The Scottish Naturalist. 369 



Glasgow. — Mammalia, by E. R. Alston. Fresh and Brackish Water Ostra- 

 coda, by D. Robertson. 



As we have had occasion to notice before, the Glasgow vSociety of Natural 

 History (with which, by the way, we believe the Glasgow Society of Field 

 Naturalists is now united) is doing excellent work, and this part of its ' Trans- 

 actions ' is full of interest. Anongst the more important papers are : Mr 

 Etheridge's "Observations on the Swollen Condition of Carboniferous 

 Crinoid Stems," illustrated by two good plates; Mr W. Horn's "Notes 

 on the Birds of the North-West of Perthshire ;"' Mr Harvie-Brown's remarks 

 " On the Mammalia of the Outer Hebrides," &c. Not the least important 

 of the work done by the Glasgow Society is the preparation and publication 

 of lists of the animals of Scotland, with special reference to the west. Of 

 these lisfs three parts have been published, one of which (Hymenoptera, 

 Part I.) has been already noticed. Of the two at present before us, we pur- 

 pose reserving Mr Alston's "Mammalia" for a more lengthy notice here- 

 after. The remaining list — that of the Ostracoda, by Mr David Robertson — • 

 is of great value, not only for the light it throws on the geographical distri- 

 bution of the species, but for the many interesting remarks on their habits, 

 and the instruction given for collecting and preserving. Mr Robertson insists 

 strongly on the importance of attaching, without delay, locality labels to all 

 material collected ; and young naturalists (be the objects collected what they 

 may) will do well to make a habit of doing this. How many collections of 

 (say) insects are there that are comparatively worthless, from a scientific point 

 of view, because the localities of the specimens are only preserved (or said to 

 be preserved) in the memory ! As it is evident from the list before us that 

 the greater part of the fresh and brackish waters of Scotland have yet been 

 unsearched, we hope some of our younger naturalists may be tempted by Mr 

 Robertson's instructions to commence the study of the Ostracoda. It seems 

 a pity to be obliged to find fault ; but the list has one typographical blemish 

 to which we feel constrained to call attention. In the lists of species given 

 for various localities, the specific name and that of the author thereof are 

 separated by, in some cases, nearly one-third of the breadth of the page, so — 



Cypris gibba, .... Ramdohr. 



The object of this mode of arrangement we. do not exactly understand, as 

 the ordinary method of putting it — Cypris gibba, Ramdohr— would have looked 

 much better. 



Dr Munro, Kilmarnock, is to be congratulated on his account of the exca- 

 vation of the Lochlee Crannog (Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of 

 Scotland, vol. xiii.), and it is a pity that all such antiquarian discoveries do 

 not have such careful historians. To us this Crannog, which is in an old 

 lake basin, now dry. on the farm of Lochlee, near Tarbolton in Ayrshire — 

 once occupied by the father of Robert Burns the poet — is chiefly interesting 

 from the light it thro\\"S on the fauna and flora of the period in which it was 

 constructed and inhabited. That this period was not very distant seems 

 evident from some of the implements that have been found. In fact, it is 

 possible that it is not much older than the time of the Roman occupation of 

 Britain. Hence it is diflicult to imagine that the Reindeer inhabited Ayrshire 

 at so late a period, thougli Professor Rolleston is inclined to believe that two 

 very fragmentary antlers found in the Crannog belong to that species. 



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