io 4 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



D. Miihlenbeckii reveals a middle row of largish oval pellucid 

 cells surrounded, back and front, by much minuter cells, 

 while the corresponding minute cells in D. Fergussoni 

 scarcely rise above the rank of sterei'd cells. Lastly, in both 

 mosses, the thin transparent membrane enveloping the 

 paginal cells is often easily detected under the microscope. 

 D. Fergussoni has also rather close affinities to D. brevifoliuin 

 (Lindb.), a comparatively recently described moss. 



Dr. Braithwaite and I spent, in August of last year, 

 seventeen days on the west coast of the Island of Lewis, in 

 the neighbourhood of Carloway. The result, so far as moss 

 gathering was concerned, was very disappointing. Curiously 

 enough, however, from indications given to us through Mr. 

 Gibson, Rector of the Nicolson Institute, Stornoway, we 

 were enabled to alight on what was, in all likelihood, 

 Moore's original station for Sphagnum Austini (Sull.), and 

 huge masses of the moss were secured. A somewhat laxer 

 state of the same plant was discovered not more than two 

 or three hundred yards from where we lodged. Myurium 

 Hebridarum was also found in several localities ; but, as 

 Dr. Braithwaite has promised to write a paper on this moss 

 and its curiously restricted area of growth and spread, I 

 refrain from saying more. Cainpylopus SJiawii, which, 

 as I have already said in another number of the " Annals," 

 is by far the most prevalent moss around Tarbert in Harris, 

 only grows near Carloway in clumps at considerable distances 

 from each other, and not more than four such stations were 

 alighted on. What is still more extraordinary is the fact 

 that not a patch of either C. subcinereus or C. purpurascens 

 was seen. On the other hand, the forms of, and appear- 

 ances assumed by, C. brevipilus were most astonishing and, 

 accordingly, most perplexing. On this account I was 

 tempted to collect huge supplies of this moss, but more than 

 three-fourths were thrown away, and (what I am most sorry 

 for) along with them, I fear, the only tuft of D. Fergussoni I 

 had picked up. Amid all the diversity of form and 

 colouring assumed by C. brevipilus in this otherwise bleak 

 and monotonous country, there is one form which presents 

 appearances so unlike the usual habit of the moss, and 



