194 The Irish NaturalisL August, 



of the Mumonian type, the intrusion of foreign elements whose locus 

 lies outside of the province which gives its name to the group. Exami- 

 nation of the list on page 49 shows that this is so. Four of the species 

 there given as Connacian, Bartsia viscosa, Simethis Mcolor, Scirpus triqueter, 

 and Nitella Nordstedtiana, are altogether absent from Connaught, and 

 at least 5 others, Euphorbia hiberna^ E. amygda hides, /uncus tenuis, Naias 

 Jlexilis, and Trichomanes radicans, while they occur within the province, 

 cannot be said to find their focus there, so that the group would gain 

 in definite character by the reduction of its members from 63 to 

 about 50. 



To sum up this necessarily minute criticism of the proposed provincial 

 types, it may be said that the Ultonian and Lagenian are the most 

 definite, the Mumonian and the Connacian the least so. These facts 

 come out clearly in the distributional charts of the types given on pp. 

 42, 45, 46, and 50, where the northern and eastern types are shown with 

 definite foci, while the western and southern types appear each with 

 three distinct centres of high development, three maxima, in short, if 

 we may for the occasion take Sir Boyle Roche as our literary model. 

 The Mumonian type, it will be seen, has two of its three centres of high 

 development in Leinster, the Connacian has two of its three centres in 

 Munster. 



There is no space left here to touch on many other interesting aspects 

 of distribution discussed or suggested in Mr. Praeger's paper. To say 

 that it is full of controversial matter, on which the opinions of competent 

 judges may differ widely, is only to say, in other words, that it does not 

 deal in platitudes. Every page of it bears the impress of thought and 

 research and unstinted labour, and the net result is a valuable contribu- 

 tion to Irish topographical botany, which no student of the subject can 

 afford to neglect. 



N. C. 



ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



The Irish Bee Journal (Organ of the Irish Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion). Edited by Rev. J. G. DiGGKS, M.A. Vol. i, 1901-2, pp. 138. 



Our apiarian contemporary, whose first number we noticed last 

 summer, has now completed its first volume. The success that has 

 attended this useful little magazine may be taken as an index to the 

 growth of bee-keeping in Ireland, and it is to be hoped that the industry 

 and the Journal may continue to grow year by year to their mutual help 

 and benefit. A story in the March number well illustrates the economic 

 importance of the subject — "A vagrant swarm, lighting upon a farm in 

 County Wexford fourteen years ago, aroused in the captor an interest 

 which now is represented by an apiary of 84 stocks, producing last 

 season 4,000 sections with a return of ;<^ioo for honey." The bee-keeper 

 will find the pages of the Journal full of hints both scientific and 

 practical. 



