150 Notes and Comments. 
DR. A. SMITH WOODWARD’S ADDRESS. 
In his recent Presidential Address to the Geological Society, 
Dr. A. Smith Woodward remarked that the progress of Geology 
depends on so many lines of research, that each specialist does 
well at times to pause and consider the relation of his own small 
part to the whole. He therefore reviewed some results of his 
study of fossil fishes in their bearing on stratigraphy. However 
necessary detailed lists of species of fossils might be for com- 
parative work with sediments in restricted areas, he hoped to 
show that in dealing with broader questions, names were really 
of small importance. Certain general principles had been 
arrived at, which would serve for all practical purposes. Each 
successive great group of fishes began with free-swimming 
fusiform animals, of which some passed quickly into slow- 
moving or grovelling types, while others changed more gradu- 
ally into elongated or eel-shaped types. There was also a 
constant tendency for the primitive symmetry of the parts 
of the skeleton in successive members of a group to become 
marred by various more or less irregular fusions, sub-divisions, 
and suppressions. Some of the successive species of each 
group increased in size, until the maximum was reached just 
before the time for extinction. These and many other more 
special inevitable changes had now been traced in most groups, 
and the various geological dates at which they occurred had 
been determined by observations on fossil fishes from many 
parts of the world. Even fragments of fish-skeletons, too 
imperfect to be named, were often therefore of value for 
stratigraphical purposes. 
THE WAR AND SECOND-HAND BOOKS. 
The war is responsible for much, but it was a little un- 
expected to find notes similar to the following in a list of books 
for sale issued by one of our leading firms :—-No. 834.—Becker 
(Leon), ‘ Les Arachnides de Belgique.’—’. . . Since the informa- 
tion of the above work, Belgium has been overrun by the 
enormouse migration of a gigantic bloodsucking — spider, 
Kulturia Vastatrix Treitschk, with falces of a noxiousness 
hitherto unknown to naturalists. Although in their new 
habitat these Archnida have approximated to the trap-door 
spiders, their expulsion and extermination is only a matter of 
time.’ No. 835.—Beneden (Pierre Joseph van)’. . . . Animal 
Parasites and Messmates.’ ‘ Like Belgium in general, Louvain 
in particular is suffering from the unexpected arrival of vermin 
of a very low type, which are unlikely to survive the freshening 
winds of spring. No. 1066.—-Haeckel (Ernst), “ Report on 
the Siphonophore ... ‘This is the man who, with Dr. 
Eucken, put forth with his tongue in his cheek the lying 
statement that the French invaded Belgium before his own 
countrymen did.’ 
Naturalist, 
