94 The Scottish JSiatin-alisi. 



Snowdrops and the Frost. — It is interesting to study the tendency of all 

 things in nature to follow out their instincts, if I may so call it. Every one 

 knows that this has been a very severe winter, and yet, as the year rolls on, in 

 spite of climatic influences, the veiy plants which are due in early spring are 

 not to be prevented by the snow and fi;ost, when the routine of life urges 

 them to add their mite to the embellishment of this our earthly paradise, 

 from forcing their way through the icebound crust. Here, at Moncreiffe, 

 after the partial thaw which commenced about the 4th of February, the 

 Snowdrops were to be seen rearing their snow-white blossoms some inches 

 above the surface of the earth. On the 8th of that month, bunches of well- 

 formed flowers were to b^%athered in the garden and in the woods. At that 

 time it required a pickaxe to penetrate to the depth of 16 inches in my 

 garden ; and Colonel Drummond - Hay tells me that about the same time 

 his children gathered Snowdrops beneath where a few days before they had 

 amused themselves by forming a slide upon the ice-covered surface. No 

 doubt, had the absence of snow permitted it, we should have seen them at 

 an earlier date, but they are not so very far behind the usual time of their 

 appearance : in 1870, February 3d ; in 1872 they were about the same stage 

 on January 25th; in 1877, on January 9th; in 1874, on January 3d ; and this 

 year, 1879, February 8th. I have no other dates at hand; but considering 

 the continued snow and frost, and the depth to which the latter had pene- 

 trated, it strikes one as a wonderful natural power in so fragile a stem as that 

 of the Snowdrop being able to force its way through so hard a surface, and, 

 at the same time, to blossom in the face of such intense cold. — Tiios, Mon- 

 creiffe, February 1879. 



NEW BOOKS. 



Report for 1877 of the Recorder of the "Botanical Locality Record 

 Club," and A Summary of Comital Plant-Distribution, additional to that 

 detailed in Topographical Botany: being an enumeration of the new 

 County Records, published by the Botanical Record Club, 1873- 1878. To 

 which are added those appearing in the 'Botanical Exchange Club Reports,' 

 1867 -1877. Compiled by F. Arnold Lees, F.L.S., Recorder to the 

 Botanical Locality Record Club, 



With the Report for 1877 the Botanical Locality Record Club completes its 

 first volume, which contains the Reports for the five years that it has existed. 

 The Recorder, in his prefatory remarks, briefly notices what has been done 

 by the Club, and what remains to be done. (We notice, inter alia, that 

 manuscript lists of species, personally vouched for from recent observation, 

 are yet lacking for Wigtonshire, Peebles, and West Ross.) Then follow 

 "New County Records," "General Locality List," " Extinctions and Re- 

 appearances," "Aliens, Casuals, and Escapes," and " County Catalogues," &c. 

 In the latter division Professor Babington communicates an article on the Dis- 



