1897] NOTES AND COMMENTS 371 
crab may occur in both the Indies. In naming Uca heterochela 
(Lamarck), the change from Lamarck’s more scholarly heterochelos is 
unneeded, since the Greek érepixn0s applies equally to the masculine 
and feminine genders. In dealing with the genus Palaemon, Miss 
Rathbun unhappily relies on Latreille’s ‘ Considerations générales ’ 
of 1810, a book with a long-winded title too troublesome to quote, 
a book crowded with definitions that don’t define, and ending with 
a list of types that are not described. 
A YEAR-BooK OF AGRICULTURE 
THE Year-Book of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 1896 
has just reached us, and set us wondering why we have not a 
Department of Agriculture manned by scientific experts, which 
might issue each year for the benefit of farmers and others in- 
terested in the subject as much useful matter as is contained in 
the six hundred odd pages of the Transatlantic publication. The 
history of the year-book is this. It is the successor of the Agri- 
cultural Report which, in its original form, was made up almost 
wholly of business reports for the use of Congress. When, how- 
ever, it began to circulate more freely among farmers, papers on 
agriculture, and discussions on the results of scientific investigations 
were introduced, and it gradually became more and more a popular 
report, business and executive matter being reduced to the smallest 
possible proportion, till finally it was decided (in 1895) to issue 
it in two parts—viz. (1) an executive and business report, (2) a 
volume of papers “specially suited to interest and instruct the 
farmers of the country,’ and to include also “a general report of 
the operations of the Department for their information.” This 
second part is the Year-Book, and the one now before us is the 
third of the series. It is published in an edition of 500,000 copies 
for free distributing, and is therefore, as the assistant secretary 
remarks in the preface, “in many respects unique.” Following 
the report of the Secretary, which occupies nearly fifty pages and 
is eminently suggestive, are thirty papers (filling 500 pages) con- 
tributed by nearly as many scientific expert members of the staff. 
The 164 figures and six plates are a useful addition. Thus the 
value of a paper on some common poisonous plants is much 
enhanced by very passable pictures of the poison ivy (Rhusradicans), 
water hemlock (Cicuta maculata), death cup (Amanita phalloides), 
and others. The same applies to some remarks by Mr Herbert 
Webber on the influence of environment on plant varieties. 
Enumeration of some of the titles will give an idea of the wide 
scope of the Year-Book :—extermination of noxious animals by 
bounties—potash and its function in agriculture—the country 
