168 NOTES AND COMMENTS [SEPTEMBER 
grouped to illustrate some particular fact or adaptation. Thus we see 
a beech wood in winter with its withered leaves, squirrels, and wood- 
peckers ; the bank of a stream with its wagtails, kingfishers, and other 
tenants ; a tree with distinctive nests at the various levels, and so on. 
Other cases—more difficult to work out naturally—are beginning 
to illustrate geographical distribution, so that he who runs—and such 
is too often the museum pace—may almost read. ‘The posing of 
many of the birds, such as the albatross, in flying attitude; the juxta- 
position of the stuffed creature and its skeleton (as in the case of 
Ateles geoffroyi); the arrangement of lenses over selected corals; the 
models showing musculature in natural size, eg. of the elephant’s skull 
and fore-limb, and other features, struck us as we walked through, and 
lead us to look with expectation to the opening of the new museum. 
Dr. Koch evidently believes in keeping the detailed collection for 
workers in a form which will be convenient to the student and will 
save the laity from embarrassment, and in making each exhibit of the 
so-called show collection really teach something. 
An Annelid from the Devonian. 
THE lamentable condition of fossils found in the Devonian rocks of the 
south coast of Cornwall makes a communication by Mr. Upfield Green 
to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall of more than ordinary 
interest. This consists of a brief record with figures of the impression 
of an annelid to which he has given the name of Nereitopsis cornubicus. 
The specimens come from the slates of Polruan, Polyne, and two un- 
known localities, and are four in number. They are identical in 
structure, and are certainly impressions of different individuals of the 
same species. As Mr. Green has not ventured to describe them, it 
may be well to offer a few remarks on the original specimens, which are 
faithfully represented by the figures of life size. From the central rod, 
now represented by a hollow, and which shows traces of segmentation, 
spring pairs of impressions of parallel striae, the distal end of each of 
which terminates in a > shaped point. Each pair of impressions 
increases in size from the tail towards the head (not seen in any of the 
specimens). The tail appears to have a swollen and tuberculated 
aspect, but is obscure. Such in few words is a description of these 
curious fossils, which have been illustrated and published in the hope 
that better material may be forthcoming now that attention has been 
drawn to them. The originals are in the Museum of the Royal 
Geological Society of Cornwall at Penzance. 
