1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 9 



little modified in accordance with their new mode of life. Of this 

 section, the most interesting representatives are the land Planarians 

 and land Nemertines, and the woodlice. It is to these animals and 

 Pevipatus, both of which he has made special objects of study, that 

 Professor Dendy chiefly confines himself in his address^ merely 

 bestowing a passing remark upon the insects, spiders, centipedes, 

 millipedes, snails, earthworms, not to mention vertebrates, that 

 frequent the cryptozoic haunts of Australia and New Zealand. 

 After discussing what is known of the habits of the Peripatida, the 

 author touches upon the question of the generic and specific distinc- 

 tions of this interesting family. We venture to think, however, that 

 his opinion on the former topic is robbed of much of its value by his 

 apparent failure to realise that the only criterion we have as to the 

 importance for purposes of classification of a structural character is 

 its constancy. Apart from that attribute. Nature knows nothing of 

 good or bad, great or small. 



In conclusion. Professor Dendy urges upon naturalists in 

 Australia and New Zealand the advisability of making the most of their 

 time and opportunities in securing representatives of the cryptozoic 

 fauna ere it be exterminated by the wholesale destruction of forests 

 that is going on. " For, when the clearing process is complete and 

 the last logs have disappeared from the ground, we may expect to 

 lose sight for ever of many peculiar forms which formerly dwelt 

 there." 



Recent Work on the Foraminifera. 



Continuing the work on the Crag, referred to by us in our 

 February number, H. W. Burrows published a paper dealing with 

 the stratigraphy of the Crag of Suffolk, with especial reference to the 

 distribution of the Foraminifera, in the Geological Magazine for 

 November, 1895. ^^ conjunction with his colleague, Richard 

 Holland, he has now enabled us to deal with Prestwich's, and with 

 Clement Reid's division of these strata from the point of view of their 

 Foraminifera. As these beds are treated from their geographical, 

 as well as from their stratigraphical, relations, the paper has con- 

 siderable value. Other Pliocene Foraminifera have been examined by 

 Fornasini in the Memorie d. R. Accad. Sci. 1st. Bologna, volumes v. and 

 vi. (1895, 1896), who presents us with his views on Bigenevina robusta, 

 Textularia candeiana, and T. concava. His papers are illustrated with 

 two excellent plates. A further service has been rendered by 

 Fornasini in the elucidation of O. Costa's paper " Foraminiferi della 

 marna del Vaticano," 1855 (1857). He discusses this in Pahdonto- 

 graphia Italica for 1895, ^'^'^ re-figures many of the doubtful forms. 

 Costa's interesting unnamed Tmncatulina ("Paleont. Napoli," part 2a, 

 pi. xxi., f. 11) has also occupied Fornasini's attention, and he has 

 determined it to be the T. variabilis of d'Orbigny ; this paper appears 

 in the Rivista Ital. Paleont., April, 1896. A privately-printed note on 



