1899] PRICKLY-PEARS ON THE WAR-PATH 183 



Prickly-Pears on the War-Path. 



The remarkable productiveness exhibited by certain organisms when 

 artificially introduced into new territory outside the area of their 

 distribution, and where they are freed from those natural checks, under 

 the restraining influence of which their protective armour and weapons 

 of offence have gradually arisen, illustrates in a remarkable manner the 

 intensity of the struggle for existence, and is therefore of perennial 

 interest to others besides those directly affected by it. 



It is perhaps not to be wondered at that such species are usually if 

 not always objectionable, and it falls to our lot to call attention to one 

 more instance of the harmful nature of such invasions. In a 

 " Preliminary Study of the Prickly-Pears naturalised in New South 

 Wales," Mr. J. H. Maidan, the Director of the Sydney Botanic 

 Garden, supplies us with detailed descriptions, accompanied by 

 numerous photograms of some six or seven species of Opuntia, which, 

 originally introduced into the colony in 1789 in connection with the 

 cochineal industry, have escaped from cultivation, and already cover 

 large areas of fertile land with impenetrable entanglements of thorn. 

 The Colonial Government has been compelled to interfere with an Act 

 for the eradication of the pest, but the expulsion of species which are 

 only amenable to the arguments of fire or poison, and possess a hydra- 

 like vitality, in that every minute fragment gives rise to a new indivi- 

 dual, promises to be a task of no small difficulty. It is a relief to know 

 that the Opuntias have some redeeming characters, for every one who 

 knows the plants will agree with Mr. Maidan in recognising their 

 desirability from a horticultural point of view. Some species bear 

 edible fruits ; others may be employed to form cattle-proof fences, and 

 certain thornless varieties may even be used as fodder plants. 



'' Terminologic Transgressions. 



)3 



" What's in a name " ? is no doubt a question which has been repeated 

 by many since the day of which we first have record. It is not the 

 members of the Rosaceae alone which have been supposed to smell as 

 sweet by another name. If there be among our readers any who thus 

 dally carelessly with the sacred instrument of thought, let them now be 

 warned, for a day of reckoning is at hand, and their sins shall surely 

 find them out. Let them be warned, we say, for the Chairman of the 

 " Committee on Neuronymy of the American Neurological Association" 

 is abroad, and who shall stay his hand ? Hidden under the modest 

 title of " Some Neural Terms " within the covers of " Biological 

 Lectures delivered at Wood's Holl Laboratory during 1896-97," we 

 have from the pen of Professor Burt G. Wilder a sweeping indictment 



