MUSEUM NOTES. 167
the same time, sank down out of sight. I clearly saw that it had
a heterocercal tail, the upper part being rounded and not very
long, and that its body was of grey colour, and apparently about
five feet long. Taking all into account, it seems most probable
that it was Galeus vulgaris or the "Toper"; but, under such
circumstances, it was impossible to see and examine detailed
characters, so as to be quite sure of the species According to
Dr. Laver's book on the Vertebrata of Essex (p. 119), this small
shark has previously been met with on two occasions on the
coast of Essex, but yet is sufficiently rare to make it desirable to
record the occurrence for another individual seen in the estuary
of the Colne.
MUSEUM NOTES. No. III.
VI.—THE CRYPTOGAMIC HERBARIUM OF THE LATE
MR. E. G. VARENNE.
In 1891 we published in the Essex Naturalist a valuable
paper on the "Cryptogamic Flora of Kelvedon and its neigh-
bourhood," which had been compiled by Mr. E. D. Marquand
from the herbarium and notes made by our late member, Mr.
E. G. Varenne, M.R.C.S., of Kelvedon.
At Mr. Varenne's death in 1887 these materials had, at his
request, been handed over to Mr. Marquand by Mrs. Varenne.
In March of the present year (1901; we had great pleasure in
acquiring the Cryptogamic Herbarium and some of Mr. Varenne's
botanical books for the Essex Field Club, by purchase from
Mr. Marquand, who thought they would fittingly find a resting-
place in the County Museum. Very many of the specimens had
been collected in Essex, and these supplied the data for the paper
above referred to. Unfortunately Varenne's Phanerogamic
Herbarium perished in the way thus stated by Mr. Marquand: —
"The whole of my Natural History collections had to be warehoused
when I went abroad (that was after my paper in the Essex Naturalist was
written) and on my taking them out again some four years afterwards, I
discovered to my great sorrow that very nearly the whole of my phanerogamic
herbarium was ruined by the attacks of insects! so that it had to be burnt.
The great bulk both of my own large herbarium and of Varenne's collection
was thus destroyed. What could be saved out of the wreck I packed up and
gave away to a botanical friend who is now in Australia. Varenne's Crypto-
gamic collections were uninjured (with the exception of some of the Lichens)
and so you have them.