Reviews — Weafden Plants in British Museum. 127 



Included in the " Addenda et Corrigenda " at the end of the Part 

 is a notice of the hitherto problematic genus Platysiagum, Egerton, 

 of the Lower Lias, which Mr. Woodward proposes to refer to the 

 Pala3oniseida3. Certainly the osteology of the head of Platysiagum 

 is palaeoniscoid in the highest degree, and I should myself have 

 referred it to this family twenty years ago had I not seen in the 

 collection of the late Lord Enniskillen a specimen, now in the British 

 Museum, in which the upper lobe of the tail seemed to be decidedly 

 w»n-heterocercal. Mr. Woodward says, however, that the upper 

 lobe of the tail is unknown, and my remembrance of the specimen 

 is that the tail is so twisted that it is hard to know which is upper 

 and which lower. At the same time I have many a time carefully 

 examined the fish with the hope of finding myself mistaken in the 

 orientation of its caudal lobes, but always with the same result. 

 If Mr. Woodward's reading be correct, then the apparent anomaly of 

 a fish with such a very palaeoniscoid head and a non-heterocercal 

 tail will be removed. 



It would be impossible, within the limits usually allowed for a 

 review of this kind, to enter into any more minute analysis of the 

 contents of the volume now before me. Let me conclude by saying 

 that the task of preparing this Part must have been a most arduous 

 one, and that Mr. Woodward has performed it in a manner well 

 deserving of the grateful and appreciative recognition of his fellow- 

 workers in science. 



Eight beautiful restored drawings of Mesozoic fishes are given in 

 the text, which will surely be of more use to the textbook-makers 

 than the antiquated Agassizian figures which down to the present 

 day are so often copied and re-copied. As to the eighteen litho- 

 graphic plates, it is sufficient to say that they, as well as the re- 

 stored drawings, are from the accomplished pencil of Miss G. M. 

 "Woodward, and that, as might be expected, they occupy a place 

 in the first rank of paheontographical work. 



K. H. Traquair. 



II. — Catalogue of the Mesozoic Plants in the Department 

 of Geology, British Museum (Natural History). "The 

 Wealden Flora. Part II : Gy.mnosperm^e." 8vo, pp. 260. 

 With Twenty Plates and Nine Figures in the Text. By A. C. 

 Seward, M.A., F.G.S. London : Dulau & Co., 1895. 



THE present volume completes Mr. Seward's excellent account 

 of the fossil plants of the British Wealden formation. Un- 

 fortunately no remains of Angiosperms have, so far, been found in 

 these beds, so the ascending series closes with the Conifers. The 

 book, with the aid of the numerous and admirable plates (chiefly 

 drawn by Miss Woodward), gives a clear picture of the fades of the 

 Wealden Flora, and it would be difficult to speak too highly of the 

 scientific judgment shown by the author in estimating the affinities 

 of the various fossils. 



Cycadean' remains, or at least specimens most naturally referred 

 to the Cycadaceae, constitute an important feature of the Wealden 



