302 Bibliographical Notices. 
ther smal! or extensive in area, is the zoology of a sort of border 
territory, where marine and freshwater life meet and to some extent 
commingle. It is here that the conservatism of species is tested, or 
where new conditions offer them the best opportunities for showing 
the strength of their tendencies towards change and advancement— 
or, perhaps, change and retrogression. If the white bear of Darwin 
has ever to become a whale, it is under such circumstances that we 
should expect to see it acquiring those new habits that are to result 
ap such a transformation of its structure, organization, and mode of 
life. 
There are also other grounds on which investigations like the pre- 
sent are of great interest ; for they throw light on the researches of 
the paleontologist, more especially on that still disputed question 
among geologists, the origin of the coal-measures, whether they 
were formed in fresh or salt water. We will quote the remarks of 
the author on this point. 
«« Estuarine swamps such as this which we have just noticed seem 
to be the nearest analogues we now possess of those extensive lagoons 
which, during the Carboniferous period, supported the rank vegetable 
growths now fossilized in our Coal-measures. To the paleontologist 
it must be a matter of considerable interest to note the association 
of species in such localities; and I think enough has been said to 
show that considerable caution should be used in pronouncing upon 
the freshwater or saline nature of any deposits merely from the na- 
ture of the animal forms which they enclose. Judging from analogy, 
however (if our own island may be taken as a type), we should sup- 
pose that any great luxuriance of vegetable growth must be indicative 
of freshwater conditions. We uniformly find in the saline portions 
of these marshes a peculiarly dwarfed and stunted vegetation, while 
as we recede from the salt-water influence, it often assumes a rank 
luxuriance, putting on a character quite as much in accordance with 
the vegetation of the coal-period as can be expected im these degene- 
rate days.” 
Mr. J. Hancock furnishes a paper on the recent occurrence of 
Pallas’s Sand-grouse in Northumberland and Durham, in which he 
informs us that about twenty-three individuals of that species were 
shot in those counties in the year 1863. It is just possible that this 
Siberian visitor may meet with a suitable habitat in some of the 
northern parts of our island, and so remain a permanent resident 
with us, though we doubt much whether this can be, im our present 
state of high civilization, and with that rampant propensity for ex- 
terminating which the modern Englishman exhibits to everything 
that he cannot domesticate into his burden-bearing or flesh-feeding 
retainers. 
We cannot refer at length to the other papers that appear in the 
Part, though several of them contain valuable information both to 
the naturalist and the general reader. Suffice it to say that among 
them are papers on Coal-miners, by Dr. Wilson; on Ostracoda, by 
G. S. Brady; on Pyenogonoidea, by G. Hodge; on Coal-measure 
Fishes, by Messrs. Kirkby and Atthey; and on the Rain-fall, by 
