Few plants of Carboniferous age have appealed so strongly to the scientific observer as the huge woody trunks of a coniferous type that have been discovered from time to time in beds of that system. The appeal has come from different points of view at different times; thus these trees were hailed by Witham (1831, pp. 1–2), Lindley and Hutton (1831, p. xiii), and Hugh Miller (1849, p. 186) as evidence of the existence of higher coniferous plants in abundance during a period to which the current consensus of scientific opinion had assigned only members of the lower plant families, or would admit only an infrequent occurrence of higher forms. These remains were therefore important in discussions concerning the development of plant life, and were cited by Hugh Miller (1849, p. 185) in his attempt to combat the then embryonic ideas of evolution—the recrudescence of Lamarckian ideas—current under the name of “the development hypothesis.” Miller, however, recognised one significant point, namely, that they represented a land flora as distinct from one occupying a water habitat (1849, p. 202).

The following account deals with the systematics and distribution of the fresh-water and terrestrial molluscs of Siberia and Northern Kazakstan. During the open seasons of the years 1932 and 1933 journeys were made through that country, typical areas in several of the great natural regions were examined in some detail, and extensive collections were made. The object of this expedition was to obtain fresh and accurate information regarding the constitution and distribution of the molluscan fauna. During the past one hundred years several scientific papers have appeared which refer to the molluscs of this territory, but despite this the knowledge of this group of animals in Northern Asia has remained in a very unsatisfactory state. This has been due to the collections in the past having been made incidentally in the course of other work, and little or no attempt has been made to evaluate the fauna as a whole. The most thorough investigation so far carried out in this region is that of Westerlund (1877), but his paper was published nearly sixty years ago, and the advances in the study of the mollusca since that time make it essential that some revision and extension of the work should be undertaken. The present paper is one contribution toward that end.

This and the two following papers constitute part of the report upon a detailed investigation of the normal reproductive cycle in the ewe. Although the reproductive processes of mammals have been studied intensively during the past decade, it is to the small “laboratory” mammals that most workers have devoted their attention: little is known regarding reproduction in Ungulates except in relation to the cow, which has been studied by Hammond (1927) and others.

Certain aspects of reproduction in the ewe were studied by Marshall (1903) and Assheton (1906). During the last three years many minor papers on this subject have appeared but no comprehensive account is yet available, while, as will be shown in the following pages, many of the conclusions reached by previous workers were based upon examination of insufficient material.

It is hoped that this investigation will form the basis for fuller experimental study of reproductive phenomena in the ewe, particularly as they concern breeding practice, and that it will, stimulating interest in the sex physiology of the Ungulates, assist in laying the foundations for a more thorough understanding of the physiological mechanisms underlying reproduction in this group.

The existence in the Island of Arran of petrified Lepidodendroid trees of Lower Carboniferous Age has been known for nearly seventy years, and yet only very brief and incomplete accounts of these interesting fossils have been published. It is the aim of this paper to provide some additional facts which have a bearing on the past history of these trees, and to furnish an illustrated account of their detailed structure. It is possible from the additional knowledge that this research has placed at our disposal to get a clearer insight into some aspects of the developmental history of these Palæozoic trees.

The Kidston Collection of fossil plant slides includes sections of two very interesting specimens of Sigillaria elegans Brongniart, which were not in Kidston's possession when he wrote his two papers on Sigillarian anatomy (1905, 1907). The first of these specimens was found by W. Hemingway in 1908 at Laneshaw Bridge, Colne, Lancashire, in the Halifax Hard Bed (Lanarkian Series), and is represented in the Kidston Collection by two transverse sections (Nos. 1533, 1534). No notes of Kidston's relevant to the identification of this specimen have been found. Mr Hemingway, however, has been good enough to tell me that before he cut the specimen he recognised the leaf-scars, which were exposed on one side, as those of Sigillaria elegans; he submitted the specimen in this condition to Kidston, who confirmed the identification before sections were taken. The second specimen is from the Halifax Hard Bed of Fieldhouse Colliery, Deighton, Yorkshire, and was collected by G. H. Knott. A brief note saying that the specimen was identified from the exposed leaf-cushions as Sigillaria elegans has been found amongst manuscript notes of Kidston's relevant to the slides in his collection. This specimen is represented by sixteen sections (Nos. 1845-1860), cut by Hemingway, two of which are transverse and the remainder longitudinal. Both these specimens show certain structural features not observed in the anatomical type specimen of Sigillaria elegans described by Kidston (1905), and the present note may be regarded as supplementary to his original description.

