THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 63 



or names of authorities. His last list of " Desmidiese " con- 

 tained about fifty species, some of which were not Desmids, 

 and others of doubtful generic and specific determination. After 

 gathermg from many sources, but mainly from old members of 

 the Field Naturalists' Club — to whom, with the exception of Mr. 

 C. French, jun., acknowledgment has already been made — the 

 scattered fragments of VVatts's collection of microscopic slides, I 

 found that, though he mounted a large number of specimens, they 

 comprised only a few species, and that most of them, owing to 

 failure of mountant (glycerine jelly !) used, were practically 

 valueless. 



Later Mr. Watts prepared a manuscript which, though un- 

 pulished, has been kindly handed to me for perusal by Mr. F. G. A. 

 Barnard. This paper he called " Infusoria Peculiar to Aus- 

 tralia ;" but the list of Desmids contains only species more or 

 less cosmopolitan, and discrepancies occur which lead me to 

 think that it would have been further revised before publication, 

 and was probably withheld for that purpose. In the absence of 

 names of authors of species, it may be well to mention that in this 

 undated M.S. Mr. Watts says : — " We unhesitatingly state that we 

 have never seen a species that could not be fully identified either 

 by means of ' Ralfs' British Desmidiese' or Dr. H. C. Wood's 

 work on 'The Fresh-water Algse of North America.'" This remark, 

 to a large extent, discounts the value of the records of this en- 

 thusiastic worker. Accordingly, in the following list, where Watts 

 has recorded a species which I have not collected, I have given 

 with a query in brackets an audior's name for the species as 

 found in Raifs' or Wood's, and these may be taken as the nearest 

 approach at this date possible to identification of Watts's 

 specimens. 



In 1896 Dr. Otto Nordstedt published an illustrated list, with 

 descriptions of New Zealand and Australian fresh-water Alg^ 

 collected by Dr. Berggren. Of these, the Victorian Algje in the 

 Australian section were few, and were collected near Fernshaw, in 

 1875, twenty-one years prior to publication. This list included 

 eight Desmids. 



On several occasions Mr. John Shephard and Messrs. W. and 

 J. Stickland have noted an occasional species in reports on 

 pond-life excursions. 



The Victorian Naturalist, vol. xxi., p. 81 (1904) included a 

 paper by myself, in which I gave a rough general sketch of the 

 fresh-water Alg?e, with a view to preparing members for sub- 

 sequent notes on families, and the historical sketch given above 

 is calculated to clear the way for the family Desmidiaceje — the 

 most interesting, perhaps, of the unicellular Algae. The list 

 which follows is to be regarded as by no means a complete list of 

 collected species, for many others, withheld for further examina- 

 tion, will be presented in supplementary lists. 



