Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/215

Rh nearly the whole length of my journey. I saw very few Roan, a good many intensely shy Oribi, and a few ditto Senegal Hartebeest, One Buffalo was seen, but not by me. I saw two Zebra; beyond that, nil."

will be pleased to learn that Mr. Edward Dodson is about to leave, or has left England for Morocco, with the object of investigating the fauna of the country around the Atlas range. This will be Mr. Dodson 's third visit to Africa, his previous journeys being in connection with Professor Elliott's expedition to Somaliland and Mr. Donaldson Smith's scientific mission to British East Africa.

has reached England on his return from Central Africa, which he visited to investigate the fresh-water fauna of Lake Tanganyika. In conversation with a representative of Reuter's Agency, Mr. Moore said:—"I found the fauna of Tanganyika to be unique—unlike anything else anywhere—and as limited as peculiar. The Jelly-fish and Shrimps were certainly of a marine type, while the geology of the district precluded the possibility of any connection with the sea in recent times. The water, which Livingstone found to be brackish, is now quite drinkable. All this seems to prove that the Tanganyika part of the great Rift Valley running through this part of Africa at one time had access to the sea, while it is perfectly clear that Lake Nyassa—some 246 miles to the south-east—apparently never had any marine connection. It is also a matter of interest that the fauna of Tanganyika is not only marine, but of a very peculiar and primitive type, and it is quite reasonable to suppose that the characteristics of the fauna are connected with the remote geological connection of the lake with the sea."

, of Prague, in the March number of 'Natural Science,' discusses the very important question of "Fresh-water Biological Stations." This investigation has already been commenced in America, Bohemia, Germany, and Russia, and it is quite time England joined that scientific concert. Last summer Prof. Fritsch lectured on more than thirty kinds of life-groups "of Bohemian fresh waters, each with its own special fauna and flora: springs, mountain brooks, mountain rivers, rivers of the plain, backwaters of large rivers, ponds, lakes, bogs, small pools with Apus, snow-tarns with Branchipus, &c. Each of these kinds of water varies in its own fauna with the season of the year, and also from year to year according as rain and sunshine also vary. Here is work for a century."

This work in Bohemia is done on admirable method, especially in these days of poor endowments. It is open to question whether poverty is not often the handmaid of research, though the crying shame is that it is so