Notes and Comments. 125 



instead of the absurd waste of paper in the journal's present 

 form, it were to revert to its old octavo size, and dispense with 

 the unnecessary plates (one, in the current is ue, is a good 

 advertisement for Swedish industries, but of little value to 

 English museum curators), the saving would probably enable 

 the journal to appear monthly — even if a few pages dealing 

 with the pubhcation of foreign museums were dispensed with. 

 Nearly eight pages in the current issue refer to foreign museums, 

 and as this is the kind of thing which has, no doubt, brought 

 about the suggested drastic curtailment, surely the simplest 

 thing would be to dispense with it. 



DR. W. EAGLE CLARKE. 



We learn from Nos. 109 and no of The Scottish Naturalist 

 that ' a few weeks hence Dr. W. Eagle Clarke will retire from 

 the Keepership of the Natural History Department of the Royal 

 Scottish Museum,, and he thinks the time fitting also for his 

 withdrawal from being one of the Editors-in-chief of The 

 Scottish Naturalist. He intends to devote his leisure to the 

 completion of new editions of Saunders' Manual of British 

 Birds and Yarrell's more sumptuous treatise on the same 

 subject. Since he was selected to edit the former Scottish 

 Naturalist thirty years ago, he has taken a leading part in 

 guiding the fortunes and maintaining the standard of it and 

 its successors, the Annals of Scottish Natural History (1892- 

 1911) and the present Scottish Naturalist (1912- ), and his 

 colleagues feel that no ordinary tribute is due to these pro- 

 longed labours for the cause of the nature knowledge of our 

 country. Fortunately, Dr. Clarke will still give his services 

 as an Assistant-Editor, and will continue to do all in his 

 power to further the best interests of our magazine. Dr 

 Clarke's former place on the editorial staff has been taken, 

 at the request of his colleagues, by Dr. James Ritchie, who 

 has, since 1912, acted as an Assistant -Editor.' 



VEGETATION OF ENGLISH LAKES. 



Mr. W. H. Pearsall, one of the Hon. Secretaries of the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, dealt with the aquatic vege- 

 tation of Gormire at a meeting of the Yorkshire Naturahsts' 

 Union last year. He has since carried out his studies on 

 similar lines, the results of which have appeared in The 

 Journal of Ecology. The most recent of these memoirs, 

 prepared by the aid of a grant from the Royal Society, appears 

 in No. 3 of Vol. VIII. of that journal. It is an excellent con- 

 tribution to a new phase of botanical investigation, and is well 

 illustrated. Mr. Pearsall concludes ' (i) The distribution 

 of the aquatic plants considered is primarily governed by the 

 nature of the substratum, while the reaction of the substratum 

 to vegetation is controlled by variations in the quality and 



1921 April 1 



