1892. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 251 



but we may well be excused if we fail to accept the statement that 

 the bodies figured as spores are such — on the evidence of the figures. 

 A phycologist of his experience is not likely to have been deceived on 

 a point of this kind, but, as the matter stands, there is little to be 

 said and more to be doubted. However, the authors of these 

 Memoirs have certainly to be congratulated on the success of their 

 first number from a scientific point of view. The publication 

 deserves encouragement from botanists, and no doubt will meet with 

 it by making itself indispensable to workers. 



The geographical distribution of animal life in North America 

 forms the subject of an interesting memoir by Dr. C. Hart Merriam 

 in the last part of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 

 (vol. vii., pp. 1-64), issued on April 13. With the aid of a coloured 

 map, Dr. Merriam points out that a series of six irregular zones of 

 life may be distinguished in succession on proceeding from the border 

 of the Arctic region southwards. As the result of the investigation, 

 he considers that Mr. Wallace underrates the importance of tempera- 

 ture in determining the distribution of life. He also remarks that 

 the last-named authority is mistaken in supposing that on the two 

 sides of the Rocky Mountains " almost all the mammals, birds, and 

 insects are of distinct species." Dr. Merriam, indeed, entirely dis- 

 agrees with Mr. Wallace in his views on the distribution of life in 

 North America ; and in the concluding section of the memoir he 

 briefly touches on the wider question of the life-provinces of the 

 Northern hemisphere as follows : — 



" It now becomes evident that the so-called Palsearctic and 

 Nearctic Regions 'are the result, in each case, of confounding and 

 combining two wholly distinct regions — the Boreal with the Sonoran 

 in America, and the Boreal with the analogue of the Sonoran in 

 Eurasia. Eliminating these austral elements as wholly foreign to 

 the region to which they have been so persistently attached, there 

 remains a single great circumpolar Boreal region characterised by a 

 remarkably homogeneous fauna, covering the northern parts of 

 America and Eurasia." 



For a mass of interesting details we must refer our readers to 

 the memoir itself. 



Dr. Georg Baur publishes a preliminary account of his recent 

 visit to the Galapagos Islands in the current number of the Bio- 

 logisches Centralblatt (vol. xii., Nos. 7, 8, April 30, 1892, pp. 221-250). 

 Contrary to the usual belief, Dr. Baur concludes from his observa- 

 tions that these islands were directly connected with the mainland of 

 the American Continent in the early part of the Tertiary period. 

 He also remarks that some portions of the islands display a much 

 more luxuriant vegetation than was observed by Darwin in the com- 

 paratively arid localities visited by the " Beagle." The promised 

 detailed report will be awaited with interest. 



