560 



THE AMERICAN NA TURALIST. [Vol. XXXVII. 



Japanese fishes. The Elasmobranchs, or sharks, rays and chimaeras 

 are represented by 56 species. Other papers are on the Cobitidae or 

 Loaches, six species in Japan, and on the Cepolidae or Band-fishes, 

 of which Japan has three. The genera, Embolichthys and Zen are 

 subjects of a special paper. 



In the Annotations Zoological Japonenses (Vol. IV) of the Imperial 

 University of Tokyo, Dr. Bashford Dean gives an account of the 

 cleavage of the egg in the cestraciont shark Heterodontus japoni- 



holoblastic cleavage. D. S. J. 



Gardiner's "Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes," Part IV. 1 — 



The fourth part of Gardiner's Fauna and Geography contains 

 seven papers including a detailed description, with charts, of the 

 Atolls and Banks— a valuable contribution to geography but not 

 abstractable. In his concluding notes Gardiner touches on the 

 causes of deaths of parts of the coral reefs. Silting up is destructive 

 and senile decay, after the colony has reached a great size, causes 

 great mortality. 



The Cephalochorda are described systematically and anatomically 

 by C. F. Cooper while R. C. Punnett considers their variation. A 

 new species, Hrtenpkuroti maldivcnse is described. In the conclu- 

 sions as to the great variability of Cephalochorda based on the num- 

 ber of myotomes the possibility of an increase in the number of 

 myolomes throughout life is not sufficiently considered. 



The Avifauna is analyzed by Gadow. Twenty-six species were 

 examined; none peculiar to the islands. The permanent residents 

 are, excepting the Indian crow. Corpus spkndens, all water birds, 

 mostly of wide distribution in the Old World. Eight genera of birds 

 are winter visitors from the Asiatic continent and a few species are 

 wanderers from India and Ceylon. Finches, starlings and pigeons 

 are wholly absent. At one point in the Archipelago it was observed 

 that all birds retired daily from 11 a. m. to 3 p. m. 



The earthworms are reported upon by Beddard. He comments on 

 the favorable material afforded by this group for studies in geographic 

 variation owing to impracticability of their unassisted migration over 

 a tract of sea. Three species are recorded, two are very common 



' The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes, etc. 

 Edited by J. Stanley Gardiner. Cambridge University Press, 1903 Vol i pt. 

 iv, pp. xix+348-47 1. Pis- 18-25, text figs. 76-119. 



