1880. ] _ Recent Literature. 657 
lished on the matter, a review of his paper becomes a disagree- 
able necessity. Let us see then if Prof. Milne’s paper can be 
regarded in the light of a contribution to science. 
This paper appears in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society 
of Japan, Vol. vii, Part 1. It is entitled “ Notes on Stone Imple- 
ments from Otaru and Hakodate, with a few general remarks on 
the Prehistoric Remains of Japan.” 
An idea may be formed of the loose way in which measure- 
ments are taken by the following. Speaking of certain stone 
implements he says: “ These are adout one inch long, having a 
curved scraping edge one inch broad.” Again, “ Its total length 
is about two and a-half inches, the pointed pdrtion which is 
roughly rounded being adou¢ one and a-half inches.” (The italics 
are mine. 
water being cut off from ready access to the tides. The small and 
Stunted specimens occurring in certain estuaries are examples. 
More curious illustrations may be seen in the stunted and dis- 
torted forms of this species which formerly occurred in the Loch 
of Stennis in Orkney, and in the sluices of Ostend. It was sug- 
gested by Forbes and Hanley that the singular varieties of Mya 
@renaria, known as Mya lata and Mya pullus, which occur in the 
mammialiferous crag of the east of England, may have been due 
to a freshening of the water at that time from melting ice. How- 
ever that may be, AZya arenaria, by its diminishing size and 
abnormal growth, indicates the impurity of the water in which it 
lives. F ortunately Mya arenaria—the typical northern form-— 
lives in the Gulf of Yedo to-day, and its shells are found in the 
