ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (AMEHICAM.) 29 



the three were then plainly differentiated. These 

 classes arose from a promaminalian type, which 

 was, in its turn, an olTshoot from a still simpler 

 form, a second offshoot from which developed 

 into the reptilian type of life. The horse he 

 considers .'.I a- originating on the North Amer- 

 ican continent, ami he pointed out the interest- 

 ing fact that the disappearance of many of the 

 huge forms of mammals that once peopled our 

 western plains seemed coincident with the in- 

 troduction of grasses. 



The following-named papers were then read 

 and discussed before the section : 



" Notes on Aspidiotus Perniciosus," " Erastria Sci- 

 tula, a Valuable Insect to Introduce into America," 

 and " Sphida, a Myth," by Charles V. Riley ; " Seat of 

 Life in the House-fly," by John B. Smith ; " The Re- 

 spiratory Mechanism in the Lamprey," by Simon II. 

 Gage ; " The Correlation of Structure and Host-habit 

 in the Encyrtime," by Leland O. Howard ; " The 

 Mammals of the Upper Cretaceous," by Henry F. Os- 

 born ; " The Production of Races and Varieties of 

 Bacteria in Mixed Cultures " and " A New Sporozoon 

 in the Intestinal Villi of Cattle," by Theobald Smith ; 

 " The Insect Guests of the Florida Land Tortoise," 

 by Henry G. Hubbard: "A Comparative Study of 

 the Lung with Special Reference to the Communica- 

 tion of one Air-sac with Another," by William S. 

 Miller; and " Some New Revelations Regarding Col- 

 or Sense in the Human Retina " and " On a New Ap- 

 paratus for measuring the Strength of Color-sense," 

 by John H. Pillsbury. 



G. Botany. The presiding officer of this sec- 

 tion wai Prof. Charles E. Bessey, who fills the 

 chair of Botany and Horticulture in the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska, and is well known as the author 

 of numerous text-books on botany. His address 

 had to do with " Evolution and Classification." 

 He pointed out the anomalous fact that while 

 botanists have long recognized that the present 

 scheme of classification was defective, they still 

 adhered to it. Theoretically discarding it, prac- 

 tically they used it. He showed that there may 

 be degradation as well as advancement in evolu- 

 tion, and that what seemed the lowest forms of 

 dicotyledons from their floral structure were not 

 necessarily primitive types. He therefore inter- 

 polated the apetalous orders of the ordinary clas- 

 sifications among the polypetalae as degraded 

 types of polypetalous flowers. He outlined what 

 seemed to him to be a natural classification, con- 

 sidering the ranunculaceae as the most primitive 

 flowers. The greatest deviation, therefore, from 

 this type was the highest in organization. He 

 believed that with but little modification the 

 sequence of orders in our modern text-books 

 could be used to express the natural relationships 

 of plants. Of course, such a scheme as a lineal 

 arrangement was out of the question. He, in 

 common with many others, recognized the com- 

 positre as the most highly organized of the dicot- 

 yledons, and the orchideao were placed at the 

 head of the monocotyledons. 



The following-named papers were read and 

 discussed before the section : 



" Photography as an Instrument for recording the 

 Microscopic Characters of Micro-organisms in Arti- 

 ficial Cultures," " Comparative Study of the Struc- 

 ture and Junction of the Sporangia of Ferns in the 

 Dispersion of Spores," and "Symbiosis in the Roots 

 of Ophioglossiul," 1-v George F. Atkinson; "Obser- 

 vations on a Rust afl'ecting the Leaves of the Jersey 

 or Scrub Pine " and " Results of some Recent Work 



on Rust of Wheat," by Beverly T. Galloway ; " Pro- 

 phyllaof Granimeu-," by William .J. 15. al ; "A New 

 Injection N.-r.ll.- f..r the Study of Low.-r Plant*," by 

 .(.'Christian May; "On th<- rood of <,n-.-n Plant*," 

 l.v I'liarli-s K. V.arm - : "The Solandi Printing ap- 

 plied to Botanical Work" ami "Tin; Shrink.. 

