GLEANINGS 119 



and wealth of illustrative maps, render it accessible and attractive to 

 all classes of readers. 



Earthworms and their Allies, by Frank E. Beddard, pp. vi + 

 150. Cambridge : .at the University Press, 1912. Price is. 



Earthworms, owing to their terrestrial habit and comparatively 

 limited powers of locomotion, are peculiarly fitted for throwing light 

 on the problems of geographical distribution, and this addition to 

 the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature views them from 

 this standpoint. The early portion of the volume describes in 

 detail a representative primitive species, and from this are deduced 

 those families and genera which are supposed to have succeeded it 

 in time. But the major portion is devoted to the distribution of 

 earthworms, their frequency, their occurrence in continental areas 

 and oceanic islands, and to those facts which bear directly 

 thereupon, their habits, their power of movement and migration, 

 and the natural obstacles which may check their dispersal. These 

 themes are treated in an original and suggestive manner. On 

 p. 5, line 14, read is for "are"; p. 13, line 18, sperms for 

 " sperm " ; in fig. 4, the ventralmost pair of setre described as 

 absent are clearly shown ; in the index it is absurd to add after 

 11 Structure," " {sec Anatomy)," when there is only a single reference — 

 to p. 1.— J. R. 



GLEANINGS. 



Professor C. J. Patten, in an interesting paper in the Irish Naturalist (March 

 1912, pp. 49-51), records the addition of three birds to the Irish list. While at 

 the Tuskar Rock Lighthouse, he procured two Reed Warblers {Acrocephalus 

 streperus), from a party of five on 19th September. On 1 2th September he 

 obtained a Wagtail, which he believes to be MotaeiUa flava /lava, and on the 5th 

 October a Skylark, which he is of opinion is Alauda arvensis canlarella. 



Further reports of the occurrence of Little Auks in various parts of England 

 and Ireland are published in the April number of British Birds (p. 309). In 

 the same magazine (p. 312) there is an interesting list of marked birds that have 

 recently been "recovered" ; among them there are several Scottish records, includ- 

 ing a Blackbird, a Starling, and a Lapwing ringed in the West of Scotland and 

 recovered in Ireland, a Greenfinch ringed near Glasgow and recovered near Aber- 

 deen, and a Lapwing ringed in Peeblesshire and recovered at St Hilaire de Riez, 

 France. 



In the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1912, Part I., pp. 8-22) 

 appear two interesting papers, by Bruce F. Cummings and G. A. Boulenger 

 respectively. The first is entitled "Distant Orientation in Amphibia" ; and the 



