SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



171 



Hydrachna crucnta (Miiller). This Hydrachnid 

 can easily be mistaken for Hydrachna globosa. If 

 after the mite is killed, it is soaked in a five per 

 cent solution of formalin, the colour will in a great 

 measure be taken out of the body, except in a hard 

 chitinous piece which is situated just behind and 

 between the eyes (see fig. 4). It is this hardened 

 piece of skin which shows it to be H. crueuta (Miill.) 

 and not H. globosa (De Gear), the latter having 

 two chitinous patches, one behind each eye. The 

 epimera and legs of one side are given in fig. 5. 



Genus VIII. — Hydwdioma (Koch). Similar to 

 above genus, but with a shaped chitinous plate on 

 the anterior portion of the dorsal surface. 



Hydrodroma helvetica (Haller). Another red 

 mite with, a plate of chiten which stands out in 

 relief on the surface, which is not so in Hydrachna. 

 Fig. 6 is the shape of the plate of this species. 

 This mite was very common in 1894, but this 

 year I only took two specimens in the nymph 

 stage. 



Genu3 IX. — Hygrobates (Koch). Body soft- 



skinned. Legs well supplied with short swimming- 

 bristles, epimera in three groups. Three genital 

 suckers on each side of the genital fissure. 



Hygrobates hcmisphaericus (Koch). A yellow mite, 

 with pale-blue legs. I think these were always 

 supposed to be river-mites, but I have taken a 

 great many from ponds. Fig. 7 is dorsal surface 

 of a male. 



Genus X. — Limnesia (Koch). Body soft-skinned. 

 Fourth pair of feet without claws. Three genital 

 suckers on each side of genital fissure. 



Limnesia, ftdgida.— (Koch) . Dark-red mite, with 

 blue legs and epimera (see fig. 8.). Fig. g is the 

 genital area of the male, and fig. 10 is the genital 

 area of the female. 



This completes the list, as far as I have been 

 able to collect. It may be, as I have previously 

 said, I have not found all the Hydrachnides in the 

 Warren. I shall be very much obliged to anyone 

 finding others, if he will kindly send me on a 

 specimen. 



I, Sussex Villai, Kensington, W, 



THE FLORA OF ARCTIC NORWAY. 



By John Cordeaux, M.B.O.U. 



T N August last I was a passenger from Bergen to 

 Vadso, a small port in the Varanger Fjord, in 

 East Finmarken, on the Bergen Steamship Com- 

 pany's ship " Neptune." The party on board was a 

 large one, the primary object of this special expedi- 

 tion being to witness the total eclipse of the sun on 

 August gth. Opportunities were given us, both 

 on the outward and return journey, to land for a few 

 hours at various places of interest on the coast. 

 At Vadso, our ship remained from the morning of 

 the 7th to the afternoon of the gth of August. On 

 the Sth, we visited a whaling station on the Jar 

 Fjord, only a few miles from the Russian frontier. 

 Here, and on the moors and tundra north of Vadso, 

 I got the plants named in this list — comparatively 

 it is a meagre and very imperfect one, from the 

 limited time at ray disposal, also from the lateness 

 of the season, so many plants being out of bloom. 

 At the same time it was most interesting, as an 

 ornithologist, to be able to study the flora of the 

 Arctic tundras, the breeding-haunts in the summer 

 of such vast multitudes of European birds. 



In making this small collection of plants, I was 

 greatly indebted to one of our party on board the 

 Neptune— Miss May Roberts, of 8, Manchester 

 Square, a specialist in cryptogamic botany. I 

 have also to thank Mr. Edmund G. Baker, of the 

 British Museum, for his kindness in naming several 

 plants I was in doubt about ; these are marked 

 with an asterisk in the list ; also I am indebted to 



the Rev. E. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock, of Cadney, 

 Lincolnshire, for going through the plants with me 

 and revising the list. 



Plants at Vadsu and the Jar Fjord. 

 August, i8g6. 



* Salix ambuscula ; S. herbacea ; S. lanata ; S. 

 glauca ; Betula nana ; * Juniperus nana ; * Empetrum 

 nigrum: Vaccinium vitis idisa, with magnificent clusters 

 of scarlet berries, and leaves also bright scarlet 

 after frosts ; * V.myrtillus ; * V. uliginosum ; * Arcto- 

 staphyllos alpina ; * Comics succica, both berries and 

 occasionally blooms ; * Rubus chamiemorus, fruit 

 most abundant. 



Nothing caused me more astonishment than 

 the abundance and luxuriance of berries on these 

 last eight fruit-bearing plants. In some places the 

 delicious fruit of the cloudberry, the Norwegian 

 " Multibaer," gave a colour to the ground. It 

 seems the commonest plant on the tundra. In a 

 few weeks from August gth all this profusion of 

 small fruits will be buried deep in snow, but it is 

 not wasted, and remains sweet and uninjured 

 beneath the white mantle till the thaws of spring, 

 when they will afford an inexhaustible supply of 

 food, before any insect life is available, to countless 

 hosts of migratory birds. 



Rubus arcticus, in flower, but no fruit found. There 

 is no more lovely blossom in these wilds than the 

 Arctic bramble, rose-coloured on a short, slender 



H 2 



