100 YEARS AGO

To the April number of the Independent Review Dr. A. R. Wallace contributes the first part of an article on “The Birds of Paradise in the Arabian Nights.” In the introductory paragraphs the author states that he is generally disposed to believe in the truth of the popular legends connected with natural history, the assertion that vipers swallow their young being a case in point. Accordingly he is predisposed to look with favour on the theory that the “Islands of Wak-Wak” mentioned in the “Arabian Nights” are really the Aru Islands, and that they take their name from “wawk-wawk,” the cry of the great bird-of-paradise. The portion of the article contained in the issue before us deals only with the identification of the locality to which “the bride with the feather-dress” was brought with the south-eastern lower slopes of the Elburz Mountains. We shall await with interest Dr. Wallace's proofs that “Hasan” actually visited the home of the birds-of-paradise.

From Nature 28 April 1904.

50 YEARS AGO

A very important group of higher Primates has been discovered in Africa, the Australopithecinae. They include Australopithecus, Plesianthropus and Paranthropus from South and most probably “Meganthropus africanus” from East Africa. The position of Telanthropus from the Plesianthropus-layers of Swartkrans is still under dispute. The large amount of data now at hand leaves no doubt that the Australopithecinae are members of the Hominidae... The reduction of the dentition only affects the face; their increase in brain capacity is slight and depends upon the absolute size of the species; the possession of a sagittal crest in the large specimen parallels the development of the same structure in the anthropoids. It seems that towards the end of the Pliocene period the early Hominidae were separated into several branches — Australopithecinae in Africa, Gigantopithecus (and undescribed forms) in China, Pithecanthropi in Asia — and that only one of them, the Pithecanthropi, by a harmonious reduction of the whole dentition and — this is the most important point — by an exaggerated and accelerated increase of the brain capacity, gave rise to the Hominidae, of which group we are the most human members.

G. H. R. von Koenigswald

From Nature 1 May 1954.