Sune 29, 1871 | 
accively proceeded with under the direction of Dr, Eichler, and 
to which I shall recur under the head of South America. 
Rohrbach has published a carefully worked-out conspectus of the 
difficult genus S7/ene, and, in the “Linnea,” a synopsis of 
Lychnideze ; and Bockeler, also in the ‘‘ Linnza,” is describing 
the Cyperaceze of the herbarium of Berlin, a work very unsatis- 
factory, considering the detail in which it is carried out, as it takes 
no notice whatever of the numerous published species not there 
represented, nor of any stations or other information relating to 
those described other than that what are supplied by that her- 
barium. It is not a monograph, but a collection of detached 
materials for a monograph. 
Switzerland comprises the loftiest and most extensive moun- 
tain-range of which the biology has been well investigated—the 
Alps, which have lent their name to characterise the vegetation 
and other physical features of mountains generally, when attaining 
or approaching to the limits of eternal snows. ‘The relations of 
this Alpine vegetation, both in its general character due to cli- 
matological and other physical causes, and in its geographical 
connection with other floras, has been frequently the subject of 
valuable essays, several of which I have mentioned on former 
occasions ; and it is most desirable that the results obtained should 
be verified by or contrasted with those which might be derived 
from zoological data, and more particularly by the observation 
of insects and terrestrial mollusca. As a first step it is necessary 
that the plants and animals of the country should be accurately 
defined and classed in harmony with those of adjoining regions. 
This has been done for plants. The Swiss Flora has been well 
worked up both by German and by French botanists ; it is included 
in Koch’s Synopsis and some other German Floras. De Can- 
dolle and other writers on the French Flora had to introduce a 
large portion of the Swiss vegetation, and the compilers of the 
rather numerous Swiss Floras and handbooks* have generally 
followed either the one or the other, so that there remains but 
little difficulty in the identification of Swiss botanical races ; but 
here, as elsewhere, methodical faunas of the country are much 
inarrear, I have the following notes from M. Humbert of what 
has been published in this respect during the last three years. 
V. Fatio, ‘* Faune des Vertébrés de la Suisse,” 8vo, vol. i. 
Mammiféres, 1869 (reported on in “ Zoological Record,” vi. 
p. 4): the second volume, Reptiles, Batrachia, and Fishes, to 
appear in the course of the present year, the 3rd and 4th vols. 
(Birds) to follow. This fauna is the first which has been pub- 
lished on the Vertebrata of Switzerland. Hitherto there have 
only been partial and incomplete catalogues. The species are 
carefully described, and there are numerous notes on their distri- 
bution and habits, from the authoi’s observations made in all the 
Swiss collections and in the field. There are also interesting 
historical details upon certain animals which have more or less 
completely disappeared from Swiss territory, such as the stag, 
the roebuck, and the wild boar, as also on the mammifers, whose 
remains have been found in recent deposits. G. Stierlin and 
V. de Gaward, “Fauna Coleopterorum Helvetica,’ in the 
Nouveaux Mémoires of the Helvetic Society, xxiii. and xxiv,, a 
catalozue with stations and often limits in altiiude, supplementing 
Heer’s “ Fauna Coleopterorum Helvetica.” H. Frey’s cata- 
logues of and notes on Swiss Microlepidoptera, in the ‘* Mit- 
theilungen” of the Swiss Entomological Society, P. E. Miiller, 
Note on the Cladocera of the great lakes of Switzerland, from 
the ‘‘ Archives” of the Bibliot! éque Universelle, xxxvii., April, 
1870 = In his excellent memoir on the Monoclea of the neigh- 
bourhood of Geneva, Jurine had only described the small crustacea 
of ponds and swamps. He hat not investigated the species 
which inhabit the Lake of Geneva, and he had also neglected 
some very interes ing iorms which are only to be met with in 
large expanses of water, such as Sythotrephes longimanus and 

* In the list of publications of the last three years only, sent me by M. A. 
De Candolle, are the following new Swiss Botanical Handbooks ;—J. C. Du- 
e¢mmun, ‘' Taschenbuch fiir d n Schweizeri chen Botaniker,” 1 vol. 8vo 
of so24 pages, with some analytical woodcuts: few details on stations. R. 
T. Simler, ‘‘ Botanischer Taschenbegleiter der Alpenclubisten,” 1 vol. 12mo, 
4 plates: alpine species only. Tissiére (late Canon of «t. Bersard, now 
deceased), ** Guide cu Botaniste au Grand St Bernard ” x vol. 8vo: a cata- 
Jogue with detailed 1 calties. J. Rtiner, * Prodrom der Wal statter 
Gefasspflanzen,” 1 vol. 8vo: a catalogue with details ©s to localivies. 
Mortiner, * Flore anatytique de lt Suisse,” 1 vol remo: imuated from an 
older German ‘‘ Excursions Flora fur die »chweiz,” by A Gremli A new 
(3rd edition of L. Fis her's * Flora von fern ' and Fischer-Oosters © Kubi 
beinenses ;”’ the latter work, together with som» contributions to the Swiss 
Fiora of A. Gremli, adding 98 pages to the volumes of Batological literature 
we already vossess, wi hout advancing a step either in giving us a clear 
notion of what 1s a species of Bramble, or in facilitating our naming those we 
meet with, unless in the precise localities indicated by the several authors. 
NATURE 


