384 News from the Magazines. 
and less silky, forming a rather thick felt; the ends of most 
being rather thickly knobbed, and often nearly black, give a 
granular appearance to the body, especially at the sides and 
posteriorly. A glance of the two mites under the microscope 
would satisfy any observer of this specific difference, probably a 
dissection of the crista would reveal other structural differences. 
2.—Tyrombidium bicolor Hermann. 
I have long wished to see a satisfactory example of this 
mite. Hermann himself says it is rare and found in gardens. 
A year ago Mr. Musham sent me some mites preserved in spirit, 
taken during October at Canwick, near Lincoln, and among 
them I found a fine female specimen. It is indeed a very 
striking mite and well deserves its name of bicolor, for the legs 
are bright coral red, and the body black, the hairs or 
papillz also are simple and colourless. On dissection I found 
the crista something like the one figured on plate 2 of The 
Naturalist, for February, 1910. The contents of the abdomen 
were nearly black, and consisted of a number of dark- 
coloured eggs and a blackish substance. The skin itself was 
then transparent. The mite is not likely to be confounded with 
any other species, and J am not aware that it has been previously 
recorded in England. 
SS OS 
No. 273 of The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society contains a 
paper by Dr. J. E. Marr on ‘ The Lower Palxozoic Rocks of the Cautley 
District’; one by Mr. Stanley Smith on the genus Aulophyllum ; one by 
Professor A. C, Seward on Wealdon Floras ; and one by Messrs. C. Dawson 
and A. Smith Woodward on the Human Skull and Mandible found at 
Piltdown. 
Dr. Marie Stopes’ “Humorous Botanical Annual,’ the ‘ only comic 
scientific journal,’ The Sportophyte, (Dulau and Co., Is.) begins its whim- 
sicalities by calling a 24 page pamphlet ‘ Volume IV.’ And when she 
tells us herself that ‘the best joke’ is played on her readers by the 
publication not appearing on April 1st, we know what sort of hilarity 
we are likely to indulge in. There is a large illustration dedicated to the 
Gridicologists, showing a (presumably) Professor of Botany and a (pre- 
sumably) botanical lady friend sat on a moor measuring daisies. But they 
must have known the sketch was being made, as he has his eye ‘ glewed ’ to 
the ground and she turns her back to him and hides her face in a (pre- 
sumably) pillow ; anyway we never saw a bonnet like it. But the sketch is 
pathetic rather than comic, and is so poor that we shall expect to see it in 
next year’s Academy. There is an ‘Opera’ on Botany’s Bride (which has 
nothing to do with the Editor), and a poem on ‘ The Pea.’ We hope it is 
not owing to the fact that the editor may not, nowadays, be quite seeing 
the same funny side of life, but the present part of The Sportophyte did 
not amuse us anything like so much as did its predecessors. And surely 
the following is libellous :— 
There was once a Professor named Weiss, 
Who to girls was so ‘awfully neiss,’ 
That one little maiden, 
Though Botany laden, 
Sat Inter-Biology tweiss. 
Naturalist, 
