] IS THE JOUENAI OF HnT.YNV 



lions it is almost always necessary to have published treatises 

 or papers in several different branches of the science, a require- 

 ment which lias a two-sided influence, injurious on the one hand 

 as tending to produce "Jacks of all Trades" and superficial work in 

 subjects which arc not the writers' real interest, but on the other 

 advantageous as securing a wider scientific view than is always 

 possessed by specialists. 



The bibliography alone is more than worth the price of the 

 volume, and will be Found handy and useful even by those who 

 cannot read Italian with sufficient ease to appreciate Prof. Beguinot's 

 essay. C. C. L. 



Sable Island. 



The latest issue (no. lxii ; March 11) of Contributions From the 

 Gray Herbarium is devoted to an interesting and exhaustive account 

 of Sable Island, Nova Scotia, by Mr. Harold St. John, who visited 

 the island in the summer of 1913. Sable Island was known to the 

 fishermen of Western Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century; the earliest reference to its vegetation is that by Johannes 

 de Laet (1585-1619), who recorded the occurrence on the island of a 

 Few native trees, of which it is now entirely destitute. The first 

 botanist to visit the island was the late John Macoun, who stayed 

 there for five week's in 1899 and made collections, of which he 

 published an account in the Report of the Canadian Geological 

 Survey ; the catalogue of the vascular plants which follows the intro- 

 duction includes Macoun's and other collections. 



The native flora consists of 117 species, varieties, and forms, of 

 which several are new — among - them a new bramble (JRubus arcuans 

 Pernald & St. John) ; of these figures are given ; there are also 

 51 adventives and 15 planted species. The list contains numerous 

 interesting notes — e. g. that on Arenaria peploides var. rohusta : 

 of this it is difficult to collect good specimens, as the plant is " the 

 choicest fodder of the gangs of wild ponies that roam the island, 

 and as these total anywhere from two to four hundred ponies, 

 it is easy to see how they would make serious depredations on any 

 plant growing only in a limited portion of an area of about fifteen 

 miles square. I myself tried munching a sprig of the Arenaria and 

 found it of good texture, juicy and with a strong but not unpleasant 

 taste resembling that of cabbage." Lathyrus maritimus, the abund- 

 ance of which has been noted by all travellers since 1633, is "an 

 able ally of the Sand Grass [Ammojphila breviligulata Pernald] in 

 its perpetual defensive against the eroding forces that threaten to 

 destroy the island.' 1 Callunn vulgaris is adventive but not well 

 established ; it was probably used For or carried in the packing round 

 trees imported From a French nursery; Mr. St. .John says that 

 Macoun did not find it, bul Mr. Arthur Bennett (Mourn. Hot. 190L, 

 198) writes: "Prof. Maeoun hassent me specimens from Sable Island, 

 just such as one might gather on a Scottish moor." 



The catalogue is preceded by ecological observations and followed 

 by an excellent bibliography ; the paper is, in fact, a model of the 

 way in which such things should be done. 