171 
Leptodora hyalina. M. Miller points out the differences there 
are between the Cladocera of the centre of the Jakes and those 
of the margins. The former, which float freely over the lake, 
have a peculiar stamp, marking also the marine crustacea of open 
sea ; their bodies have an exireme transparency, and they show 
a great tendency to the development of long and rigid balancing 
organs. The latter, on the contrary. are little transparent, have 
stunted forms, and are without balancing or other elongations 
which might interfere with their movements amidst solid objects, 
such as stones and aquatic plants near the shores ; most of these 
littoral species show, moreover, a development of some organ 
that assists them in moving upon solid bodies, M. Miiller finds 
also a very great connection between the Cladoceral faunas of 
Switzerland and Scandinavia. 
The Association zoologique du Léman, founded upon the 
model of the Ray Society, has for its object the publication of 
monographs relating to the basin of the Léman or Lake of 
Geneva, that is, the region comprised between Martigny and the 
Perte du Rhone, with the valleys of the affluents received by the 
Rhone in this portion of its course. It has been carried on as 
successfully as could have been expected from a scientific under- 
taking of this nature, reckoning at the present moment nearly 
200 members. It has already published papers by A. Brot on 
the shells of the family of Naiadz, with nine plates; by F. 
Chevrier on the Nyssze (Hymenoptera); by V. Fatio on the 
Arvicelz, with six plates; by H. Fourniet on the Dascillidz 
(Coleoptera), with four plates ; and is now issuing a more im- 
portant work, the result of long and patient investigation, G. 
Lunel’s ‘‘ Histoire Naturelle des Poissons du Bassin du Léman,”’ 
in folio, with twenty plates beautifully executed in chromolitho- 
graphy. Two parts, with eight plates, have already appeared, 
and the work is in rapid progress. A specimen of the plates, 
received from M. Humbert, lies on the tables of our library. I 
have also a rather long list of papers on the zoology of the 
same district or of the Canton de Vaud, inserted in the Bul- 
letin of the Société Vaudoise of Natural History, and of 
others on the zoology of other districts, from various other 
Swiss Transactions, all of which are noticed in our ‘‘ Zoo- 
logical Record,” vols. v. and vi. To these must be added 
J. Saratz’s ‘‘Birds of the Upper Engadin,” from the 2nd 
volume of the Bulletin of the Swiss Ornithological Society, 1870. 
The valley of the Upper Engadin commences at 1,860 metres 
above the level of the sea, and ends at 1,650 metres, where 
commences the Lower Engadin. The list therefore given by M. 
Saratz includes no point situate below that elevation. He classes 
the birds of this valley and of the mountains which enclose it 
into—1, sedentary birds; 2, birds which breed in the Upper 
Engadin, but do not spend the winter there; and 3, birds 
purely of passage. He enumerates 144 species, and gives upon 
every one notes of its station, times of passage, abundance or 
rarity, &c. 
Meyer-Niir has a short note in the ‘‘Mittheilungen” of 
the Swiss Entomological Society (iii. 1870) on certain relations 
observed between the insect faunas of Central Europe and 
Buenos Ayres—a question worthy perhaps of some considera- 
tion in connection with the above-mentioned coincidence of a 
Chilian and East-Mediterranean Gem and a very few other 
curious instances of identical or closely representative species 
of plants in the hot dry districts of the East Mediterranean, 
the central Australian, and the extratropical South American 
regions. ws 
Swiss naturalists continue their activity in various branches of 
biology. E. Claparéde’s very valuable memoirs on Annelida 
Chzetopoda and on Acarina have been fully reported on in the 
“* Zoological Record,” as well as Henri de Saussure’s entomo- 
logical papers, which have been continued in the more recently 
published volumes of the Memoirs of the Société de Physique of 
Geneva and of the Swiss Entomological Society. In Botany, 
since I last noticed De Candolle’s ‘* Prodromus,” the sixteenth 
volume has been completed by the appearance of the first part, 
containing two important monographs—that of Urticacez, by 
Weddell, and of Piperaceze, by Casimir De Candolle, together 
with some small families by A. De Candolle and J. Miiller. The 


‘social disturbances of the last twelvemonth have much de- 
layed the preparation of the seventeenth volume, which 
is to close this great work; but it is hoped that it will 
be now shortly proceeded with. Of Boiijsier’s ‘‘ Flora 
Orientalis,” mentioned in my address of 1868, the second volume 
is now in the printer’s hands. Dr. G. Bernouilli, who had re- 
sided some time in Central America, has published, in the 
