1893. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 255. 
Splachnidium rugosum (Phycological Memoirs, part i.), besides many 
minor observations of great value when taken into relation with 
others. Mr. Buffham, in his excellent ‘¢ Algological Notes” in this. 
current number of Grevillea describes plurilocular sporangia of Chorda 
Filum (of interest in the connection just alluded to) and a new species 
of Giffordia. A most valuable observation is that of the conjugation 
of zoogametes in Cladophora lanosa. Mr. Buffham deserves very hearty 
applause for these admirable notes—the more so since they are put 
forward very modestly in the shape of notes. 
A TRANSLATION of Von Kennel’s paper on ‘The Affinities and 
Origin of the Tardigrada,” will be found in the March number of the 
Annals Mag. Nat. Hist. Kennel agrees with Plato in considering that 
the Tardigrada can be brought into relationship with the tracheata 
Arthropods, but he does not agree with him in considering that they 
lie nearest to the root of the Tracheate stem, or that they show 
most clearly the transition from the Annelids to the air-breathing 
Arthropoda. He goes on to point out the many resemblances to be 
found with the dipterous larve, and says that though it is by no 
means his attention to put forward the dipterous larve as actual 
ancestors of the Tardigrades, no single form so simply and so readily 
enables the student to interpret the Tardigrade body. 
Mr. Fox-Srrancway’s Memoirs on ‘ The Jurassic Rocks of 
Britain ” (Mem. Geol. Survey), dealing with the Yorkshire areas, has 
just been issued, and we hope to give a notice of it as saon as the 
second part appears. In the meantime, it may be asked why the 
date 1892 is put upon the title-page? It is true that the preface is 
dated 28th April, 1892, but the tell-tale printer’s date, December, 
1892, occurs on the same sheet. Why this eight months’ delay. 

In our January number, we referred to the visit of Sir H. Maxwell 
and Mr. Hasting to Thessaly, to investigate the value of Loeffer’s. 
method of destruction of field-voles by mouse-typhus. Sir H. 
Maxwell has an article on the subject in Blackwood’s Magazine for 
March, in which he points out that the remedy is not effectual, on 
account of the difficulty of spreading the soaked bread, and, more- 
over, it is too costly to become general. Five francs” worth of the 
liquid suffices only for two acres, and to clear a farm of 6,000 acres 
would cost no less than £600 for typhus-broth alone, not counting 
bread and cost of labour. 
In his presidential address to the Geological Society of America 
(Bulletin Geol. Soc. America, vol. iv., pp. 179-190, February 27, 1893), 
Mr. G. K. Gilbert deals with a subject which has lately been dis- 
cussed in NaturaL Science. He speaks of the permanence of 
