250 NATURAL SCIENCE. 



JUNE, 



respect it rises little above De Toni. In fact, it is studded with 

 minor blunders and others of moment. For example, the figuring 

 of Chlorodictyon as an alga near Caulerpa (while it is a lichen with 

 abundant and well-marked apothecia) is scarcely excusable. Agardh 

 had so published it, but Asa Gray promptly put the matter right in 

 the American Journal of Science, and more recently Cramer confirmed 

 the emendation. 



In this country, which, in the days of Greville and Harvey, held 

 the lead in the study of Algae, it is very gratifying to report investi- 

 gation of a thorough kind. Recent papers by Messrs. Murray, Boodle, 

 Massee, Traill, Batters, Harvey Gibson, John B. Carruthers, andof a 

 talented lady worker at this subject, Miss Barton, have appeared in 

 the Journal and the Transactions of the Linnean Society, the Journal 

 of Botany, the Annals of Botany, and the Transactions of the Botanical 

 Society of Edinburgh. The most noteworthy recent publication is the 

 Phycological Memoirs (Dulau & Co.) to which we briefly referred last 

 month. These memoirs embody researches in Algae conducted in the 

 Department of Botany in the British Museum, where an active band 

 of workers have leagued themselves together. The Memoirs are 

 edited by Mr. George Murray, and if this first part is a specimen of 

 future numbers we may be well satisfied as to its success. The first 

 paper introduces a new type of alga into botanical literature. Miss 

 Mitchell and Miss Whitting (both hailing from Newnham) have 

 studied minutely and with judgment Splachnidinm rugosum, an alga 

 from the Cape, which they elevate into the type of a new order, 

 Splachnidiaceae, intermediate between Fucaceae and Laminariaceae. 

 It bears sporangia like Laminaria, in conceptacles like those of the 

 Fucaceae, but developing after a different fashion, as becomes a new 

 order. It may seem a courageous act on the part of two young 

 botanists to found a new order in what we take to be their first essay 

 in Phycology, but the step is abundantly justified, and they have 

 earned the congratulations of sterner and more experienced workers. 



The next two papers are by Mr. Murray. The first, on a fossil 

 alga from the Oolite — a Caulerpa from the Kimmeridge Clay — contains 

 also a brief and critical resume of our knowledge of fossil Algae, in 

 which he takes the side of Nathorst against Saporta. This record 

 appears, on his showing, to be the first evidence of a genuine 

 alga from the secondary rocks. The other paper by Mr. Murray deals 

 with an obscure alga, Dictyosphaeria , belonging to the Siphonocladaceae, 

 in continuation of previous work at this group. Miss Barton is 

 author of a paper on malformations of Ascophyllum and Desviarestia, 

 also in continuation of previous work on the pathology of Algae, a 

 subject of which very little is known. The malformation of Ascophyllum 

 is due to the operations of a new marine Nematode worm. 



Mr. Batters concludes the number with the description of a new 

 genus of perforating Algae found in the Clyde. His figures, like the 

 other plates of this well-printed publication, are excellently rendered, 



