Geology and Natural History. 475 



were, indeed, moments near the beginning of it when the writer 

 was in despair and on the verge of resigning his undertaking 

 altogether." 



16. The British Freshwater Rhizopoda and Heliozoa ; by 

 James Cash, assisted by John Hopkinson. Vol. I, Rhizopoda, 

 part I, pp. 148, with 16 plates and 32 text-figures. London, 1905 

 (The Ray Society). — A systematic treatise designed to describe 

 and illustrate as fully as possible all the species of rhizopods and 

 heliozoans known to occur in Great Britain. The present volume 

 takes" up 14 genera of the order Amoebina and 3 genera of the 

 order Conchulina, a new term proposed for the shelled freshwater 

 rhizopods. Not all of the genera are tenable; for example, 

 Ouramoeba was established by Leidy upon specimens of the com- 

 mon Amoeba proteus, on the body of which occurred a growth of a 

 parasitic fungus, and the author follows Leidy's error in describing 

 these fungi as protoplasmic filaments of the body of the rhizopod. 

 The synonymy of the species is very complete. The illustrations 

 are excellent, particularly those of the nine colored plates, and are 

 mainly from drawings by the author. w. e. c. 



17. Guide to the Invertebrates in the Collection of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History. —The reference to the author of this 

 work, on p. 336 of the April number, should have read Mrs. 

 Sheldon instead of Mr. Sheldon. 



18. Notes from the Harvard Botanical Station in Cuba. — The 

 production of sugar-cane seedlings, to which reference has been 

 made several times in this Journal, is now progressing very favor- 

 ably. The wide geographical range of parents has enabled us to 

 make interesting experiments in regard to the adaptive charac- 

 ters of the varieties. Our stock of varieties has been obtained 

 at different times from Australia, Java, Mexico, and the West 

 India Islands. The larger proportion of these varieties from the 

 West Indies may be regarded as more closely related to our 

 original Cuban strains. In the earlier years of the crossings, the 

 conditions of weather were not propitious for pollen transfers, 

 and it was found to be largely a matter of luck whether the seed 

 set or not. In fact, it was beginning to be thought by us that 

 the climate was not favorable to this line of experimenting. But 

 in spite of bad weather, Mr. Robert M. Grey, the Superintendent 

 in charge of the Station, succeeded in securing a fair number of 

 desirable ci'osses. These seedlings have been transplanted into 

 cane ground, and tests have been made of the content of 

 sugar. Experiments show that the "Amber Cane" is still as 

 good as any of the new varieties of our earlier series. 



The last seasons have been better for the experimental work, 

 being wholly exceptional in the recent annals of Cuban climate. 

 Mr. Grey has been able to take advantage of the anomalous condi- 

 tions and has succeeded far beyond our most hopeful expectations 

 in obtaining new varieties. We now have at the Station about 

 seven hundred sorts of cane seedlings, of the most varied parentage. 

 It is believed that among this large number will be some which 



