32 NOTES. 



Gerota, D. — " Contribution a I'etude du formol dans la technique anato- 

 mique." lot. J. Anat. Physiol., xiii., pp. 108-39, iSg6. 

 Although written from the point of view of the human anatomist, this 

 paper should be read by all those interested in the preser\ation and fixation 

 of zoological material for the museum or laboratory. The time will probably 

 arnv^e when alcohol will be used as a preserving agent, especially by the 

 zoologist in the field, only in exceptional cases ; as for most purposes Formalin 

 is in every way superior. 



Nusbaum, J. — " Einige Bemerkungen uber das Aufkleben der Paraffinschnitte 

 mit Wasser." Anat. Anz., xii., pp. 52-4, 1896. 

 A very good description of this, the simplest and best method of fixing 

 sections ; it deserves to be better known. 



VI. ECONOMICS. 



Roche, G. — " Recherches statistiques sur I'Huitre cultivee des cotes de 

 France." C. R. Ac. Sci., cxxii., pp. 955-7, 1896. 



VII. BIOGRAPHY. 



Gill, T. — " Huxley and his Work." Science, n.s., iii., pp. 253-63. 



A memorial address given before the Scientific Societies of Washington. 



NOTE. 



On Pterosoma plana. Lesson. — At the June meeting last year of the 

 Malacological Society of London, a paper by Mr. C. Hedley, F.L.S.,* was 

 read claiming Pterosoma plana. Lesson, as a Heteropod. This conclusion was 

 arrived at after a careful examination of several examples which had been 

 "cast ashore by an easterly gale at Mavoubra Bay, near Sydney." In this 

 paper it is stated that "seventy years ago the French scientific expedition 

 fished up this species between the Moluccas and New Guinea, but never again 

 till now has it been encountered by a naturalist." I would, however, point 

 out that the true position of this mollusc was first shewn by Mr. C. Colling- 

 wood, F.L.S.,J in 1868, from a specimen dredged by himself in the Formosa 

 Channel while naturalist on H.M.S. " Serpent " in 1866. As Mr. Hedley has 

 overlooked this, I will give the full quotation: — "And here I may refer to 

 several singular marine animals discovered by the towing-net in the Formosa 

 Channel, which proved a rich locality for strange and rare forms. Among 

 them was Pterosoma (Pt. plana), a transparent, delicately-tinted, winged 

 animal, thick and gelatinous and almost invisible in the water. It belongs to 

 a class of Mollusks known to naturalists as Heteropods, oceanic animals of 

 anomalous forms with the foot variously modified for swimming. The 

 Pterosoma was established as a genus by Lesson from a species he found 

 swimming in the vicinity of New Guinea, but either the drawings of the 

 animal are \ery badly executed in all the books, or the one found in my net 

 must be a second species, for there is but little resemblance between them." 

 This last statement is now confirmed by Mr. Hedley, as he has shewn that 

 Lesson's drawing was made from a damaged specimen. 



EDITOR'S NOTES. 



Malacologists will be ^\3.A to hear that Mr. Charles Hedley has been attached as 

 Zoiilogist to the Expedition which is to make a boring in the coral atoll of Tunafuti, one 

 of the Ellice Islands. We wish him all good fortune. 



Our contemporary, Deronia, has now blossomed into print, and its readers will 

 welcome the change. 



♦Proceedings of the Malacological Society of London, vol. i, page 333. 



JRambles of a Naturalist. Cuthbert Collingwood, M.A., F.L.S., &c., 1868, page 54. 



