SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



9i 



A.NNAES DE SciENCIAS Naturaes (Oporto, April, 

 1894). Contribution to the Study of the Freshwater 

 Fishes of Portugal, by Dr. Lopes Vieira (French 

 text). — The first publication on the subject is the 

 preliminary catalogue issued in 1864 by Dr. F. II. 

 Steindachner. The next, also a catalogue, was 

 issued in 1880 by De Brito Capello. It is a some- 

 what remarkable fact that no Portuguese work 

 existed containing diagnoses of all the known 

 freshwater fishes of that kingdom, as the two 

 fore-mentioned catalogues contained descriptions 

 only of some new species, so that students of this 

 subject had to obtain their information respecting 

 the ichthyological fauna of their country from the 

 Catalogue of Fishes in the British Museum, by Dr. 

 Gunther. Using this work and L'Histoire Naturelle 

 des Poissons de France, by M. Moreau, as the bases 

 of his operations, comparing the specimens in the 

 Museum of Coimbra with the diagnoses in these 

 two works, the author arrives at the remarkable 

 result that of four genera he is undecided to which 

 species his specimens should be referred. Thus, 

 with the two species of Barbus said to be peculiar 

 to Portugal, Dr. Vieira tabulates the characters 

 and measurements of ten specimens in the Museum 

 side by side with those of the two described species ; 

 taking one series of characters and measurements, 

 they would be referred to Barbus bocagei, but taking 

 another series they would agree with those of 

 Barbus coniizo. Similarly with the specimens of 

 the genera Leuciscus, Chondrostoma and Trutta, the 

 author was unable to identify any of them from the 

 diagnoses and he therefore asks, and apparently 

 not without reason, " which are the constant 

 characters to permit the distinction between one 

 species and another? " Ergo, the species must be 

 re-diagnosed or, what seems a more satisfactory 

 solution, some of them must be merged into the 

 others, which he leaves for more able hands to do, 

 the only remark we are inclined to dispute. An 

 exhaustive list of all the specimens, with exact 

 habitat of each, preserved in the Museum of 

 Coimbra, concludes this able paper. Mr. W. C. 

 Tait continues his list of the birds of Portugal, and 

 the editor his " Observations on the nervous system and 

 zoological affinities of some terrestrial pulmonata . ' ' Dr. 

 Lopes Vieira contributes also a short Paper on 

 The Habits of the Marine and Freshwater Lampn v 

 (with a plate). Mr. E. J. Johnston continues his 

 Floral Calendar of Plants from the neighbourhood of 

 Oporto. "On the Malacological Fauna of the Islands 

 S. Thome and Madeira," by the Editor, Dr. 

 Augosto Nobre (First part). The mollusca of 

 S. Thome, collected by M. Moller in 1SS5 and 

 by M. Castro are enumerated and two new species 

 of marine and one of terrestrial mollusca are 

 described and figured. 



Annalen des K. K. Naturhistokisciikn 

 Hofmuseums (Vienna, 1S94, ix -. No - J )- "On the 

 Lepidopterous Fauna of the Canary Islands," by Dr. II. 

 Rebel and A. Rogenhofer. This very important 

 contribution to Lepidopterous literature is based 

 on the collections made by Prof. Dr. Oscar Simony 

 during his three voyages to the Canary Islands in 



1888, 1889 and 1890, consisting of about 400 speci- 

 mens, belonging to 120 species, and accompanied 

 by many . 1 notes, which he presented to 



the Imperial Hofmuseum of Vienna. The lepi- 

 dopterous fauna of the little-visited eastern islands 

 of this Archipelago was, up to the present time, 

 almost unknown. In addition, the collections 

 made by Dr. Brunner von Wattenwyl in 

 Teneriffe and He rr |. Richter, in Grand 

 Canary, which were likewise presented to the 

 museum, allowed various comparisons to be 

 made. We learn with pleasure that Lord Wal- 

 singham also contributed a very remarkable series 

 of micro-lepidoptera, collected by Mr. Leech in 

 Teneriffe in the Spring of 1886, which added 

 considerably to the family of Tortricidae, of which 

 but a very incomplete knowledge had hitherto 

 been obtained. A tabulated Systematic Surt 

 the Canarian Lepidoptera and their Geographical 

 1 1 tribution occupies eleven pages, and will be 

 much appreciated by students of distribution. 

 Then follows a chapter on the relations of the two 

 groups of islands (eastern and western) to each 

 other and to the nearest districts, and the authors 

 conclude that the primitive lepidopterous fauna, 

 which originated in the latter part of the Tertiary 

 period, has disappeared in the eastern group almost 

 completely, and in the western islands for the 

 greater part at least. In comparatively later 

 times, probably through changes in the direction of 

 the winds and through human agency, incursions, 

 chiefly of Mediterranean and West African forms, 

 took place, which, under the constant influence of 

 more favourable conditions of existence in the 

 Western Canaries, were mostly converted into ende- 

 mic local races. The second part contains an anno- 

 tated list of the macro-lepidoptera with diagnoses 

 of several new species, and a coloured plate ; additions 

 to the micro-lepidoptera, and an alphabetical index, 

 the whole Memoir occupying 96 pages. A Catalogue 

 of the Cryptogams in the Herbarium of the Imperial 

 Hofmuseum (first century), by several contri- 

 butors, with two plates. Reports on the various 

 departments of the Museum by the Director. 



Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1894). 

 — Critical list of Mollusks collected in the Potomac 

 Valley, by H. A. Pilsbry. In the introduction the 

 author informs us that the mollusks enumerated in 

 this paper, were collected by Mr. J. E. Ives and 

 himself during the course of a pedestrian tour 

 through parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland and 

 West Virginia, and, judging from the number of 

 species and varieties recorded, the excursion 

 appears to have been very successful. Under the 

 family Zonitida, Mr. Pilsbry remarks that "a 

 complete re-arrangement of the American genera 

 of this family is necessary, and although a local 

 faunal list may be considered hardly the place for 

 radical changes in nomenclature, still it may be 

 preferable to the perpetuation of an untenable 

 system." In view of the fact that the genus 

 Zonites of Montfort has no representative in 

 America, we think Mr. Pilsbry has been 

 well advised to distribute the species formerly 

 referred to this genus, into several distinct genera, 

 i.e., Omphalina, Vitrea, and Two 



new varieties of Helix tridentata are described and 

 figured. Homologies of the Alisphenoid and i 



by H.C. Chapman, Ml). 

 ributions to Life-Histories of Plants. The 



> Apples. The n ten Insects and 



theft fmpatiens fulva, by Thomas Meehan, 



(not concluded). 



