102 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
moreover, on both shores of Davis Straits, owing to the whalers 
being in too great a hurry to reach the north water to stop to 
hunt them systematically, they are still abundant. 
I am informed that the Behrings Straits fishery has yielded 
about 200 Whales against 190 in the previous season. 
My notes this year are, I fear, very commercial in their 
tendency, but some of the incidents of the voyage of the ‘ Eclipse’ 
which Mr. Robert Gray has been good enough to allow me to 
extract from his private log, will be found printed in this Journal 
for February last (pp. 50—-54). As on former occasions, I have 
again to express my indebtedness to Capt. David Gray for 
information with regard to the Greenland fishery; to Mr. D. D. 
Adamson, of Greenock, for particulars of the Newfoundland 
Sealing; and to Mr. David Bruce, of Dundee, for general 
statistics of the season’s voyage. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
The Philosophy of Natural History.—Lord Rosebery has endowed 
anew Lectureship in the University of Edinburgh. The course, which 
will extend over five years, will consist of thirty lectures on the Philosophy 
of Natural History. The lectureship has been offered to, and accepted by, 
Mr. G. J. Romanes, F.R.S. This is the second lectureship which has 
recently been founded in connection with the Chair of Natural History. 
The other one is on Comparative Embryology, and is occupied by Mr. G. 
Brook, F.L.S. Apropos of this subject, we have often wondered why 
Dr. Fleming’s ‘ Philosophy of Zoology’ (2 vols. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1822) is 
not more read and better known than it appears to be. It is an admirable 
work for the date at which it was written, and on many points may be still 
consulted with advantage. The same author’s ‘ History of British Animals,’ 
published in 1828, seems to be much better known. 
The Zoology of Central Asia.—In ‘The Zoologist’ for June, 1885 
(p. 227), we published some information respecting the travels of Colonel 
Prjevalsky, and his investigation of the Fauna of Central Asia. The last 
number of the Journal of the Russian Geographical Society (xxi. 8) contains 
a letter from him, dated Lob-nor, 29th January, 1885. From this it 
appears that after having spent a month at ‘T'saidam, the expedition, on the 
18th September, resumed its further advance, following the hills of the 
Kuen-lun, that is, of the border range of the plateau of ‘Thibet. Southern 
