1893- NOTES AND COMMENTS. 255 



Splachnidium ntgosimi (Phycological Memoirs, part i.), besides many- 

 minor observations of great value when taken into relation with 

 others. Mr. Buffham, in his excellent " Algological Notes " in this 

 current number of Grevillca describes plurilocular sporangia of Chorda 

 Filmn (of interest in the connection just alluded to) and a new species 

 of Giffordia. A most valuable observation is that of the conjugation 

 of zoogametes in Cladophora laiiosa. Mr. Buffham deserves very hearty 

 applause for these admirable notes — the more so since they are put 

 forward very modestly in the shape of notes. 



A TRANSLATION of Von Kennel's paper on "The Affinities and 

 Origin of the Tardigrada," will be found in the March number of the 

 Annals Mag. Nat. Hist. Kennel agrees with Plato in considering that 

 the Tardigrada can be brought into relationship with the tracheata 

 Arthropods, but he does not agree with him in considering that they 

 lie nearest to the root of the Tracheate stem, or that they show 

 most clearly the transition from the Annelids to the air-breathing 

 Arthropoda. He goes on to point out the many resemblances to be 

 found with the dipterous larvae, and says that though it is by no 

 means his attention to put forward the dipterous larvae as actual 

 ancestors of the Tardigrades, no single form so simply and so readily 

 enables the student to interpret the Tardigrade body. 



Mr. Fox-Strangway's Memoirs on " The Jurassic Rocks of 

 Britain " [Mem. Geol. Survey), dealing with tlae Yorkslaire areas, has 

 just been issued, and we hope to give a notice of it as soon as the 

 second part appears. In the meantime, it may be asked why the 

 date 1892 is put upon the title-page? It is true that the preface is 

 dated 28th April, 1892, but the tell-tale printer's date, December, 

 1892, occurs on the same sheet. Why this eight months' delay. 



In our January number, we referred to the visit of Sir H. Maxwell 

 and Mr. Hasting to Thessaly, to investigate the value of Loeffler's 

 method of destruction of field-voles by mouse-typhus. Sir H. 

 Maxwell has an article on the subject in Blackwood's Magazine for 

 March, in which he points out that the remedy is not effectual, on 

 account of the difficulty of spreading the soaked bread, and, more- 

 over, it is too costly to become general. Five francs' worth of the 

 liquid suffices only for two acres, and to clear a farm of 6,000 acres 

 would cost no less than ^600 for typhus-broth alone, not counting 

 bread and cost of labour. 



In his presidential address to the Geological Society of America 

 (^Bulletin Geol. Soc. America, vol. iv., pp. 179-igo, February 27, 1893), 

 Mr. G. K. Gilbert deals with a subject which has lately been dis- 

 cussed in Natural Science. He speaks of the permanence of 



