1895. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 95 



genus — Dicentra. In the following year a specimen from another 

 foreign genus — Weigelia — was sent at the time when Viburnum Lantana 

 was in liower, and could easily have been procured. However, he 

 perseveres for three years more, and then presents himself again, 

 when he receives a few withered fragments of what may once have 

 been tiny white flowers ; he asks for more, and gets a morsel of an 

 apparently etiolated stem added to his specimen. This turns out to 

 be withered fragments of the inflorescence of a third foreign genus — 

 Rheum (garden rhubarb). After two more years he tries again, and is 

 supplied with a maritime plant — Avmevia maritima ; he does not know 

 it, as he has always resided in the heart of an inland town. As the 

 questions are supposed to relate to the indigenous flora only, the can- 

 didate naturally avoids gardens when specimens are procurable in the 

 field. The following year he is confronted with Vinca. The speci- 

 mens sent are too meagre, and are in a dilapidated condition ; more- 

 over, they are distributed by a person who does not understand the 

 requirements of the case. Small tin boxes are now so cheap that the 

 additional expense of packing each specimen separately would do 

 away with this cause of complaint, and give every candidate the same 

 chance. 



"If it is necessary to send botanical puzzles like the above, 

 there should also be sent a representative of some other order, of 

 which a knowledge might reasonably be expected ; the candidate 

 might be allowed to describe both specimens. For elementary 

 students, Delphinium was certainly not a proper plant to send as a 

 representative of the Ranunculaceae. 



" In twenty-eight or thirty lessons of an hour's duration a teacher 

 is expected to prepare students for the advanced stage, and if he 

 devotes half the lessons to general morphology and physiology, includ- 

 ing the gymnosperms and twelve cryptogamic types, he is then 

 expected to impart a practical knowledge of above ninety orders and 

 their ' largest genera ' during the remaining fourteen or fifteen lessons ; 

 and this largely in the winter — from September to May. 



" Could not a summer course for descriptive work be encouraged ? 

 In organised science schools this should be insisted on, a record of the 

 plants dissected should also be required, and the written descriptions 

 should be filed and kept for examination by the inspector." 



Our " Challenger " Number. 



The kind manner in which the public and the Press have 

 welcomed our attempt to furnish a convenient summary of the 

 scientific results of the " Challenger " Expedition is most gratifying 

 to us, especially as one of its results was to exhaust our first issue, 

 though a larger one than usual, within a week of publication. Our 

 second edition was in the hands of the public on July 6th. In it the 

 opportunity was taken to correct one or two slight misprints. One 

 alteration was the change of the word Bryozoa, in Mr. Harmer's 

 contribution, to Polyzoa. Mr. Harmer had written Polyzoa, which 

 he believes to be the correct name to use, and we, not knowing that 

 he attached importance to the word, had altered it for the sake of 

 consistency. We offer Mr. Harmer our apologies. Unfortunately 

 it was not noticed in time that, in Mr. Carpenter's account of the 



