MUSEUM NOTES. 167 



the same time, sank down out of sight. I clearly saw that it had 

 a heterocercal tail, the upper part being rounded and not very 

 long, and that its body was of grey colour, and apparently about 

 five feet long. Taking all into account, it seems most probable 

 that it was GaUiis vulgaris or the " Toper " ; but, under such 

 circumstances, it was impossible to see and examine detailed 

 characters, so as to be quite sure of the species According to 

 Dr. Laver's book on the Vertebrata of Essex (p. 119), this small 

 shark has previously been met with on two occasions on the 

 coast of Essex, but yet is sufficiently lare to make it desirable to 

 record the occurrence for another individual seen in the estuary 

 of the Colne. 



MUSEUM NOTES. No. III. 



VI.— THE CRYPrOGAMIC HERBARIUM OF THE LATE 

 MR. E. G. VARENNE. 



In 1891 we published in the Essex Naturalist a valuable 

 paper on the " Cryptogamic Flora of Kelvedon and its neigh- 

 bourhood," which had been compiled by Mr. E. D. Marquand 

 from the herbarium and notes made by our late member, Mr. 

 E. G. Varenne, M.R.C.S., of Kelvedon. 



At Mr. Varenne's death in 1887 these materials had, at his 

 request, been handed over to Mr. Marquand by Mrs. Varenne. 

 In March of the present year (1901) we had great pleasure in 

 acquiring the Cryptogamic Herbarium and some of Mr. Varenne's 

 botanical books for the Essex Field Club, by purchase from 

 Mr. Marquand, who thought they would fittingly find a resting- 

 place in the County Museum. Very many of the specimens had 

 been collected in Essex, and these supplied the data for the paper 

 above referred to. Unfortunately Varenne's Phanerogamic 

 Herbarium perished in the way thus stated by Mr. Marquand : — 

 " The whole of my Natural History collections had to be warehoused 

 when I went abroad (that was after my paper in the Essex Naturalist was 

 written) and on my taking them out again some four years afterwards, I 

 discovered to my great sorrow that very nearly the whole of my phanerogamic 

 herbarium was ruined by the attacks of insects ! so that it had to be burnt. 

 The great bulk both of my own large herbarium and of Varenne's collection 

 was thus destroyed. What could be saved out of the wreck I packed up and 

 gave away to a botanical friend who is now in Australia. Varenne's crypto- 

 gamic collections were uninjured (with the exception of some of the Lichens) 

 and so you have them. 