 Leaves in Drying," by Byron p. Halsted ; " Further 

 ( nervations on the Fermentation Tube with Special 

 Reference to Amcrobiohis, Reduction, and Gas Pi 

 duction," by Theobald Smith ; " Two New and 1 )- 

 structive Diseases of Cucurbits," by Erwin F. Smith ; 

 " Preliminary Statement concerning Botanical Labo- 

 ratories and Instruction in American Universities and 

 Colleges," by Conway MacMillan: "On the Quanti- 

 tative Analysis of the Colors of Flowers and Foliage," 

 by John H. Pillsbury; "The Minute Structure and 

 Development of the Motile Organ in the Leaf of the 

 Red Bud," by S. G. Wright; "Distribution of the 

 Graminese in the United States," by Samuel M. Tracy : 

 " Present Aspects of the Nomenclature Question " 

 and "A Consideration of a Species based on the 

 Theory of Evolution," by Nathaniel L. Britton ; " A 

 Revision of the Genus Physcomitrium " and " Ulota 

 Americana Mitten and Orthotrichum Americanum, 

 Beauv," by Elizabeth G. Britton ; " Deviation in De- 

 velopment due to the Use of Unripe Seeds," by John C. 

 Arthur ; " The Principal Diseases of Citrous Fruits now 

 being studied at Eustis, Fla.," and " Cephaluros Mycoi- 

 dea and Phyllosiphon sp., Two Parasitic Alga; New to 

 North America, 1 ' by W. T. Swingle; "An Analysis 

 of the Conditions aftecting the Distribution of Plants," 

 by Frederick V. Coville; "Lichens of the Black 

 Hills," by Thomas A. Williams; "The Bibliography 

 of American Botanical Literature," by J. Christian 

 Bay ; " Notes on the Development of Marattia Doug- 

 lasii, by Douglass H. Campbell ; " The Fructification 

 of Juniperus," by John G. Jack: "The Roots of 

 Orchids," by M. B. Thomas; "A Sclerotium Disease 

 of Plants," by P. H. Rolfs ; " Preliminary Notes on 

 some Chromogenic Bacteria of the Ames Flora," 

 " Notes on Jtasteha Pyrata," " Crossing of Cucurbits," 

 and " A Case of Poisoning by the Wild Pars/iip, 

 Cicuta Maculata," by L. H. Pamtnel. 



H. Anthropology. The presiding officer of 

 this section was J. Owen Dorsey, of Tacoma 

 Park. Md., who was connected for many years 

 with the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D. C. 

 The subject of his address was " The Biloxi In- 

 dians of Louisiana." The name Biloxi, he said, 

 was probably a corruption of the name which 

 the Biloxi Indians gave themselves, which is 

 Lakes, or Lakesa, and means the first people. 

 The Biloxis were known to have lived in 1669 at 

 Biloxi Bay, Miss. In 1763 they moved to Lou- 

 isiana, and of the whole tribe there are only 

 about 17 individuals now alive. Descent is in 

 the female line, the child belonging to the moth- 

 er's family and not to the father's. Among the 

 Biloxis were three divisions, one being known as 

 the Deer branch, the other as Grizzly Bear 

 branch, and the third as the Alligator branch. 

 The relationship of the members of the first 

 branch to the deer was characterized by the fact 

 that they did not eat deer meat and looked upon 

 that animal as sacred. The same was the case 

 with the grizzly bear and the alligator. 



Among their curious superstitions are the fol- 

 lowing : 



A Biloxi can not marry his wife's brothers 

 daughter nor his wife's father's sister, but a 

 Biloxi man can marry his deceased wife's sister 

 and a Biloxi woman can marry the brother of a 

 deceased husband. The Biloxis believed that 

 the spirit of a deer revived and went into 

 another body, and that this could be repeated 

 thrice, but that when the fourth deer was 



