102 Azotes and Comments. 



object, however, is to give in simple language an account of the 

 numerous extraordinary forms of animal and vegetable life 

 that existed in these periods, at the same time keeping before 

 his readers the fact that the modern highly developed species 

 have gradually evolved from old and simple forms. 



RESTORATIONS OF ANCIENT LIFE. 



We cannot find that the book contains any new or startling 

 discoveries, nor is this the author's intention. But he does 

 seem to have carefully and conscientiously reviewed the 

 enormous amount of literature bearing upon the subject, and 

 he has included particulars of the more recent discoveries. 

 To us, however, the most interesting part of the book consists 

 of the remarkable series of restorations of ancient animal and 

 plant life, from drawings by Miss Woodward and Mr. Bucknall, 

 and as these have been carried out under the supervision of the 

 various specialists at the British Museum, they can be taken 

 as being as reliable as possible. Some of them are really 

 very instructive indeed. Others set one thinking. We are 

 permitted to reproduce one of them (plate III.), though this 

 is on a smaller scale than appears in the volume. It represents 

 our ancestors, Pithecanthropus erectits and is based on the 

 remains found by Dubois in Java. 



LANCASHIRE PIGMY IMPLEMENTS. 



Messrs. \\\ H. Sutcliffe and W. A. Parker favour us with a 

 reprint of their paper on ' Pigmy Fhnt Implements : their 

 provenance and use : the Rochdale Floor,' a report of the 

 discussion upon which appears in the Lancashire Naturalist, 

 No. 47. The authors drew attention to the fact that certain 

 South African tribes, experts in skin dressing, use an instru- 

 ment made of a number of iron spikes tied round a piece of 

 wood so that the points only project bej/ond it. It was sug- 

 gested that the pigmy flint implements were probably inserted 

 into a wooden frame, and used for carding skins. W^ith this- 

 view Prof. Boyd Dawkins agreed. The Rev. R. A. Gatty, the 

 ' one pigmj^ flint one pigmy man,' advocate, followed in the 

 discussion, but apparently made no reference to his mythical 

 pigmies, but ' expressed himself as more anxious . to fix the 

 period or age to which ' the flints were i^elated. He referred 

 to the ' Auriguacien (sic.) Monsterian (sic), Solutrean (sic.) and 

 Magdalenian ' periods as apparently ' distinct in era from the 

 India-Scunthorpe period.' The gods and Mr. Gatty only know 

 what the ' India-Scunthorpe ' period is. 



AN INTERESTING PALAEOZOIC FERN. 



Dr. D. H. Scott kindly sends a reprint of his paper in 

 the ' Annals of Botany,' Volume XXVI., ' On a Palaeozoic 

 Fern, the Zygoptcris grayi of Williamson.' The name was 



Naturalist, 



