126 The Ottawa Naturalist. [Oct. 



fear, to give vent to emotions for which we cannot account. We 

 have no reason why we do these things things perhaps we often 

 regret after the occasion has passed we can only classify them 

 as instinct. It is undoubted that a child is entirely governed 

 by stimuli up to a certain stage in its life until the dawn of 

 reason gradually breaks and we get development from the animal 

 to the human plane. 



In closing I "would just like to draw attention to similar 

 conditions in the plant world. Compare an animal, a child just 

 born, for instance, in a darkened room with but one window, 

 with a plant growing in a darkened place with but one loop- 

 hole of light. Both tufn instinctively to the light. In the former 

 the reason implies a nervous system, but in the latter we are 

 taught it is a purely mechanical process. And yet there is a 

 similarity. Again, Huxley informs us that a frog, from which the 

 brain has been removed, will retain its centre of gravity even 

 when revolved. Compare this frog with a plant placed in an 

 inverted position, with the root upwards and the stem down- 

 wards. If growth continues this plant will right itself and will 

 grow normally. This cannot be explained, yet the fact remains 

 that there is a similarit)'- between the frog and the plant. And 

 so on, we could find similar instances of comparison which only 

 serve to show the great complexity of nature, and the uniformity 

 of all things. ''" 



In such Ji'^hort article, such instances as I have recorded 

 open up a great field of conjecture; and, I for one, would be 

 greatly interested to read accounts in this magazine of recorded 

 observations which tend to illustrate the difference between 

 animal instinct and reason. 



PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE CRAT^GI OF THE 

 OTTAWA DISTRICT. 



By Herbert Groh. 



Encouraged by the results which have attended the closer 

 study of the Hawthorns in other parts of Eastern North 

 America, and knowing that no such study had been made, as 

 yet, at Ottawa, I was led, in the spring of 1909, to undertake 

 systematically the collecting of material for this purpose. 



For my first attention I chose the section of country reach- 

 ing southward from the city to the Rideau River, and lying, 

 roughly, between Bank Street on the east, and the Experimental 

 Farm and the Hog's Back locks on the west. While not con- 

 fining my work to these limits, I endeavoured to cover this area, 

 with some degree of thoroughness. 



