Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/221

Rh The first contribution is by Dr. Pompeckj, on "The Jurassic fauna of Cape Flora," which, as Nansen informs us, "situated in circ. 79° 56' N. lat. and circ. 49° 40' E. long., is the western extremity of the long and narrow peninsula which forms the south-western part of Northbrook Island." Unfortunately the fossils examined were generally in a very imperfect condition, but some complete work even under these circumstances was accomplished, and a fauna of at least twenty-six forms demonstrated as occurring in the Jurassic Sedimentary Rocks collected by Nansen in the Cape Flora district. Among the peculiar features of the fauna may be just mentioned the "prominent part which the Ammonite genus Cadoceras plays in its composition"; while in all the known fossils from the marine jura of Cape Flora, the Gastropoda are represented by a single specimen only. The Callovian fauna Dr. Pompeckj reports as "nothing but a part of the fauna of the Russian Callovian."

The description of the "Fossil Plants" are outside the province of this Journal, and we pass on to an account of the "Birds," by Prof. Collett and Dr. Nansen, the first named of whom has contributed the strictly ornithological matter, while the second has added personal observations. This contribution is eminent by a very full account of the Roseate Gull (Rhodostethia rosea), referred to in more than one place, and in its juvenile first plumage forming the subject for a very beautiful chromo plate.

The Crustacea are described by Prof. Sars, and, when this excellent authority receives sufficient material, we all expect a banquet in biological information, and we are not here disappointed. We read: "As is well known, it has until recently been the general assumption of geographers, that the Polar basin, north of Siberia and Franz Josef Land, could only be quite a shallow sea, with depths scarcely exceeding some hundred fathoms, and the zoological equipment of the 'Fram' Expedition was arranged in accordance therewith. But, in direct contradiction to this generally adopted view, that part of the Polar Sea through which the 'Fram' drifted with the ice proved to be everywhere of enormous depth, exceeding in this respect even the Norwegian Sea." Although it is probable that there is very little animal life on the bottom in this part of the ocean, it was remarked that