fo} fe) THE AMERICAN NATURALIST.  [VoL. XXXIII. 
the future exclusion of all publications between Linnzus’s Genera 
Plantarum of the former date and his Species Plantarum of the 
latter date. 
The morphology, biology, and physiology of the flower of the great 
Amazon water lily, Victoria regia, are treated by Eduard Knoch, in 
Heft 47 of Luerssen and Frank’s Bibliotheca Botanica. 
A paper on the structure and biology of Cynomorium coccineum is 
reprinted by Baccarini from the A//# of the Accademia Gioenia, of 
Catania. 
Three new grasses from North Carolina are described by Ashe 
in a recent number of the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific 
Society. 
PALEONTOLOGY. 
Fossil Meduse.' — A few years ago no one would have suspected 
that the rocks of the world could ever yield fossil jellyfish sufficient 
in quantity to warrant the publication of a quarto monograph of 
201 pages and forty-seven plates like the present volume. Equally 
unlooked for would have been the fact that the oldest known fauna, 
the Cambrian, was to furnish a large part of the species, together 
with a great abundance of specimens. 
Dr. Nathorst of Sweden (1881) first described Meduse from the 
Cambrian, and Walcott, in 1891, suggested that the long-known Dac- 
tyloidites asteroides of Fitch (sf.), from the Cambrian slates of New 
York, might indicate portions of fossil jellyfish. The true affinities 
of the puzzling Alabama “ star-cobbles ” were likewise determined by 
Walcott in 1893, so that gradually both the subject of fossil Medusz 
and the material for study grew sufficiently large to necessitate a 
separate treatment. 
The present volume gives a full review of all the known fossil 
organisms that are now referred to the Medusa, including both casts 
and impressions of the body or parts of the animal, and certain trails 
or markings, such as could be made by dragging the arms or tenta- 
cles over the mud of the sea bottom. 
1 Walcott, Charles Doolittle. Fossil Medusz, Monographs of the U.S. Geologi- 
cal Survey, vol. xxx, pp. i-x, 1-201, Pls. I-XLVII. Washington, 1898. 
