1 68 NOTES AND COMMENTS [September 



grouped to illustrate some particular fact or adaptation. Thus we see 

 a beech wood in wiuter with its withered leaves, squirrels, and wood- 

 peckers ; the bank of a stream with its wagtails, kingfishers, and other 

 tenants ; a tree with distinctive nests at the various levels, and so on. 



Other cases — more difficult to work out naturally — are beginning 

 to illustrate geographical distribution, so that he who runs — and such 

 is too often the museum pace — may almost read. The posing of 

 many of the birds, such as the albatross, in flying attitude ; the juxta- 

 position of the stuffed creature and its skeleton (as in the case of 

 Ateles geoffroyi) ; the arrangement of lenses over selected corals ; the 

 models showing musculature in natural size, e.g. of the elephant's skull 

 and fore-limb, and other features, struck us as we walked through, and 

 lead us to look with expectation to the opening of the new museum. 

 Dr. Koch evidently believes in keeping the detailed collection for 

 workers in a form which will be convenient to the student and will 

 save the laity from embarrassment, and in making each exhibit of the 

 so-called show collection really teach something. 



An Annelid from the Devonian. 



The lamentable condition of fossils found in the Devonian rocks of the 

 south coast of Cornwall makes a communication by Mr. Upfield Green 

 to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall of more than ordinary 

 interest. This consists of a brief record with figures of the impression 

 of an annelid to which he has given the name of Nereitopsis comubicus. 

 The specimens come from the slates of Polruan, Polyne, and two un- 

 known localities, and are four in number. They are identical in 

 structure, and are certainly impressions of different individuals of the 

 same species. As Mr. Green has not ventured to describe them, it 

 may be well to offer a few remarks on the original specimens, which are 

 faithfully represented by the figures of life size. From the central rod, 

 now represented by a hollow, and which shows traces of segmentation, 

 spring pairs of impressions of parallel striae, the distal end of each of 

 which terminates in a > shaped point. Each pair of impressions 

 increases in size from the tail towards the head (not seen in any of the 

 specimens). The tail appears to have a swollen and tuberculated 

 aspect, but is obscure. Such in few words is a description of these 

 curious fossils, which have been illustrated and published in the hope 

 that better material may be forthcoming now that attention has been 

 drawn to them. The originals are in the Museum of the Royal 

 Geological Society of Cornwall at Penzance. 



