2g6 
Analyses of Books. 
[May, 
Proceedings of the Scientific Association of Trinidad. Part 
XII. December, 1881. Port of Spain : J. Wulff, Lon- 
don : Triibner and Co. 
We are exceedingly glad to find that a Scientific Association has 
been established in Trinidad and has got fairly to work. The 
locality is exceedingly favourable for research in many branches 
of biology. Situate as it is at the extreme verge of the Brazilian 
subregion of the great Neotropical Region it forms a connecting 
link to the Antillian subregion, and its birds, reptiles, insects, and 
mollusks^offer toThe animal geographer a most interesting field 
of study. The aquatic fauna of its shores has also not yet been 
studied with the needful thoroughness. The kind of work that 
that can be done by the mere collector, whether by land or by sea, 
has been to a great extent accomplished, at least as far as the 
more showy species are concerned. But the more important 
subjects of the development, the life-history, and the habits of a 
fauna can be worked out only by the resident. We should like 
to see in all the British colonies individuals, or better still socie- 
ties, who are like, e.g ., Dr. Fritz Muller in South Brazil, making 
a close investigation of their respective districts. 
The coast of Trinidad would, it seems to us, offer an excellent 
position for an aquarium. We mean, of course, not a place of 
random amusement like some of the establishments which have 
sprung up in England, but of honest experiment and research, 
like that of Naples, or the one which is just being inaugurated 
on the coast of New South Wales. 
The “ Proceedings ” before us contain a paper by R. J. Lech- 
mere Guppy, F.L.S., on the Land Shells of St. Vincent. During 
a stay of three weeks the author took sixteen species, of which 
six are common to the islands north of St. Vincent, seven to 
Grenada, seven to Trinidad, and five to the mainland of South 
America. Only three species are common to all these five 
localities. Mr. Guppy states that land shells are much scarcer 
in St. Vincent than in Grenada and Dominica, and others of the 
Antilles. 
The same author also contributes a paper on the “ Recent and 
Tertiary Species of Leda and Nucula found in the West Indies, 
with Notices of West Indian Shells.” 
Mr. Guppy has also communicated a description of a Hetero- 
cereal Fish found in the Blue Limestone of the Laventille Hills, 
on the east of Port of Spain, for which he proposes the name 
Acanthodes elongatus. He has read also a memoir on the fossil 
Echinodermata of the West Indies, of which he notices twenty- 
six species. 
Might we express a hope that the Scientific Association of 
Trinidad will use its influence with the Government and the 
