56 
Notes. 
Lake, declared that “ Evolution is the name of a mode of con- 
tinuance, not of a mode of beginning. It can neither affirm nor 
deny any mode of origin.” 
An extensive collection of British birds, contained in two 
hundred cases, has been recently presented to the Preston Mu- 
seum by Mr. J. B. Hodgkinson. 
In the “ Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society ” 
Mr. T. Stock gives an interesting account of certain Natural 
History collections which he inspected during a tour on the Con- 
tinent in 1880. We note the following very just reflection : — “A 
public museum rarely has money enough to purchase the larger 
collections as they appear from time to time in the market, and 
the faCt of its being known to possess a revenue at all (the 
amount of it is exaggerated in popular estimation) has the effeCt 
of stinting private beneficence.” He considers that “ the best 
museums of Natural History in Britain are rather in advance of 
than behind the majority of Continental institutions of the same 
rank.” 
The volume of the “ Journal of the Royal Microscopical 
Society” for 1881 has just been issued. There is no reason in 
any way to alter the opinion already given respecting the merits 
of the work. It is certainly unique among societies’ journals, as 
it not only publishes the papers read before it, and reports of the 
meetings, but it gives an account, often at considerable length, 
of the progress of every branch of science in any way relating 
to the microscope. The papers read before the Society have 
during the past year been only thirteen in number. At first sight 
it would seem remarkable that an influential society should have 
the original contributions to its Transactions fewer in number 
than they were ten or twenty years ago ; but it must be borne in 
mind that papers which formerly came before the Microscopical 
Society exclusively are now received by many other societies, 
although from the manner in which the observations have been 
carried out they would quite as justly come within the province 
of the Royal Microscopical Society. There has, however, been 
no dearth of matter, for owing to the energy of the Editors the 
volume contains more than a thousand pages, and gives a very 
full account of nearly everything that has transpired in micro- 
scopical matters all over the world. 
