i893. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 5 



parent plant. Thus the elasticity of the dead stem may be as 

 important to the species as any character in the living plant. 



Many annual plants, however, have burrs, and in these species 

 the dead stem is more flexible and tougher, so that it bends and rubs 

 the fruit against the fur of an animal, or against our clothing. The 

 different character of the dead stem v^ill at once be recognised in the 

 Wild Carrot, the ripe burr-like fruit of which curl inward, so that 

 they cannot be shaken off, but come away a few at a time when 

 the plant is stroked by anything rough. 



This is merely one example of what can be observed in late 

 autumn and wdnter ; but anyone who has visited a beech or oak wood 

 during a gale in the fruiting season, will understand why such fruit 

 grow on the tips of long flexible branches, instead of on thick stems. 

 The stinging blow that can be given by an acorn under these circum- 

 stances will soon convince the naturalist of the important part played 

 by the flexible branch. Even the gale that tears off large arms may 

 be of great use to the species, though ruinous to the individual tree. 



A Naturalist in the West Indies. 



Mr. W. R. Elliott, who has been collecting Cellular Cryptogams 

 during the last year in St. Vincent, Anguilla, and Dominica for the 

 West India (Natural History) Exploration Committee, has met with 

 considerable success. In his last expedition, he has made a prolonged 

 examination of the highest peaks of Dominica, the most densely 

 wooded and primitive of all the Antilles, except, perhaps, Hayti," the 

 black republic," of which very little is known. He has obtained a 

 very large series of Hepaticae which Mr. Spruce has undertaken to 

 work out, while he has added to the large number of Fungi already 

 collected and partly described by Mr. George Massee in the Journal of 

 Botany. 



Among other things of which Mr. Elliott has been in quest is the 

 petrel, the Diablotin, supposed to occur only in Trinidad. He has 

 found the holes frequented by the birds, and at the time of his 

 last letter was awaiting the possible re-appearance of a stray specimen 

 or two, since the season (November) had arrived at which this might 

 be expected. He visited the Carib reservation of Salybia on the 

 windward coast of the island, but his account adds little of note to 

 that given of the expiring remnant of this people by Mr. Ober in 

 his interesting Camps in the Caribbees, except that the race of true 

 Caribs is now in much the same case as the Diablotin. It would be 

 of interest, and even a negative result would be of some value, if a 

 local naturalist of St , Vincent or Grenada were to examine, at the proper 

 season, some of the higher, less accessible, and seldom vi&ited island 

 peaks among the Grenadines whence reports have come at different 

 times of the appearance of a bird resembling the Diablotin. 



