78 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Mch 



classificatory industry." The humblest as well as the 

 higher plants are discussed, bacteria, rusts, smuts, moulds, 

 blue-green algse, mushrooms, club fungi puff balls, blights, 

 mosses, lichens, ferns club-mosses, grasses and sedges and 

 other higher flowering plants. Chapters on adaptations of 

 plants to their surroundings, hydrophytic, xerophytic, 

 halophytic and mesophytic plants, the maintenance of the 

 plant individual and subjects of this kind are likely to 

 awaken enthusiasm among the young. The book is most 

 commendable and we bespeak for it a hearty reception. 



Texas Cattle Fever. — Francis and Connaway (Bull 

 Texas Agrl. Exp. Sta. 53:55) conclude from some elabo- 

 rate experiments that in careful hands and with proper 

 management, preventative inoculation is a reasonably 

 safe and practical measure against the fatal type of 

 Texas fever. 



Penicillium G-lattcum and Pellagra. — Grosio (Riv. 

 d'Igiene No. 21 & 22) gives the results of chemical and 

 bacteriological studies and its relation to the aetiology of 

 the so-called Pellagra disease. The author isolated bac- 

 teria and moulds. Penicillium glaucum was most abundant 

 of these. The cultures of the mould obtained from such 

 sources proved to be poisonous. The mould growing on 

 maize produces a ferment which gives a reaction for 

 phenol. Maize extracts on which this mould was grown 

 produced toxic affects on rabbits when subcutaneously 

 or intravenously injected. Carraroli(GriorSoc. ital d'Igiene 

 No. 7 & 9. 250) describes a bacterial organism the Pel- 

 lagra bacterium found in maize meal which produces toxic 

 poisons to which the pellagra disease is due. 



Dwarfing of Alpine Plants. — Gaston Bonnier (Compt 

 Rendus. 127 : 307) in some experiments conducted to de- 

 termine the production of alpine characters of plants con- 

 cludes that hygrometric conditions do not influence 

 growth to any marked degree, but that variation in tern- 



