WAYSIDE NOTES. 
77 
Arden, on the 28th ; 51‘9° at Coston Rectory, on the 30th, in the rays 
of the sun; 93-0° at Loughborough on the 30th, and 92-9° at Hodsock, 
on the 29th. The lowest were :—10"0 o at Henley-in-Arden, on the 17th ; 
10-5° at Coston Rectory, on the 1st; 12-3° at Hodsock, on the 7th ; and 
14-4° at Loughborough, on the 17th; on the grass, 4-0° at Hodsock, on 
the 7th ; and 13*5° at Loughborough, on the 17th. The amount of 
rain or snow (melted) was about the average for the month. A heavy 
fall of snow occurred on the night of the 7th, the values of which were 
0.71 inches at Loughborough ; 0*60 inches at Henley-in-Arden ; 0'52 
inches at Hodsock; and 0’39 inches at Coston Rectory. The total 
fall for the month was, at Henley-in-Arden, 2-61 inches ; at Lough¬ 
borough, 2-44 inches ; at Hodsock, 2‘30 inches ; and at Coston Rectory, 
1-96 inches. A lunar halo was observed at Loughborough on the 
evening of the 10th. The last few days of the month were fine and 
warm. Wit. Beruidge, F.R. Met. Soc. 
12, Victoria Street, Loughborough. 
♦ 
We have to record the loss to science by the death of one of our 
veteran workers in bryology, William Curnow, who died January 24th, 
1887, at his residence, Newlyn Cliff, Cornwall, aged 78. Although Mr. 
Curnow published little, his work in the mosses and hepatics has 
been extensive, and his name is one honoured not only in Britain, but 
also on the Continent. He contributed many specimens of the Hepaticae 
to the “ Fasciculi,” issued by Carrington and Pearson, as well as to those 
issued by Continental botanists. Among his'published works may be 
mentioned his paper on “ The Hepatics of West Cornwall,” by William 
Curnow, and “ The Mosses of West Cornwall.” by William Curnow and 
John Ralfs, M.R.C.S. These were both published in the Transactions 
of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society. 
Some new species of rotifers, twenty-four in number, are described 
and illustrated in the February number of the “ Journal of the Royal 
Microscopical Society,” by P. H. Gosse, F.R.S. Amongst these four 
came from the neighbourhood of Birmingham, collected by Mr. Thomas 
Bolton, the indefatigable Assistant Curator of the Birmingham 
Natural History and Microscopical Society. They are—(6) Diaschiza 
(?) cvpha , a hunchbacked form described from a single dead specimen 
in water from Birmingham. (8) Pterodina reflexa, found abundantly 
in water from Smallheath. (12) Notholca polygona, characterised as a 
remarkable species, and found in Kingswood Pool ; and (18), 
Asplanchna evpoda , a species with a remarkable foot, found in the 
canal at Small Heath. Next month we will copy Mr. Gosse’s 
descriptions of these new local species. 
A deposit of phosphatic nodules, the so-called “coprolites” of 
commerce, has been found in the Isle of Wight by two assistants in the 
Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, Messrs. Keeping and Woods. 
They are in four beds, in distinct horizons, the lowest about 200 feet 
from the top of the lower greensand, and one of them thick enough to 
work, but for the fact that the beds dip at such a high angle that little 
could be profitably extracted. These pseudo-coprolites have been 
worked for many years at several places in Bedfordshire, e.g., Leighton 
Buzzard, Woburn, Ampthill, Sandy, and Potton, going right across the 
