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The Island was visited by the "Pourquoi pas, " under Charcot, in the French 

 Antarctic Expedition of 1908-10, and a certain amount of biological examina- 

 tion made. That this was not exhaustive, at any rate in certain directions, is, 

 however, clear from the fact that the two biologists attached to the Expedition, 

 MM. Gain and Gourdon, collected only two mosses, viz., Grimmia antarctici 

 Card., and Philonotis Gourdoni Card. sp. nov., while the present collection, made 

 by a non-botanist, and only a small portion of which has been examined, con- 

 sists of eight species. 



The collection was sent to me by Rev. D. Lillie, who has had numerous 

 collections of mosses sent him from the Southern parts of S. America, by Mr. 

 J. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton engaged the interest of a friend of his, Mr. James 

 Robins, who was being sent to Deception Island during the war to carry out a 

 piece of naval work, and Mr. Robins collected what mosses he could during his 

 stay there. Mr. Robins gives a graphic description of the surroundings, "hot 

 water and mud spouting out of the ground, and only a few feet away eternal 

 ice" . . . "thirty yards away from the salt water there is a lagoon about 

 500 yards in diameter, and we sounded this and got no bottom at 200 fathoms. 

 This is warm water, and above this there is a mountain about 1,500 ft. high 

 which has no ice, and it was here in the warmth and shelter I found the green 

 piece of moss." 



Mr. Hamilton forwarded the bulk of the moss collected to Mr. Lillie, but he 

 reckoned without his submarines and the packet never arrived! Fortunately 

 he had retained some small portions, and these being sent on later met with a 

 happier fate and arrived safely. I found among them eight species, one being 

 new to science, and I now give the list of these: 



Didymodon gelidus Card. No. 447. I have seen no specimen of this species, 

 which has only been recorded from its original station on the Antarctic continent 

 (Card, in Nation. Antarct, Exped., Musci., p. 4). The present plant differs 

 from the description and figures in one, and I think only one respect, in that the 

 leaves are here all obtuse, in varying degrees, while in that they are "acuta 

 obtusulave," The single difference, slight also as it is, cannot I think be held 

 to outweigh the agreement on all other points. 



Tortula grossiretis Card, forma aut var.?. No. 448. 



I name this with some hesitation; it is a weak, soft, somewhat succulent 

 plant, with fragile leaves, having plane margins, cells 13-18 ix. wide, obscure, 

 highly papillose, with the upper margin often somewhat erose. The nerve is 

 rather weaker than in T. grossiretis from S. America, but that is in accord with the 

 generally weak state of the plant, some leaves agreeing exactly with the normal 

 plant. On the other hand the cells are not quite so large as in T. grossiretis ^ 

 which moreover has the margins normally recurved. I suspect that the plant 

 recorded by Cardot with some slight doubt, as T. monoica Card., from Graham 

 Land (Fl. Bryol. des Terres Magellaniques, &c., p. 270) may be the same thing. 

 Both plants were sterile. 



Grimmia antarctici Card. No. 450. Only some small tufts, but in nice 

 fruit. It agrees well with specimens of this species sent me by Cardot from 

 Deception I. itself. 



