266 The Irish Natiwalist. [November, 



A List Of the lYIarlne IVIollusca of Ireland. B} A. R. NichoIvS, 

 R.A. (Report from the Fauna and Flora Committee). Proc. R. I. 

 Academy (3\ v. No. 4. 1900. 



The publication of Mr. Nichols's list of Irish Marine Mollusca marks 

 another stepin the advance of our knowledge of the Irish fauna, and 

 supplies an implement which will be most useful to those of the craft — 

 students of either zoologj- or palaeontology. The records of Irish 

 mollusca were brought together by Thompson in 1856, but the numerous 

 papers and notes published in the intervening forty-four years were 

 uncatalogued, and scattered through many Journals, and Proceedings of 

 scientific societies. The recent publication of the important results of 

 the Royal Irish Academy's dredging expeditions made it especially 

 desirable that the whole of the literature should be brought together 

 and. condensed into one systematic paper, and this Mr. Nichols has done 

 for us. For the purposes of showing distribution, Mr. Nichols has 

 divided the Irish coast into six provinces, while he has adopted 1,000 

 fathoms as the bathymetrical limit of the Irish fauna. The submerged 

 Ireland beyond the 100 fathom line thus added to our jurisdiction is 

 larger than the island itself, extending far beyond the Porcupine Bank. 

 One of the best features of the paper is its excellent bibliography of 

 Irish mollusca. The nomenclature will horrify those who still use their 

 Jeffreys, or Forbes and Hanley, but the numerous changes in the names 

 of our molluscau favourites are necessar}' in order to bring us into line 

 with the general advance of conchology. Mr. Nichols has mercifully- 

 added in brackets the familiar names of JefTreys's " British Conchology " 

 where these differ from the names now employed. 



R. Ivi.. P. 



A sug^gestlon as to a possible mode of ortg^In of some 

 of the Secondary Sexual Characters in Animals as 

 afforded by observations on certain Salmonoids. By 



G. E. H. BARRETT-HAMII.TON, Proc, Cambridge Phil. Soc.,^o\. x.,1900. 



In a short paper Mr. Barrett-Hamilton discusses some of the current 

 views as to the changes of colour or form which the males of many 

 vertebrates undergo during the breeding season. He believes that there 

 must be some fundamental cause to which all such cases owe their origin. 

 Having had an opportunity of making observations on Salmon in the 

 rivers of Kamchatka, he maintains that the abnormal coloration and 

 growth during the breeding time are due to pathological conditions by 

 which both sexes are affected. 



Mr. Barrett-Hamilton suggests that we have in these phenomena a 

 possible source and origin of many of the highly developed sexual 

 characters met with in other animals, and that they may possibly be 

 reminiscences of a former condition of things through which their 

 ancestors passed. 



R. F. S- 



