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annual meeting of the Biological Society of Washington. Dr. 
Goode traces the early history of zoological and botanical science 
in America, The earliest English naturalist on our shores was 
Thomas Harriott, who was the mathematical instructor of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, and who was landed on Roanoke Island, Aug. 
17, 1585. He was preceded, however, by the Spaniard, Gonzalo 
Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, who visited Santo Domingo in 
1514, and was subsequently governor of that island, and also by 
Jean de Lery, a member of the Huguenot colony established in 
1555 on an island in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, and by José 
d’Acosta, a missionary, who travelled in Peru from 1571-1588. 
It is a valuable contribution to the history of American science. 
Brodiwa Douglasit. J. G. Baker. (Bot. Mag., plate 6,907.) 
A beautiful illustration of one of the finest species of the 
genus, drawn from a plant which flowered at Kew in May from a 
bulb sent by Mr. Pringle. 
Caltha palustris, L_—Versuch einer Ghederung des Formenkreises 
der. Giinther Beck. (Verhandl. K. K. zool. bot. Gesellsch. 
Wien, xxxvi., pp. 347-353.) 
Being occupied with a review of the forms of Ca/tha hitherto 
found in Austria, Dr. Beck has extended his studies of this plant, 
in order to bring together all the described forms. Four 
European and Asiatic species and their varieties are first con- 
sidered, and seven varieties of the Linnzan C. palustris are then 
' noted; these he divides into two sections, (a) sepals large, 
I to 2 cm. long, and (b) sepals small, narrow, about 1 cm: long. 
In the first section he places var. typica, var. integerrima (C. 
integerrima, Pursh) and var. parnassifolia (C. parnassifolia, Raf.), 
all of which are credited to North America ; in section (b) we 
find var. minor, (C. minor, Miller) and var. asarifolia (C. asari- 
folia, DC.) credited to North America, and two other Asiatic 
and European varieties. C. flabellifolia, Pursh, C. arctica, R. 
Br., and C. diflora, DC., are excluded by Dr. Beck. 
Darlingtonia Californica. (West American Scientist, ii., pp. 
QI, 92; one figure.) 
The habitat of this interesting plant is “in mountain swamps 
and along the borders of brooks, at an elevation of from. 1,000 to 
6,000 feet, from Truckee Pass to the borders of Oregon.” 
