The glaciation of East Lothian has already been dealt with separately by Professor John Young, who, when attached to the Geological Survey, treated this subject in the memoir of the district published in 1866. His account of the phenomena, striæ, boulder clay, dry valleys, etc., is concise and clear, but he does not enter deeply into a discussion of causes. A guarded reference to submersion to account for the presence of an erratic boulder of carboniferous sandstone at a height of 1500 feet above sea-level shows in fact that he had not arrived at a full conception of the possibilities involved in glaciation by land ice. He was, however, quite definite in ascribing many important erosion effects in the district to the work of an “ice-stream.” In this as in most other points he had been forstalled by Sir Archibald Geikie, who had already described the immediately adjoining area to the south.

During 1904 and 1905 the author investigated the plant remains of the peat deposits in certain areas of the Southern Uplands and the Highlands. The present paper deals with similar work over large peat-covered areas in the E. and N. W. Highlands, Shetland Islands, and the Outer Hebrides.

Perhaps the most interesting feature found in the course of the work is the evidence of constant change in the character of the vegetation which has successively covered the peat areas of Scotland. Many areas in different parts of the country have been examined in order to ascertain if this succession can be accounted for by local changes in physical conditions, or whether it represents stages in a long cycle of secular changes in climate, and consequent plant migrations.

In all vertebrates, as the embryo develops at one pole of the egg, it sinks inwards till it becomes completely enclosed in a hood or sac filled with fluid, the amnion. When the sac or true amnion has completely closed over the embryo, it becomes separated from the outer layer, which remains in contact with the covering of the egg as the false or chorionic amnion.

In the year 1903 Mr Macconochie made an interesting collection of fossil fish-remains from beds of Lower Carboniferous age exposed on the seashore near Gullane, in East Lothian, which were submitted to me for determination by the Director of the Geological Survey. Accordingly, I prepared a preliminary account of these remains, which was published in the Summary of Progress for the year above mentioned.

The marine Mollusca obtained during the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of s.s. Scotia are particularly interesting, not merely on account of certain benthal forms having been for the first time brought to light from unusual depths, but also as demonstrating an extended geographical range for certain meridional species already known; while the occurrence of sundry British and North European individuals in the Falkland Islands—perhaps brought there adventitiously—is, to some extent, a new feature in the fauna. Regarding the deep-sea species just alluded to, the dredging of a second example of the hitherto unique Guivillea alabastrina, Watson, from a station not far from the original Challenger locality, is very noteworthy; while we may at the same time signalise a Columbarium, Cuspidaria, Chrysodomus, and Dentalium, from 1775, 2645, 1775, and 1410 fathoms respectively.

I am greatly indebted to Dr W. S. Bruce, the able leader of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, for the opportunity to describe the Scotia collections as regards the Pycnogonida and the Isopoda. We are now concerned with the Pycnogonida, and I regret that there has been so much delay before the production of the report. The collection is a large one, and extremely interesting—totally different from that made by the Discovery in the same region, but on the opposite side of the world. If smaller in the number of species brought home, in number of individuals it far exceeds that collection. Its principal interest lies in problems of distribution.

In June 1906 there was published an account of the Rotifers collected in the Scottish lochs up to that date (7). Many Rotifers had been observed during the survey of the lakes which are not referred to in that paper, as they were not collected actually in lakes. It is with the object of recording these species, and especially of giving an account of some interesting forms previously unknown or imperfectly known, that this supplementary paper is written. These Rotifers were, almost without exception, collected from moss, and, as is always the case in these circumstances, the Bdelloida greatly preponderated over the other orders.