432 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Ventolene, Vacca (Sardinia), Panaria (Lipari Is.), &c., the extreme cases 

 being Saraglione off Capri and Filfola. Similar observations have been 

 made in other parts of the world. The cause of this coloration has been 

 assigned to the action of the sun on the pigment-cells of the skin, the 

 lizards on islets being more exposed to the sun's heat than on larger tracts 

 of land. These black Filfola lizards are, as e rule, larger than the type 

 in Malta. I received several specimens ; there was considerable variation 

 in the arrangement of the scales on the belly, as also in the intensity of the 

 bronze-black. They were all more or less marked with green scales, varying 

 from emerald-green to a pale bright green. An excellent instrument for 

 obtaining lizard specimens is a very small-bore walking-stick-gun, with 

 No. 10 shot ; it kills or disables them without mauling. — E. F. Becher 

 Capt. R.A. 



FISHES. 



Wreck-fish at Penzance. — On August 17th I obtained here a specimen 

 of the Wreck-fish (Pohjprion, Couch), one of the three fishes known as 

 Stone Bass. It was found, as usual, near wreckage (in this case a wrecked 

 barrel) afloat. 1 have nothing particular to record of it, except perhaps 

 the fact that it proved exceedingly good from a culinary point of view. — 

 Thomas Cornish (Penzance). 



Ray's Bream at Penzance.— On Sept. 6th I received from Porthgwara 

 (a fishing cove west of the Logan Rock) a small specimen of Ray's Bream, 

 Brama Rail. It was captured, as these fish usually are, in a dying or 

 disabled state on the edge of the waves. It is a small specimen, weighing 

 about twenty ounces, and is chiefly remarkable from my having made it 

 the subject of experiments with an antiseptic powder exhibited in our little 

 West Cornwall Fisheries Exhibition held here during the past fortnight. 

 Tlie fish was taken on Sept. 4th, was bathed in the prescribed solution of 

 the antiseptic powder on the 5th, and was eaten by me on the 12th, when 

 I found it in a perfectly fresh state. — Thomas Cornish (Penzance). 



MOLLUSCA. 



The proposed adoption of Trinomial Nomenclature. — Objection has 

 been made to the trinomial system of nomenclature proposed by Dr. Coues, 

 on the ground that it would be very liable to abuse, especially by amateurs, 

 and certainly no better justification of this stricture could be found than the 

 following extract from • Science Gossip ' for September : — " The early part 

 of this week I had a very pretty banded Helix nemoralis, var. hyhrida, 

 var. minor, var. sinistrorsum (reversed), sent me from a village near Bristol." 

 Readers of ' Science Gossip ' will doubtless be grateful to the writer for the 

 translation of sinistrorsum, which of course should be sinistrorsa; but surely 

 the addition of " var. x-fasciata" is required to complete the description. — 

 B. B. Woodward (British Museum). 



