EDITORIAL GLEANINGS.
We are glad to see by the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute' that the endeavour to establish an Ethnographical Bureau for the British Empire has not been abandoned. As the President observed:—"The splendid precedent of the Bureau of Ethnology attached to the Smithsonian Institute, confined as it practically is to the races which formerly existed on the American Continent, shows what might be done on the much wider field of enquiry that we possess, if only the public spirit of the nation and its rulers could be awakened to the priceless value, not to say the absolute necessity, of the enterprise." Prof. Macalister had previously remarked:—"It is little short of a national disgrace that in the largest empire of the world, within whose bounds there are nearly as many separate peoples and tribes and kindreds and tongues as in all the other nations put together, there is no Imperial Department having for its functions to collect and classify the facts of the physical, psychical, and ethical history of our fellow subjects."
The Ethnographic Survey of the British Association has continued its useful work. The collection of physical observations from various parts of the United Kingdom is steadily growing, and at the same time collections of folk-lore are being made.
In travelling on the African Continent, or in reading the narratives of other travellers, we meet with much difficulty in properly identifying the various species of Zebras which still roam, often in sadly diminished numbers, that interesting region. Mr. R.J. Pocock, of the British Museum, has recently (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist.) thoroughly examined the problem, and given us a revised list based on the studies he has made. He recognizes four species—Equus zebra, Linn., E. quagga, Gmelin, E. burchelli, Gray, and E. grevyi, Oustalet. To E. burchelli he adds six subspecies, thus making seven forms or local races—antiquorum, H. Smith, chapmanni, Layard, waldbergi, nov., selousii, nov, crawshayi, de Winton, and grantii, de Winton. Of these E. zebra, though formerly abundant on the mountainous districts of Cape Colony, "is now verging on extinction," while the Quagga is generally admitted as extinct.
According to the Pretoria 'Press,' within the last two years the Hippopotamus has almost entirely disappeared from the Lower Shire River, and
