1893- NOTES AND COMMENTS. 87 



details of the lives of these molluscs in this district are particularly 

 interesting. The report deals in the fullest manner with the natural 

 conditions affecting the growth, the nature of the bottom, the food, 

 enemies, &c.» of the South Carolinan oyster, gives detailed analyses 

 of the waters in all districts where the oyster lives, and is illustrated 

 and made clearer by the reproductions of photographs. It would be 

 well if our own Government were to secure a number of copies of 

 these reports, and furnish them to the oyster growers of our coasts. 



Mr. John Cordeaux, in the Naturalist for January, 1893 (p. 5), 

 continues his records of the migration of birds, as observed on our 

 East Coast. From these " Bird-Notes from the Humber District in 

 the Autumn of 1892," we learn that two " great rushes " of migrants 

 occurred on September 20 and 21, and again on October 13 to 16, 

 Both these rushes took place under exactly similar conditions, i.e.^ 

 with easterly gales. The past autumn was also remarkable for 

 the unusual number of rare or occasional wanderers which turned 

 up in the district. 



" There were brave men before Agamemnon," and there have 

 been ornithologists since Gould, but the results of their labours appear 

 to be unknown to a writer who discourses of the Ohazal and Shama 

 in last month's English Illustrated Magazine, and displays, in his some- 

 what pretentious article, an astounding ignorance of recent work on 

 these species and their allies. But what can be expected of one whO' 

 uses the term "hybrid" as if it inevitably connoted sterility? We can 

 only hope that in future his "ornithological researches" will be 

 brought more up to date, in which case he may be mortified by dis- 

 covering in his paper "little mistakes" quite as serious, if not as 

 diverting, as that which, according to him, caused Linnaeus to name 

 the Ohazal Copsychus (or rather Gracnla) saiilaris. 



In the Journal of the Anthropological Institute for August and 

 November, 1892, Mr. John Allen Brown writes on the " Continuity 

 of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Periods." He divides the " stone 

 age " into Eolithic, Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic, mainly 

 according to the workmanship of the implements. Workmanship 

 alone is, however, scarcely a satisfactory test of date, in the absence 

 of distinct geological evidence as to the relative age of the specimens. 

 We observe that the whole of the implements figured by Mr. Brown 

 were found on the surface. The gap that exists in this country 

 between Palaeolithic and Neolithic does not yet appear to have been 

 satisfactorily bridged. 



An interesting contribution to our knowledge of the reproduction 

 of the Foraminifera was made by Mr. J. J. Lister at the meeting of 



