302 NATURAL SCIENCE. Nov., 



American. In point of distance they are nearer to the Cape of Good 

 Hope, the marine flora of which includes nearly all the forms found 

 at these islands. In her selection of papers, Miss Tilden has a hard 

 task, and it is difficult to see on what grounds she inserts or rejects a 

 paper. She apparently wishes to include any publication which 

 makes mention of an alga as occurring in America ; but to do this it 

 would be necessary to mention almost every monograph of marine 

 algae and a large number of papers on their morphology. For 

 instance, if Mr. George Murray's paper on Halicystis and Valonia in 

 the Phycological Memoirs, 1893, ^s cited, because the specimens 

 examined were collected in Bermuda, why are the papers on Stvnvea 

 {Annals of Botany, vol. ii., no. vii., Nov., 1888) and Avrainvillea {Journal 

 of Botany, March and April, i88g), by the same author, omitted ? In 

 both of them American and West Indian species are described. 

 This holds good in several other cases. It would surely have been 

 better to include all papers without exception that refer to algae as 

 found in America and to omit such publications as 562, 946, 1,250, 

 1,266, 1,267, Gtc, which refer solely to the cleaning, mounting, and 

 preserving of Diatoms. 



Bibliographical work, to be of value, must be done critically and 

 completely. In this case the errors of inclusion are, perhaps, more 

 formidable than those of omission. Miss Tilden hopes to make 

 additions to her list, and she would do an equally good service by 

 first clearing it of much that is irrelevant to the subject. 



Dr. John James Wild. 



We regret to find that our " Challenger " number was guilty of 

 homicide, which we hasten to assure our readers and the good man it 

 killed was quite unintentional. Dr. John James Wild, who was a 

 member of the civilian scientific staff in the double capacity of secretary 

 to Sir Wyville Thomson and natural history draughtsman to the 

 Expedition, is, we are glad to learn, still of this world. Not merely 

 Plate xvii., but most of the illustrations in our July number are copies 

 of Dr. Wild's original drawings made on board ship, a circumstance 

 which gives them a far greater value. 



For many years Dr. Wild has been living in Melbourne, where 

 he has occupied himself in drawing the plates for Sir Frederick 

 M'Coy's " Prodromus to the Zoology and Palaeontology of Victoria." 

 This important publication has lieen greatly delayed on account of 

 the reduction by the Government of the funds voted for scientific 

 purposes, on the plea of retrenchment. The palseontological plates, 

 including many interesting drawings of fossil fishes, have not yet been 

 published, although printed some time ago. It is to be hoped that 

 circumstances will soon change and permit us to see these beautiful 

 examples of scientific lithography, of which Dr. Wild sends us a few 

 specimens. 



