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 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.

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.)

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.

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).

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.).

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).

The shell and gizzard plates of Philine aperta were first described in 1616 by Fabius Colonna. Linnæus (1767) included the animal in his genus Bulla, and named it Bulla aperta. In 1772 Ascanius made a new genus, Philine, with P. aperta as type.

Cuvier (1810) created the order Tectibranchiata, and in the “Règne Animal” (1817) grouped in this order Pleurobranchus, Aplysia, Dolabella, Notarchus, Bulla, and Philine.

Fischer (1887) divided the Tectibranchs into the Cephalaspidea, the Anaspidea, and the Notaspidea; the first with a cephalic disc, the last with a dorsal shield, and the Anaspidea with neither.

There have now been described some fourteen hundred species of Tabanidæ, of which, according to Surcouf (1924), more than a hundred are European. Biological studies of the family have by no means kept pace with those of its taxonomy, and there is available comparatively little information regarding the post-embryonic development of individual species.

Examination of the literature showed that none of the European species had been investigated with any degree of detail, and it was with the intention of supplying at least part of this want that the present study was undertaken in 1930. Because of its relative abundance from June to August in rural districts of Scotland, the common cleg, Hœmatopota pluvialis, L., was the species first chosen. The interest of this choice was considerably increased by the relisation that the biology of no species of Hœmatopota had previously been submitted to careful examination either in Europe or elsewhere.

The early developmental history of the ferret up to the present has not been made the subject of a detailed critical description. The early stages of certain other Carnivora have been described, and Professor Hill (1924) in the introduction to his paper, “The Early Development of the Cat,” gives a summary of the literature of the subject.

The only papers relating to the early development of the ferret are a short paper by Professor Robinson (1925) and four papers by Professor Mainland (1930, 1931a, 1931b, and 1932).