172 The Irish Naturalist. [July, 189.8. 



Attempts to put her in a box with her cubs proved a failure. First 

 the parent, and then the cubs died. The old Marten was preserved, but 

 the 3'oung ones were not. 



I remember a similar instance here nearly fifty years ago, when I 

 went out with ni}' parents for a Sunday walk, and my father found 

 three little blind Martens within the woodwork of a summer-house. A 

 trap was set and the old Marten caught and kept in confinement for 

 some weeks. 



R. J. USSHER. 



Cappagh, Co. Waterford. 



A COUNTY FI.ORA 



The Flora of Perthshire, by Francis Buchanan W. White, 

 M.D., F.L.S., F.E.S. ; edited . . . by James W. H.Traill, A.M., M.D., 

 F.R.S. ; pp. Ix. + 40S, portrait and map. Blackwood and Sons, 1898. 



The premature death of Dr. Buchanan White in December, 1S94, at 

 the age of 52, dela5'ed the appearance of the work on which he 

 had been for many years engaged — an account of the botany of his 

 native county. But the results of his labours are now laid before us by 

 the authority of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, and under 

 the able editorship of Professor Traill of Aberdeen. The book, a well 

 printed octavo volume, includes full introduction, a memoir of the 

 author, a list of his published papers, and a reprint of his address to the 

 Perthshire Society on the Origin of the Flora of Perthshire, followed by 

 an enumeration of the plants of the count}', with ample details of their 

 horizontal and vertical distribution. Dr. White was a keen critical 

 botanist, and the genera Ruhis, Rosa, and especially Sah'x, in which he 

 was recognised as a leading authority, are set forth in the full length of 

 the modern extended nomenclature. In alpine plants the list is of 

 course remarkabl}- rich. Fancy a county with 89 peaks rising above 

 3,000 feet ! How the mouth of the English or Irish, botanist waters for 

 such alpine regions. An excellent map, shaded according to the 500, 

 T,ooo, 2,000, and 3,000 foot contour lines, shows the boundaries of the 

 thirteen districts into which the author divided his great count}' of 

 2,589 square miles, for botanical purposes; and in the case of even the 

 commonest plants, the enumeration of the names of these thirteen 

 districts testifies to the universal distribution of the species under 

 consideration — an arrangement more necessar}- than might appear, since 

 the exclusively alpine character of some districts, and the esscntiall}- 

 lowland nature of others, cause many of the usually ubiquitous species 

 to have in Perthshire a distinctly limited distribution. 



In every respect the book is worthy of its author, and it will take a 

 high rank among the many county floras which the labours of English 

 and Scottish botanists have produced. May man}' Irish workers follow 

 their good example. 



R. Li,. P. 



