66 Miscellaneous. 



paper, read to the British Association at Xorwich, was vilely hoaxed 

 ■when he gravely related, as part of his information derived from 

 reliable individuals, that the polar bear will remain so long in the 

 water as to allow of seaweeds growing on its back ! 



Finally, the recent discovery, by the German Polar Expedition 

 (vide the 8th Report of the Bremen Committee recently issued), of the 

 miisk-ox (Ovibos moscJiatus, Gm.) in abundance on the east coast of 

 Greenland, in about 75° north latitude, is a very interesting and 

 rather suggestive fact. Hitherto it has only been very sparingly 

 reported from the west coast, and then not south of "Wolstenholme 

 Sound, in 76° N". lat. It at one time appears to have been found 

 more abundantly on the shores of Smith's Sound; but t'lere is no 

 evidence whatever to lead to the belief that it does at present live, 

 0^ ever did live, south of the glaciers of Melville Bay. It thus ap- 

 pears that on both sides of the continent of Greenland the southern 

 range of this huge arctic animal is limited by about 75° or 76° N. 

 latitude. 



Perhaps you may consider these notes worthy of preservation, 

 I have passed most of the autumn in Denmark, and everywhere 

 heard congratulations that your health was again so good as to allow 

 of your continuing your labours, so valuable to science. In this 

 congratulation allow me to most heartily join, and to remain 



Yours most faithfully and respectfully, 



Robert Beown. 



Dr. Grau, F.R.S. ^"C. 



On Recent and Fossil Corals. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemex, — I see in yonr November Number the following 

 words by Mr. Kent : — " I may quote this form, again, as evidence 

 bearing out the truth of my assumption, disputed by Mr. Lankester 

 in a previous number of this Magazine, that the Corals of the 

 Palaeozoic epoch were equally complex and highly developed with 

 those peopling the existing seas." There has been a little mis- 

 understanding here. So far from having disputed this assumption, 

 I was not aware that Mr. Kent had ever made it before. I will not 

 now discuss it, but merely point out that this assumption, whether 

 justified or not, is not identical with the assumption which I did 

 dispute, viz. that the group of corals " had attained the very zenith 

 of its development long before " the Silurian epoch " had commenced 

 its decline." The development of a (jrovp is not measured by the 

 degree of skeletal complexity attained by one of its subordinate 

 groups. 



I am, Gentlemen, 



Tours truly, 

 Nov. 25, 1870, E. Ray La>-kestek, 



