Notices of Memoirs — A. M. Bell — Plants and Insects, Oxon. 565 



antiquity and phylogeuy of the members of the Filices, we have 

 endeavoured to give an account of the geological history of the 

 Osmundaceas. 



IV. — Plants and Coleoptbra from a Deposit of Pleistocene Age 

 AT WoLVERCOTE, OXFORDSHIRE. By A. M. Bell, M.A., F.G.S.^ 



PLANT remains of Pleistocene time are of great rarity in England. 

 The two most important series which have been described are 

 from Hoxne, in Suffolk, obtained by Mr. Clement Eeid, F.K.S., and 

 Mr. H. N. Eidley (Geol. Mag., 1888, p. 441), and from North 

 London by Mr. Worthington G. Smith. 



There is in these remains a singular difference. Of twenty-eight 

 plants obtained at Hoxne three are Arctic (Salix polaris and myrsi- 

 nttes, Betula nana) ; seventeen range to the Arctic Circle. At Stoke 

 Newiugtou, on the contrary, Mr. W. J. Smith obtained the elm, the 

 chestnut, clematis, and perhaps the vine. Only three out of eleven 

 plants reach the Arctic Circle. The pine, the alder, birch, and yew, 

 with the royal fern, were more in harmony with the present and the 

 past floras. In the author's opinion the Stoke Newington flora 

 represents a much later age of Pleistocene time than the Hoxne 

 flora. The conditions were continental, and the flora of the south 

 was gaining, while the Arctic flora was disappearing. 



The plants as yet identified, by the kindness of Mr. Clement Eeid, 

 from Wolvercote resemble those found at Stoke Newington more 

 than those at Hoxne. This is in harmony with the writer's view 

 that the Wolvercote deposit is of late Pleistocene age, nearer to the 

 Stoke Newington than to the Hoxne deposit. 



Eighteen plants obtained by the author are given. All of them 

 are found in Oxfordshire to-day. Eight only have an extension to 

 the Arctic Circle. Four mosses have been obtained, one of which 

 is certainly recent. A considerable number of the wing-cases of 

 beetles have also been found. These are difficult to identify, but 

 the genus of one, remarkable by its rows of hairs, has been named 

 by Mr. Waterhouse, of the Natural History Department of the 

 British Museum. Only one of the genus is now found in England, 

 and that is different from the Wolvercote species. On the other 

 hand the genus is common on the Continent. 



These facts, coupled with those from Stoke Newington, tend to 

 the conclusion that in late Pleistocene time the climate of the 

 Thames Valley was more continental than it is at present. 



V. — Recent Discoveries in Arran Geology. By William 

 Gunn, of H.M. Geological Survey of Scotland.^ 



(Communicated with the permission of the Director of the Geological Survey.) 



IN the last ten years very important additions have been made to 

 our knowledge of the geology of Arran both in the aqueous and 

 in the igneous rocks of the island. 



Among the older rocks a series of dark schists and cherts has been 



<liscovered in North Glen Sannox. They are probably of Arenig 



1 Kead before the British Association, Section C (Geology), Glasgow, Sept., 1901. 



