Algae. 15 



Dr. W. A. Cunnington during the recent expedition (1907) con- 

 ducted by himself and Mr. C. L. Boulenger to the Birket 

 Qarun, a lake in the Fayum province of Egypt. The Birket 

 Qarun is a shallow lake some twenty-five miles in length by five 

 or six miles in breadth, and is a remnant of the historic Lake 

 Moeris, which was many times greater. It still communicates 

 with the Nile by a Channel over 200 miles long. The water is 

 brackish, with a density a little above that of freshwater, and is 

 subject to considerable changes of temperature. Algae were collected 

 from the shores of the lake, from ponds, swamps, and stagnant 

 pools near the shores, and from the inlets. A number of plankton- 

 collections were also made. The total number of Algae obtained 

 was sixty-six, and the author attributes the paucity of species to the 

 fact of the water being brackish. The Chlorophyceae represented 21.2 

 per cent, the Myxophyceae 28.8 per cent, and the Bacülarieae 48.5 per 

 cent. The author records two marine species, Polysiphonia utricularis 

 Zan. and a form of Enteromovpha plumosa Kütz. The majority of 

 the species were brackish forms, the only freshwater ones being 

 obtained from near the mouth of the Wady. Remarks are made on 

 the littoral alga-flora, and the plankton which was mostly composed 

 of Eutomostraca and Rotifers. The vegetable life was confined to 

 three species of diatoms only. In swampy ponds at the mouth of the 

 Wady were found two species of Spivogyra with zygospores, as 

 well as fruiting specimens of Zygnema chalybeosporwn Hansg. A 

 list of the sixty-six species follows among which are two new species, 

 Cylindrospermum indentatum and Katagnymene palustris. 



E. S. Gepp. 



West, W. and G. S., The British Freshwater Phytoplankton, 

 with Special Reference to the Desmid-Plankton and the 

 Distribution of British Desmids. (Proc. Roy. Soc. Ser. B. 

 LXXXI. p. 165—206. 1909.) 



Not untii much work had been done at the phytoplankton of 

 the freshwaters of Western Europe were investigations of a similar 

 nature begun in the British lakes and rivers , and it is during the 

 last ten years that almost all our knowledge of this branch of fresh- 

 water biology has been acquired. Almost all the British investiga- 

 tions have been conducted by the authors of this papers, and they 

 now summarise the results, and institute comparisons between the 

 British phytoplankton and that of continental Europe and other 

 regions. They have collected plankton from a large number of lakes 

 in the west of Scotland, from some of the lowland Scottish lochs, 

 from practically all the lakes of the English Lake District and 

 most of those in North Wales, from nearly all the lakes of the 

 west and south-west of Ireland, from Lough Neagh and Lough 

 ßeg, from Malham Tarn in West Yorkshire, and from the 

 Rivers Ouse, Lochay, and Bann. The various constituents ot 

 these lakes etc. are shortly discussed unter their geo^raphical 

 headings and a tabulated list shews all the species observed in the 

 phytoplankton of the British Isles. The total reaches 506 species and 

 118 varieties, of which 40°/ were species of the Desmidiaceae . 



The work was entirely of a qualitative character, since both 

 time and money were lacking to conduct quantitave investigations, 

 such as those carried out by Wesenberg — Lund and others. 



In a general summary, the authors State that the British lakes 



