EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 187 



nearly the whole length of my journey. I saw very few Roan, a good 

 many intensely shy Oribi, and a few ditto Senegal Hartebeest, One 

 Buffalo was seen, but not by me. I saw two Zebra; beyond that, nil." 



Naturalists will be pleased to learn that Mr. Edward Dodson is about 

 to leave, or has left England for Morocco, with the object of investigating 

 the fauna of the country around the Atlas range. This will be Mr. 

 Dodson 's third visit to Africa, his previous journeys being in connection 

 with Professor Elliott's expedition to Somaliland and Mr. Donaldson 

 Smith's scientific mission to British East Africa. 



Mr. J. E. S. Moore has reached England on his return from Central 

 Africa, which he visited to investigate the fresh-water fauna of Lake 

 Tanganyika. In conversation with a representative of Reuter's Agency, 

 Mr. Moore said: — " I found the fauna of Tanganyika to be unique — unlike 

 anything ehe anywhere — and as limited as peculiar. The Jelly-fish and 

 Shrimps were certainly of a marine type, while the geology of the district 

 precluded the possibility of any connection with the sea in recent times. 

 The water, which Livingstone found to be brackish, is now quite drinkable. 

 All this seems to prove that the Tanganyika part of the great Rift Valley 

 running through this part of Africa at one time had access to the sea, while 

 it is perfectly clear that Lake Nyassa — some 246 miles to the south-east — 

 apparently never had any marine connection. It is also a matter of interest 

 that the fauna of Tanganyika is not only marine, but of a very peculiar and 

 primitive type, and it is quite reasonable to suppose that the characteristics 

 of the fauna are connected with the remote geological connection of the 

 lake with the sea." 



Prof. Anton Fritsch, of Prague, in the March number of * Natural 

 Science,' discusses the very important question of " Fresh-water Biological 

 Stations." This investigation has already been commenced in America, 

 Bohemia, Germany, and Russia, and it is quite time England joined that 

 scientific concert. Last summer Prof. Fritsch lectured on more than thirty 

 kinds of life-groups " of Bohemian fresh waters, each with its own special 

 fauna and flora : springs, mountain brooks, mountain rivers, rivers of the 

 plain, backwaters of large rivers, ponds, lakes, bogs, small pools with Apus, 

 snow-tarns with Branchipus, &c. Each of these kinds of water varies in its 

 own fauna with the season of the year, and also from year to year according 

 as rain and sunshine also vary. Here is work for a century." 



This work in Bohemia is done ou admirable method, especially in these 

 days of poor endowments. It is open to question whether poverty is not 

 often the handmaid of research, though the crying shame is that it is so 



