. fact that at the present time we have in Guadalcanar two genuine species, agreeing with each other in their essential structure, and yet separated by a considerable number of characters, all having a more or less direct relation to a climbing or non-climbing habit of life. Of these, of course, by far the most striking are the broad foot-pads and the long rasp-like probably semi-prehensile tail of Mus rex as compared with the smaller pads and short smooth tail of Mus imperator." This description well illustrates the fact of the importance of insular faunas as showing us how species may be modified under the least complex and therefore most easily understood conditions. On a continent the modification to an arboreal mode of life would have brought the species into competition with a number of other arboreal organisms, and would have exposed it to the attacks of a distinct set of enemies, requiring numerous modifications of form, structure, and habits, the exact purpose of which we should have found it difficult to interpret. But here, where both competitors and enemies are at a minimum, we are able distinctly to see the few and simple modifications which have adapted the species to its changed mode of life. We have here, too, a case in which the isolation supposed to be essential in the production of new species has been effected solely by a change of habits within the same limited area, and it is evident that this mode of isolation would be equally effective in the case of a continental as of an insular species. Lizards, snakes, and frogs are tolerably abundant, and the proportion of species peculiar to the islands is in the order in which they are here named; and this also indicates the increasing difficulty of transmission across an ocean barrier. Birds seem to be fairly abundant, parrots and pigeons forming the most conspicuous groups, while birds of paradise appear to be absent. Although insects decrease in number of species as we go eastward from New Guinea, yet two of the grandest of butterflies-Ornithoptera Urvilleana and O. Victoria-are found in the Solomon Islands, and were among the greatest treasures of Mr. Woodford's collections. The latter species was only known by a female specimen obtained by Macgillivray, the naturalist to the Herald, in 1854, till Mr. Woodford again found it in 1886, and discovered also the beautiful green and black male. Many fine Papilios are also found, among them a splendid blue and black species allied to the well-known P. Ulysses of the Moluccas. Here, as elsewhere in the tropics, some striking cases of mimicry occur, three species of Euplæa being so closely imitated by three species of Diadema, as to be undistinguishable on the wing; and each pair appeared to be confined to a separate island. The following is an interesting observation on the habits of pigeons: "The small islands on the reefs are much frequented by pigeons. They resort to them during the day, but mostly towards sunset, when, at some islands that I know of, the pigeons may be seen arriving by twos and threes, or in flocks of ten or a dozen each, to roost on the islands, until each tree is crowded with birds. The only reason that I can assign for this habit is, that on these small islands the pigeons are freer from the attacks of the large monitor lizards that abound on all the large islands. I do not consider this at all a satisfactory reason, but it is the only one I am able to suggest. Certain it is that this habit of the pigeons plays an important part in the distribution of seeds from island to island. On any of these small islands the large seeds of the Canarium nut tree may be found, after being disgorged by the pigeons, while young trees in different stages of growth may often be seen." Mr. Woodford's explanation of the pigeons' roosting on the small islands appears to be a highly probable one, and quite in accordance with other facts relating to this tribe of birds. They are exceptionally abundant in tropical archipelagoes, and most so in those where, as in the Antilles, the Mascarene group, the Moluccas, and the Pacific islands, arboreal carnivorous mammals are very scarce or altogether wanting. An analogous fact to that noted by Mr. Woodford is, that although the beautiful Nicobar pigeon has an enormous range, from the Nicobar Islands to New Guinea, it is almost unknown in the larger islands, especially in the western half of its area where mammals abound, but is more especially confined to the smaller islets and reefs, where it is comparatively free from enemies.1 Although the natives of the Solomon Islands are well supplied with Bryant and May's wax vestas in metal boxes-the only kind of matches that can be kept in the damp atmosphere-they still make fire in the native way, by friction, on certain ceremonial occasions, or at other times when matches are not forthcoming; and their method of proceeding is well described by Mr. Woodford. It consists in rubbing a hard piece of wood in a groove formed on a soft dry piece-the method used in the Moluccas and Australia-and he tells us that, though a native will usually produce fire in less than a minute, he has himself rubbed till his elbows and shoulders have ached without ever producing more than smoke. The following extract gives a fair idea of the author's style : "It is amusing to see a mere child paddle alongside in a crazy trough of a canoe, only just capable of supporting its weight. The water splashes into the canoe at every stroke of the paddle, and at intervals the small child kicks it overboard with its foot-a novel kind of baler. Three or four mouldy-looking yams, ostentatiously displayed, are rolling about in the water at the bottom of the canoe. The unsuspecting stranger takes pity on the tender years, and apparent anxiety of the small native to trade, and gives him probably four times the proper price for his rusty yams. The child eagerly seizes the coveted stick of tobacco, and immediately stows it for safety through a hole in his ear, where at least it will be in no danger of getting wet. He next whisks aside a dirty-looking piece of matting that has apparently got accidentally jammed in one end of the canoe, and displays some more yams, of a slightly better quality than the last. For the sake of consistency you cannot well offer him less than you did before, and another stick of tobacco changes hands, and is transferred to the other ear. You think now that he must have finished, as there is no place in the canoe to hide anything else, but with a dexterous jerk that nearly upsets the canoe he produces a single yam that he has been sitting upon. How it managed to escape notice before is a puzzle. For this he demands a pipe, but is not satisfied with the first or second that is shown him. No; he must have a piala tinoni or have his yam back. The piala tinoni is a pipe But again the young with a man's face upon the bowl. trader is particular, it must also have a knob at the bottom or he will have none of it." The