206 NATURAL SCIENCE [September 
be ascertained by a careful study of these pages. The most valuable 
piece of work which poor More accomplished during his later years 
was undoubtedly the official list of Irish Birds; the second revised 
edition of which appeared in December 1889, and is now reproduced, 
with footnotes by the Editor and Dr Scharff, which bring it fairly up 
to date. The statement (p. 368) that the specimen of Zurdus migra- 
torius procured in Ireland in 1891 was the first obtained in Europe is, 
of course, a mistake, at least five examples having been proved to have 
strayed across the Atlantic previously, one of the number having 
occurred in England in 1876 ; but this is a venial fault. The Shear- 
water, catalogued as a specimen of Puffinus obscurus, obtained off the 
Kerry coast in 1853, has recently proved to be Puffinus assimilis ; but 
in other respects this catalogue of Irish birds is invaluable for refer- 
ence purposes. The smaller papers on Irish zoology cover a variety 
of ground, and the index has been carefully compiled. H. A. M. 
SOME JAMAICAN JELLY-FISH 
THE CuBoMEDUSAE. By Franklin 8. Conant. Memorial Vol., with Biographical 
Sketch. Mem. Biol. Lab., Johns Hopkins Univ. IV. Part 1, xvi+62 pp., viii. 
pls. and frontispiece. Baltimore, 1898. 
THE friends of the late Dr Conant, with the aid of the Johns Hopkins 
University, have printed in the form of a memorial volume his disser- 
tation on the anatomy of the Cubomedusae. 
There is no group of the Coelentera which needed the careful 
investigation of a clever student more than the one which Conant 
chose for the subject of his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philo- 
sophy at the John Hopkins University. 
The Cubomedusae present so many features of exceptional interest 
that zoologists have felt very keenly that a reinvestigation of their 
anatomy and a study of their development were among the most 
important pieces of work yet to be done in the group of the Coelen- 
tera. The investigations of Claus and Haeckel, who were able to 
study preserved material only, are necessarily incomplete and unsatis- 
factory, and Conant seized the opportunity which the discovery of 
large numbers of the living medusae on the coast of Jamaica gave 
him of reinvestigating the whole subject. There can be no doubt in 
the minds of those who read the volume which records the results of 
his labours, that this contribution to science is a solid and valuable 
one. His descriptive writing is remarkably lucid, his reasoning clear, 
and at the same time cautious, and the numerous illustrations to the 
memoir are admirable. With such impressions framing themselves as 
we read the pages, there comes the feeling that in Conant we have lost 
a zoologist who had every prospect before him of a brilliant career in 
the scientific world. His patient and noble devotion to the cause he 
had at heart demands our admiration, and calls out our sympathy for 
his friends and fellow-workers in America who mourn his untimely 
death. 
The species that Conant had to work upon were Charybdea 
saymacana and Tripedalia cystophora, both of which were found in 
Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, the latter being the sole representative 
of the new family Tripedalidae. The habit of these two species is 
