224 NATURAL SCIENCE. Sept.. 1895. 



rare to be any test of a student's knowledge. Nevertheless, often the only oppor- 

 tunity given to a candidate to show acquaintance with the systematic part of the 

 subject is in the determination of one plant. The species may be well known to all 

 students in one part of the country, and may be very scarce or altogether absent in 

 another ; and thus chance is an important factor in the results. This might easily 

 be to some extent avoided, if one or two questions were asked in the written part of 

 the examination upon the principles of systematic botany, and on the classification 

 and affinities of certain orders. 



Another subject upon which an occasional question might well be asked, is the 

 rules of nomenclature. Not one in a dozen of amateur or morphological botanists 

 understands these rules ; without some knowledge of them, the frequent changes of 

 name are unintelligible, and botanists are using a scientific instrument which they 

 do not understand. If this were done, systematic botany might not be so syste- 

 matically neglected in England as is now the case. 



August 15, 1895. A. R. F. 



ERRATUM. 

 P. 117, line 23, for Gymnurus read Gymnetrus. 



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