book is well got up, well illustrated, and very pleasantly written. It is full of information as regards the natives, the scenery, and the natural history of these little-known but very interesting islands, and can therefore be confidently recommended to all who care for books of travel in little-known countries. to Bombay. The export from Delhi is small. Besides this many stations have a few orange orchards for local consumption-"a mere nothing." It is evident from this that Khasia is the most important orange centre, and unfortunately Dr. Bonavia has had to treat this part of the subject second-hand. He hardly says anything about the Central Indian cultivation, except the remark (p. 127), “I do not know what the composition is of the black soil of the Central Provinces." This soil, which produces such excellent Mandarins, everybody knows to be disintegrated trap, i.e. the same soil which alone produces them in Khasia. Dr. Bonavia spends much space in attempting to show that the suntara orange is not a Mandarin; he maintains that the suntara and Mandarin are nearly allied, and together form the distinct race (or species) C. nobilis. He admits that people in Ceylon and elsewhere will call the suntara the Mandarin, but he strongly denies that the Mandarin is a suntara; he may as strongly deny that the greengage is a plum. The best Khasi oranges run very close on the true Mandarin. The C. nobilis now grows as if wild from the hills of Southern China, probably to Assam (Khasia); it is also scattered along the outer Himalaya of Sikkim and Nepal. The centre of this area is almost certainly its "origin." Dr. Bonavia speaks of the Butwal (south of Nepal) orange as the sweetest orange in India: he has not tasted from the tree the Khasi orange at the end of January, which is considered too sweet by many Europeans. The Khasi orange is in fact larger than the Butwal; and for a sweet orange there is no finer in India or elsewhere. Dr. Bonavia lays stress on the fact that the true Mandarin is when dead ripe a "varnished green," while the suntara is "from orange-yellow to lobster-red"; he found that the green oranges of Ceylon in travelling to Etawah (21 days' journey) had turned or were turning yellow; and he decides triumphantly that "the green orange has no locus standi." The fact is otherwise: the best Khasi oranges when dead ripe on the tree are an intense varnished green." Picked somewhat unripe, and carried in a native boat (21-30 days) to Calcutta, they arrive a dull yellow or turning yellow. And perhaps Dr. Bonavia could prove by prolonging the journey that their true colour is black. The withered, unripe-picked, dull yellow, mawkish, Calcutta orange is a very different thing from the orange ripe on the tree above Chela. 66 The Mandarin grows best in steaming valleys just within the hills (and above all on disintegrated trap) at an elevation of 250-2000 feet: here it grows from seed without any trouble. In the plains, the fruit is worse the farther you recede from the hills, and great pains must be taken with the culture. Dr. Bonavia was unfortunate in having to experiment with the orange at Lucknow; free trade principles would suggest that the most promising plan would be to improve the communications between the orange districts and the great centres of consumption. It was not the fault, however, of Dr. Bonavia that he had to try to grow oranges where they naturally will not grow. But Dr. Bonavia does not seem, with all the extensive cuttings in his appendix, to have got from the literature the help in his task that he should have got. hazards, for example, a speculation (p. 116) that "the stock on which the Mandarin is grafted may have some He influence"; apparently unaware that the regular practice is to graft the Tangerine on the common orange, as it then becomes a larger tree giving a more certain crop of larger fruit. Quite apart from the question of oranges, it is well worth while to examine in some detail the method of Dr. Bonavia in obtaining information about the Khasi orange and its results, because it throws a flood of light on Indian reports in general. Dr. Bonavia appears to have tried three sources of information, viz. (a) a description of the orange-groves by Mr. Brownlow, (B) the answers to his questions returned by the Deputy-Commissioner of Sylhet, (y) similar answers from the Rev. Jerman Jones. Dr. Bonavia does not refer to the "Himalayan Journals" of Sir J. D. Hooker, vol. ii; nor to Medlicott in Mem. Geol. Survey Ind., vol. vii. Art. 3. From these two latter sources, a very fair idea of the circumstances of the orangegroves of Khasia can be gained. Dr. Bonavia appears not to have the wildest notion of the country, climate, or soil. Turning to Medlicott's map, we see that there are three large valleys (Chela, Umwai, and Sobhar), at the south extremity of the Khasi Hills, which are occupied by the "Sylhet trap." This trap extends in the Chela valley from the debouchement of the river at Chela up to 2800 feet at the head below Mamloo. This trap decomposes into a reddish earth, and there occur soft ashy beds very like forms of the Deccan trap. All three valleys are excessively steep, the undecomposed trap standing in huge masses. The rain-fall varies from 300 to 500 inches per annum. These valleys are thus rough and broken, and full of precipices inaccessible but by ladders and ropes. Intensely hot and steamy, and protected from winds, they exhibited a richer vegetation to Sir Joseph Hooker than he had seen in the Himalaya. In the Chela valley, at the present time, the Mandarin orange occupies the whole area of the trap. The two other valleys are less completely occupied. There is also an orange-grove on a small trap area a few miles east, behind Jynteapore. The Khasi cultivation is simple. The pips of the orange are faised without difficulty in a damp seed-bed, often in a nook shaded by a boulder of trap. A piece of the jungle is half cleared (i.e. most of the larger trees, some of the smaller); and the young orange-trees, 3-5 feet high, are stuck out promiscuously in the partial shade left; the root of each is pushed if possible under the heel of a block of trap. When the young trees have got hold enough to bear the sun, the other half of the jungle is roughly cut. The trees require no further labour. The orange-groves in the cold weather form a monkeys' paradise, and it is necessary to destroy these. Sometimes two or three villages unite, enclose the monkeys, and drive them down to an angle of the main stream, where they are slaughtered pitilessly. The sight of a single monkey is always sufficient to exasperate a Tyrna man to fury. The crop is enormous; the river at Chela flows sometimes covered apparently with oranges. Before the season is half over, the pigs are so surfeited that their oranges have to be peeled for them. The valley has enormously increased in wealth in the last half-century. It is a Khasi saying that a man here may work for three days and eat for a month. |