In a memoir “On the Craniology, Racial Affinities and Descent of the Aborigines of Tasmania,” published by the Society in October 1908, I described ten Tasmanian skulls in the Edinburgh Museums, and compared them with those of this extinct race in Paris, London, Oxford, Hobart Town and elsewhere. At that time I was under the impression that I had referred to all the crania of the aborigines, seventy-nine in number, which had been preserved in museums, and for the most part had been described. The memoir did not include a description of the rest of the skeleton.

The fossils dealt with in this part of our memoir should have been included in the first paper of the series had it been possible to treat the plants described in the order of the complexity of their structure. Unfortunately, however, the specimens did not reach our hands until Part I. was already published; and since we were no longer able to place them in their proper position in the sequence already embarked upon, it was decided to defer their treatment until the conclusion of the memoir.

The task of examining and determining the fine series of lamellibranchs collected by Mrs R. Gray in the Girvan district, from rocks of Llandeilo, Bala, and Llandovery age, has been no light one. In the first place, the literature of the subject is very scattered, and is chiefly to be found in the various reports of the Geological Surveys of the different States of North America and Canada. The work of British palæontologists is to be found in the publications of the Geological Survey and in various periodicals, but nothing systematic has been attempted before in this country, although Sowerby described and figured, in an appendix to Murchison's Silurian System, all the known species. Under these circumstances there has been the greatest difficulty in studying original types, many of which are Swedish or North American.

The following is the first of a series of papers which I intend to issue on South African Alcyonaria. During a lengthened residence at the Cape of Good Hope, I devoted special attention to the Alcyonaria collected on board the Government steam trawler Pieter Faure. Professor Hickson has contributed two papers on Cape Alcyonarians to the volumes Marine Investigations in South Africa; but since then a large number of forms have been dredged, and there still remain in the collection entrusted to me many unidentified and undescribed species. In this first instalment I have confined myself to the Alcyonacea. The present work has been carried on in the Zoological Institute and Museum of Natural History, Berne, and it would be difficult to overstate my indebtedness to Professor Studer, who, besides giving me much valuable advice, stimulus, and encouragement, placed the entire literature of the subject at my disposal.

That phase of the nucleus just preceding the heterotype mitosis, and which was first called Synapsis by Moore (1895), has come to be regarded as an important and critical period in the life-cycle. It was called synapsis because of the apparent condensation and contraction of the chromatin at one side of the nuclear cavity. This discovery at first received scant support, the synaptic contraction being considered by many investigators to be nothing more than an artifact—an artificial contraction caused by imperfect fixation. In 1897, however, Moore's discovery was confirmed by Miss Sargant, who not only observed it in fixed material, but also found it in the living pollen-mother-cells of Lilium.

It is held by many that the body temperature shows certain fixed diurnal and seasonal variations which cannot be accounted for by the action of the various influences, such as muscular exercise, ingestion of food, sleep, etc., which are known to affect the rate of heat production and heat loss. These variations are believed to be associated with corresponding changes in the tissue activities, and to a large extent to be independent of environmental conditions.