302 Bibliographical Notices. 



ther small 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 

 in 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 palaeontologist, 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 palaeontologist 

 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 jironouncing 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 shoidd 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-})eriod as can be expected in 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, in 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 Pycnogonoidea, by G. Hodge ; on Coal-measure 

 Fishes, by Messrs. Kirkby and Atthey ; and on the Rain-fall, by 



