TIIF FHRSH WATP:K FIJ)KA ANU FAUNA OF 

 CEMRAL PAKK. 



I'UKLIMINAKY I'Al'EK. ^VITH BIBLIOGKAIMI V. 



By L p. (Ihatacap ami A. Woodward. 



The fauna and flora of fresh water ponds have become 

 more generally studied as the limits of natural history 

 widened, as the iniporlant influences exercised upon the 

 character of water sUfpiy by organic life became known, and 

 as the microscope extended its conquests and improved its 

 powers. The ])ublicati(.)n of large and more or less exhaust- 

 ive treatises up(^n microscopic life have made the task sim- 

 pler of tindiui]: out tlie character and names and habits of the 

 numerous strange r)bjeets which pass b«;fore the amateur 

 upon the glass slide, tliough he finds identification even then 

 difficult, and realizes that previous experience and a long 

 series of observations are necessary for his progress in this 

 bewildering field of natural study. 



The monograph of Prof. Habenhorst may be said to have 

 first opened u|) the field of practical examination of fresh 

 water alga' to general .students. His work entitled Flora 

 Eurtrpd^uiii Algarum Aqiut^ IJuh-iset Snhinaruiic wixs ix care- 

 ful revision of the work of older authorities, and established 

 a foundation upon which new discoveries could be establish- 

 ed, especiall}' as it arranged a confusing synonymy of species 

 in previous disorder. For American students the publica- 

 tion in 1874 of Dr. Wood's '• Contribution to the History of 

 the Fresh Water Al^a^ of X^rth Ameiica," (" Smithsonian 

 Contributions to Knowledge," vol. xix.) was a long wished 

 for help, and gave a real impetus to this study among many 

 to whom special papers and widely separated notices were 

 inaccessible or unknown. 



Dr. Schwi'init//s early work on tin.' dcsniids of America 

 was continued by Dr. Francis Wolle, and his lists, identifi- 

 cations, ant.! desciiptions arc raniiliar lo students in the 

 Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, f(»llowed only recent- 

 ly by his monograph on this sul«J<(i. which must irive tlu' 

 study an important impetus. 'J'lie general student, in hisat 

 tempts to identify the ii]numerabl( and somewhat monoto- 

 nously varied species of diatom-, mu<l dependupon the scat- 

 tered publications of J. W. Briugs in i\\v. Anicriidn Jounuil 

 of Science and Art, and in the Pioc. B;)st()n Soc. Nat. Hist., 

 of Chas. Stoddard from the sam<' .source, and of S. A. Briggs 

 of Chicatro, now of New York, in the /><//>. The larire and 



