3300K-NOTES, NEWS, ETC, 207 



sepahon) by Mr. N. E. Brown, from a unique specimen in the 

 Linnean Herbarium, make up a number of unusual interest. 



Science Progress for July contains a long paper by Dr. F. H. 

 Perry Coste and his daughter on ** Cornish Phenology," in which 

 observations made systematically at Polperro during 1912-1919 are 

 summarized and tabulated. They are selected from the diaries kept 

 by Miss Perry Coste in connection with the '* Wild Flower Society " 

 **the members of which, divided into some twenty branches, keep 

 diaries of the dates of Howering of all the wild flowers they can find, 



and compete for first place in the branch two marks are given 



for the earliest record . . . and the system has resulted in the accumu- 

 lation of records which have indubitable phenological value and should 

 certainly be utilised " : this has been done in the paper referred to 

 with great care, and the results are of considerable interest. It may 

 be noted that, from an early period, Cornwall has been associated 

 with phenological observations. In the Tenth Annual Report of 

 the Royal Cornwall Rolijtechnic Society (1842: pp. 33-40) is a 

 '* Calendar of Natural History " extracted from diaries kept at 

 Polperro by Jonathan Couch (1789-1870), the dates, which include 

 those relating to birds, etc., and are not very numerous, begin with 

 1808. In the Sixteenth Report of the same Society (pp. 25-28) his 

 son, Thomas Quiller Couch (1826-1884), published a '* Botanical 

 Register for 1848 kept at Polperro " in which are given the dates of 

 first and last flowering and of foliation and defoliation. His observa- 

 tions were based on the lines laid down by Quetelet, of which he 

 gives a full summary in the important Calendars kept at Bodmin 

 from 1864 to 1875 published in the Journal of the Boyal Institute 

 of Cornwall for 1864-1878 (vols. i.-v.). Perhaps the most extensive 

 series of phenological observations was that made by T. A. Preston 

 (18^33-1905) when master at Marlborough, where he had the co- 

 operation of members of the School Natural History Society ; these 

 will be found in this Journal for 1865 (p. 203) and 1868 (p. 180) 

 and, for a series of years, in the Reports of the Marlborough N. H. S., 

 and in the Quarterly Journal of the Meteorological Society. When 

 Preston left Marlborough, he became rector of Tlmrcaston, where — ■ 

 somewhat on the lines of J. S. Henslow (1796-1861) at Hitcham — he 

 interested tlie children of his school in "first appearances," offering a 

 reward of a farthing for a satisfactory^ report. An indication of the 

 first and latest date and mean time of flowering is a noteworthy 

 feature of his Flora of Wiltshire. It is to be regretted that Dr. Coste's 

 paper should be disfigured by numerous misprints, of which Potentilla 

 tonmentilla, Eupatorium cannabiense, Heracleum spondyllium are 

 examples : the rule by which generic names used for species are spelt 

 with a capital is ignored throughout. 



The Neiv Pliytologist for May and June (published July 10) 

 contains a continuation of Dr. R. R. Gates's observations on " Muta- 

 tions and Evolution," the botanical portion of M'hich is mamly occu- 

 pied with (Enotliera, and a paper by Dr. J. C. Th. Uphof, illustrated 

 by numerous figures, on the " Physiological Anatomy of Xerophytic 

 Selaginellas." 



Professor Matsumura's useful Icones Rlantarum Koisihaven- 

 ses — figures with descriptions of new and rare plants in the University 