At the instance of Dr S. L. Hora I was sent in the summers of 1929 and 1930 by the authorities of the Zoological Survey of India to Dumpep in the Khasi Hills, Assam, to carry out investigations on the ecology and bionomics of the anuran fauna of the torrential streams. During the second visit I was asked to make observations on and collect the early stages of the tadpoles of Rana afghana and of any species of Megophrys found in that area. I secured a fair series of the developmental stages of the tadpoles of R. afghana, but only mature tadpoles of two species of Megophrys. Dr Hora (1932) studied the tadpoles of R. afghana with special reference to the evolution and development of the adhesive apparatus. In view of the more or less complete developmental series of R. afghana tadpoles now available, Dr Hora very kindly suggested to me the investigation of the anatomy of the adhesive apparatus in this species.

The material for this work was obtained from the stock of Axolotls which breed in the Zoology Department of Glasgow University. The objection to using captive specimens for cytological work is overridden by the fact that the Axolotl, unlike some other urodeles, breeds readily in captivity, so that the germ-cell cycle can be taken as normal.

The reasons for wishing to add yet another account of urodele spermatogenesis to the considerable number already existing are twofold. First, widely different interpretations of a similar process in different species have been put forward, and one of the most recent accounts (Stieve, 1920, on Proteus) is entirely at variance with the usual course of spermatogenesis in urodeles. Second, there has been great discrepancy in the number of chromosomes assigned to this species.

James Kennedy, Bishop of St Andrews from 1440 to 1465, was a man of great importance and eminence in the political as well as in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland. He was the third son born to Sir James Kennedy of Dunure and his wife, the Princess Mary. His father belonged to a widely connected family, which traced its descent from Walter the sixth High Steward of Scotland, and through him was related, though indirectly, to the Royal family of Bruce. On his mother's side the Bishop was of Royal descent and was even more widely connected, for the Princess Mary was a daughter of Kobert the Third and elder sister of James the First of Scotland, and was four times married. Sir James Kennedy was her second husband, for she had been married to the great George Douglas, Earl of Angus. The Bishop was the third son born of her marriage to Sir James Kennedy, and after the death of the Bishop's father she married William, Lord of Graham. (Her fourth husband was Sir William Edmondstone of Culloden.)

In order to study the ecology of intertidal plants and animals it is desirable to choose a coast-line which is as simple as possible. When numerous factors vary simultaneously it is impossible to decide which of them is responsible for any change which may occur in the flora and fauna. The complexity of a shore which is ravined or boulder-strewn makes ecological work difficult. Unfortunately, certain major influences, such as wave action, involve a whole complex of subsidiary effects, so that the perfect locality, where each environmental factor would be found to vary in turn independently of all the other factors, cannot exist.

There are in the Kidston Collection of Fossil Plant Slides sections of four specimens of Lepidodendroid stems, from different Scottish localities in the Carboniferous Limestone Series, which were grouped together by the late Dr Kidston as “Lepidodendron Langi n.sp.” The specimens may be referred to as Nos. 1—4, and the various localities and the numbers of the slides by which the specimens are represented in the Kidston Collection are enumerated here for convenience of reference.

Raasay, one of the major islands of the Inner Hebrides, lies between the Isle of Skye, from which it is separated by the Sound of Raasay, on the west, and the mainland district of Applecross on the east. From Rudha na Cloiche, the southernmost promontory, to Rudha nan Sgarbh in the extreme north, the island has a length of over 13 miles, while the breadth from west to east varies from 3 miles near Ósgaig to a ½ mile just south of Arnish or at An Caol. The total surface area is about 27 square miles. The island is separated from Rona on the north by Caol Rònach, studded with islets and submerged rocks, a little more than a mile wide.

The Cumacea and the Tanaidacea constitute branches from the line leading from some primitive Mysid and terminating in the Isopoda. This conclusion is founded on a consideration of purely morphological facts, and it is therefore of interest to study the feeding mechanisms of these groups in order to find out whether they show any possibility of having been derived from the type exhibited by the primitive Mysid (Cannon and Manton, 1927, and Manton, 1928).

