Vol, III, Part 2, of the British Marine Annelids, although issued for the year 1916, is sent to all members of the Ray Society who have pad their subscriptions for 1915 and have not expressed their intention of discontinuing their membership. If tlie six coloured plates, for which uncoloured ones are here substituted, are obtained, they will be issued free to all subscribers for 1916. The production of this slip, with 6d. for packing and postage, will entitle purchasers of this part, other than members of the Society, to a set of the coloured .plates, if obtained, on application to Messrs.

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Until very recently existing information concerning the eggs and oviposition of British fishes, and more especially marine fishes, was of the most fragmentary character. In the standard works upon Ichthyology, such as Owen's Anatomy of Vertebrates (vol. i. Fishes), it is comprised in a few vague sentences; while the original papers published by British ichthyologists are not numerous, and refer, for the most part, to fresh-water species. Within the last few years, however, attention has been more systematically directed to the subject, and the enlightened views of the late Royal Commission on Trawling, and more especially of its chairman, the late Earl of Dalhousie, has given a fresh impetus to the study of the development and life-history of our food-fishes, as preliminary to a thorough investigation of their habits, food, so-called migrations, and general life-history.

The anatomy of the soft worms variously arranged under the Nemertean Order has, even in recent times, not been carried out with that completeness necessary for their thorough elucidation, a state of matters partly due to the confounding of the structure of one family with another, and predicating of the series what investigation has but proved in one group. Few British comparative anatomists have paid much attention to these animals; indeed, Dr George Johnston, Mr Harry Goodsir and Dr Thomas Williams, are the only three who have left researches of any moment on the subject. The observations of the first-mentioned naturalist were made many years ago, with the aid of inferior instruments, and, though conscientious enough, are very meagre and unsatisfactory; and those of Dr Williams, while also showing the defects just noted, bear evident traces of imagination. Mr H. Goodsir's interpretation of structures was, from his limited observations, likewise very erroneous. On the Continent, again, the investigators have been more numerous, and a long list of distinguished names attest the interest which the subject has received at their hands.