THE student's HANDBOOK OF BRITISH MOSSES. 513 



in question, sleeping and eating in their houses with a mixture of 

 perfect confidence and watchfuhiess. The New Zeahxnd observa- 

 tions are certain to be held to be of particular value. 



It is interesting to come upon here, as in so many other voyages, 

 records of the observation of pelagic OsciUatoricd;, viz., the " sea- 

 sawdust" seen in Torres Straits, the coast of Brazil, and elsewhere. 

 Banks excellently describes it (considering his instruments): "It 

 *was formed by innumerable small atoms, each scarcely half a line 

 in length, yet, when looked at under a microscope, consisting of 

 thirty or forty tubes, each hollow and divided throughout the 

 whole length into many cells by small partitions, like the tubes of 

 Conferva. ... A Portuguese, who came on board the ship at 

 Rio de Janeiro, told me that at St. Salvador on the coast of Brazil, 

 where the Portuguese have a whale fishery, he had often seen vast 

 quantities of it taken out of the stomachs of whales or grampuses." 

 The immense masses of diatoms (largely formed of Thalassiusira 

 Nordenskioldii) found in the Arctic seas are known to sailors as 

 " whale's food," though probably the myriads of copepoda, &c., 

 that accompany these shoals and feed on the diatoms are more 

 sustaining to the whale, if there be anything in the name. We 

 have, as Sir Joseph Hooker first pointed out, the greatest diatom 

 masses of all in the Antarctic Sea, and doubtless they are the basis 

 of the food supply at all events of the animal life of that region. 



However, enough has been said to point out the book as one 

 of pleasurable and profitable reading, not only to naturalists and 

 anthrop;dogists, but to cultivated readers in general. 



George Murray. 



Tlie Student's Handbook of British Mosses. By H. N. Dixon; with 

 Illustrations, and Keys to the Genera and Species, by the 

 Eev. H. G. Jameson. Eastbourne : V. T. Sumfield. London : 

 John Wheldon. 1896. Pp. xlvi, 520; 60 plates. Price 18s. Gd. 



The authors of this bulky addition to our British Moss library 

 have been at pains to define with precision the share which they 

 have respectively taken in its composition. Hence an appreciative 

 or disappointed public will be able to mete out praise or blame to 

 the proper recipients without fear of a miscarriage of justice. The 

 authors are well known in the bryological world — Mr. Dixon as an 

 extremely keen and energetic moss-collector, and Mr. Jameson as 

 the author of an Illustrated Guide to British Mosses, which has an 

 interesting history from the point of view of development. Its 

 original form was a thin pocket-book, privately issued some six or 

 seven years ago, containmg a lithographed key to the Mosses. It 

 was too good to be withheld from publication ; so in 1891 it was 

 rewritten and printed in this Journal with a plate illustrative of the 

 technical terms employed; and it was also sold as a separate reprint. 

 In 1893 it was again rewritten and published with fifty-nine plates 

 all drawn by the author with the camera lucida (each structure being 

 magnified to a definite scale uniform throughout), and faithfully 

 representing the important diagnostic characters of every species. 