Twelve years ago Priestley and Ewing (1923) reported that in certain plants, normally showing but little development of stem-endodermis, an extensive formation of this layer could be induced by etiolation. (Note: In this paper the term endodermis is used only when the layer shows characteristic structural features—in the present case the Casparian strip.) A later paper by Priestley (1926) dealt with the same subject. The specified plants with which this result was obtained consisted of four closely related species, namely, Vicia Faba, V. sativa*, Pisum sativum, and Lens esculenta*, and also Solanum tuberosum. (The statements relating to the species marked with an asterisk are based on unpublished work carried out at Leeds, kindly placed at the author's disposal by Professor J. H. Priestley.) In these plants a primary endodermis, though present only at the base of the normal shoot, was described as extending to a considerable height in the etiolated shoot. It was concluded that the absence of endodermis from the greater part of the shoot of these plants, when grown under normal conditions, arises from the inoperation, in the presence of light, of the mechanism forming the Casparian strip.

Puccinia Prostii, Moug., a micro-Puccinia developing pycnidia and teleutospores only, was first recorded for this country by Massee (1913), who stated that it occurred on cultivated tulips; but neither the date nor the locality is mentioned. Saccardo (1888) and Sydow (1904) state that the fungus occurs in Italy and France on two species of Tulipa, T. sylvestris, Linn., and T. Celsiana, DC. (T. australis, Link.).

The fossils which form the subject of this paper were collected in the summers of 1933 and 1934 by my son and myself at Earnstrey Hall Farm on the western slopes of Brown Clee in Shropshire. I had become interested in specimens collected at this locality by Mr W. Wickham King, M.Sc, which Sir Arthur Smith Woodward (1934, p. 566) named Corvaspis, and it was with the intention of obtaining further material of this genus that I got King to tell me exactly where he had found the best of his specimens. The section is in a small stream course 570 yards north 11° east of the farm and at the bottom of the escarpment formed by the “Psammosteus Limestone” and in the beds assigned to Zone I, 8 of King's classification (King, 1925). At the particular spot in question there is (in normal years) a waterfall over a 4-foot band of very tough calcareous pellet rock and conglomerate with occasional quartz pebbles up to about 1 inch diameter. This, especially its lowest few inches, had yielded the specimens that King had found, and from it we also collected abundant fragments of Corvaspis. Nearly all the specimens of Phialaspis (p. 439) which we discovered came from this rock, as did a fine example given by King to the British Museum and referred to later (p. 440). In 1934 the same rock yielded cf. Ctenaspis. Below this rock there is about 18 inches of grey shale, in which King had noted black streaks. This rests on several feet of red clay.

This research was begun in 1929, and a preliminary account of some of the results of the investigation was published in the Journal of Anatomy, January 1932. It was initiated by the discovery, during experiments on intravitam staining in the guinea-pig, that dye-bearing cells collected in large numbers in the endometrium of the uterus and that their incidence there was cyclic. The first results were obtained in animals injected immediately after parturition and killed at intervals thereafter. In a short series of virgin animals, the series being established by determining the date of heat by the vaginal smear method (Stockard and Papanicolaou, 1917, 1919), practically identical results were obtained.

In the 'eighties of last century R. G. Symes and A. McHenry mapped the schists of Antrim for the Geological Survey of Ireland. They made abundant records of dip, which are still valuable though, owing to the difficulty of the subject, not uniformly reliable. They also indicated outcrops of limestone at Torr Head and, 8 miles inland, at Glenshesk and Breem. The schist area of Antrim is contained in Sheets 8 and 14 of the one-inch to the mile Geological Survey Map of Ireland (text-fig. 1).

Investigations have been made into the conditions of sedimentation of the Ordovician rocks of the Girvan district, with special attention to a series of greywackes, the Ardwell Beds, which are remarkable for frequent intraformational disturbances and unconformities.

In presenting the evidence it is proposed to follow the stratigraphical classification of Peach and Horne (1899), who, after careful consideration, adopted Lapworth's (1882) succession, except for a few minor alterations. These authors pointed out that the Llandeilo rocks north of the River Stinchar consist of Kirkland Conglomerate, Stinchar Limestone Group, and Benan Conglomerate, while south of the river they are represented by Tappins Greywackes and Glen App Conglomerate (see table p. 488).