THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 81 



By Mr. J. A. Kershaw, for National Museum. — A series of 

 deep-sea fishes. 



By Mr. A. E. Kitson. — {a) Specimen of Eucalyptus of doubtful 

 variety, showing buds, flowers, and fruit. This is from Mt. 

 Chaucer, Cape Nelson, near Portland, and is restricted to a small 

 area. In general appearance the tree resembles the Mallee species 

 E. incrassata, but the fruit, though about the same size, is not 

 fluted. It is, in the opinion of Mr. Guilfoyle, perhaps a variety 

 of £!. pilularis. (b) Two small specimens of Native Bread, 

 Polyporus mylittce, from Tarwin River, South Gippsland. 



By Mr. D. Le Souef. — Pomarine Skua Gull, Great Skua, 

 Richardson's Skua. 



By Mr. G. E. Shepherd. — Clutch (two) eggs of Wonga Wonga 

 Pigeon, New South Wales ; clutch (three) eggs of White-headed 

 Osprey, Western Australia. 



THE FRESH-WATER KLGM OF VICTORIA. 



By a. D. Hardy. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists^ Club of Victoria, 8th August, 1904.) 



Alg^ are thus defined by Cooke — "Cellular, flowerless plants, 

 for the most part without any proper roots or mycelium, living, 

 with rare exceptions, entirely in water, and imbibing nutriment 

 by their whole surface from the medium in which they grow." 



They may be roughly divided into two groups — the marine 

 Algae, commonly known as sea-weeds ; and those inhabiting fresh 

 water or moist places — and it is the latter group, and particularly 

 the Victorian representatives, which I propose to deal with in a 

 series of papers, to which this is intended to serve the purpose of 

 an introduction. 



The study of the fresh-water Algae is restricted to microscopy, 

 the plants being mostly very small and fragile. They have not 

 the robust growth or variety of colour which is to be found in 

 their marine cousins, the " sea-weeds," which, owing to their con- 

 spicuous beauty and comparatively easy preservation, have 

 received much attention. 



The largest of the fresh-water Algse are probably the 

 Characeae, including the genera Chara and Nitella, species of 

 Nitella several feet in length being found ; while the other 

 extreme is perhaps a species of Pleurococcus, which is so minute 

 as to appear about the size of a pin's head when magnified 400 

 diameters. Between these extremes a great variety of forms 

 exists — globular, disc-shaped, filamentous, &c. — but nearly all of 

 a uniform green colour. 



They are distributed all over the globe, wherever there is fresh 

 water or moisture, from pole to pole, and from sea-level to 

 mountain-top. 



