457 



NORTHERN NEWS. 



We regret to notice the announcement of the death of t'ne Rev. \V. O. 

 INlassingberd, the well-known Lincolnshire Archaeologist. 



Mr. James Reeve, who has recently retired from the Norwich ^Museum, 

 has presented a very line Great Auk's egg to that Institution. He bought 

 it a few months ago for ;(250. 



We learn from the daily press that a species of sword fish has been 

 taken from the Ri\er Xene near Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, by a local 

 fisherman. The lengtii of the lisli was eight feet, the sword being about 

 three feet long. 



The Rev. A. Hunt kindly sends us a list of his lectures on ' Lincolnshire 

 Past and Present.' We notice one refers to ' Paleolithic [sic] Mes.seolithic 

 [sic] Neolithic and Bronze Age ' periods. Presumably the .1/<?sseolithic 

 will refer to the little Lincolnshire pigmies. 



Dr. W. G. Smith has an interesting paper on the ' Impro\-ement of 

 Cereals — Patrick Shirreff's work (Trans, of tiie Highland and Agricultural 

 Societ}^ Scotland.)' In this the autiior outlines the work of Patrick 

 Shirretf as an improver of cereals, and siiows its influence on the choice of 

 crops grown on the farms. 



We are glad to see that a former editor of tiiis journal, Mr. W. Eagle 

 Clarke, has in preparation a new and revised edition of Yarrell, Newton 

 and Saunders' History of ' Britis'n Birds.' T'ne same author also has in 

 the press ' Studies in Bird-I^Iigration,' a subject upon w-hich, of course, 

 he is particularly able to write. 



Mr. James M. Brown favours us with a copy of his paper on ' Fresh 

 water Rhizopods from the English Lake District,' reprinted from the 

 Linnean Society's Journal. T'nis is illustrated by a plate showing Amceba 

 vespevtilio Penard ; Difftiigia rubescens Penard ; Difftugia oviformis Cash ; 

 Nebela militaris var. tubiilata var. nov. ; Englypha compressa Carter ; Coyy- 

 thion dubium Taranek ; and Paulinella chromatophora Lauterborne. 



The Rev. Hilderic Friend, of no Wilmot Road, Lincolnshire, informs 

 us that he is preparing a monograph of British eartii and water worms, 

 for the Ray Society, and it is very desirable that accurate information 

 should be supplied therein respecting the species of worms, which are harm- 

 ful, found in plant-pots. As our knowledge of t'nis subject is very imper- 

 fect, he would be greatly obliged if gardeners and others would send iiim 

 specimens of living worms for identiiication. 



Mr. C. S. Middlemiss (formerly of Hull), has written a memoir of 400 pp., 

 dealing with the Kangra earthquake of April 4th, 1905, whicir has been 

 issued as Vol. XXXYHI. of the 'Memoirs of t'ne Geological Survey of India.' 

 The writer illustrates the report with a number of plates from photo- 

 graphs, all of which clearly indicate the extraordinary efttcts of this great 

 Indian earthquake. It will be remembered t'nat some little time ago Mr. 

 Middlemiss was at woik on the geology of East Yorkshire, and described 

 the cuttings in the railway sections at South Cave. 



Mr. C. Crossland fa\ours us with further evidence of iiis energy in the 

 form of three papers recently published. The first ' An Eight;enth Cen- 

 tury Naturalist, James Bolton, Halifax,' (32 pp. 6d.), is an admirable 

 account of the life and work of one of the first of the many prominent 

 naturalists who ha\'e lived in Halifax. We are sorry tiiat it is not accom- 

 panied by a portrait of Bolton ; which, we presume, it was not possible to 

 obtain. From the Bradford Scientific Journal is reprinted an article on 

 ' Fungi ' which has a very useful bibliography. From the British Mycolo- 

 gical Society is the reprint of a paper on ' Omitted .Asci Measurements of 

 some British Discomycetes.' 



1910 Dec. I. 



