



PREFACE TO VOL. Y 



ELEVEN years have elapsed since the appearance of 

 the fourth volume of this series, a period which has seen 

 many changes, and during which the science of Algology 

 has lost a number of its most active investigators. 



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Undoubtedly the worst blow, as far as Britain is con- 

 cerned, has been the irreparable loss of the two authors 

 of the British Desmidiacece. In the death of his father, 

 William West, in 1913, George S. West suffered the 

 bereavement not only of a parent to whom he was 

 devoted but also of a colleague who had been a fellow- 

 worker and supporter since his early childhood when 

 they pursued their algological studies together. From 

 this blow he never quite recovered, for continued ill- 

 health and the strenuous years of the Great War played 

 havoc with his constitution, and finally, in 1919, he 

 succumbed to pneumonia. 



In attempting to complete, at the request of the Ray 

 Society, this great work of her beloved and much- 

 respected teacher, the writer is aware that she has 

 undertaken a difficult task ; yet she feels that, if only 

 in publishing and thus rendering available for students 

 of algse the remainder of Professor West's beautiful 

 drawings of Desmids, she will have accomplished some- 

 thing useful. Wherever possible the figures given have 

 been copied from Professor West's drawings. Failing 

 this, the drawings were made by the present writer in 



