Bibliographical Notice. 485 
plants, issued by the “ Geological and Natural-History Survey” of 
the Dominion ; and the colony is to be congratulated on the business- 
like manner in which Mr. John Macoun has begun his task. The 
form, paper, and printing of the work are admirable, the type being 
especially clear ; and beyond the dropping of a letter here and there, 
as in the generic initial of the fourth species mentioned, the appear- 
ance of Alianthus for Ailanthus, and one or two slips of the 
kind, no fault can be found under this head. In a short preface the 
Author summarizes the brief literature of his subject and the history 
of botanical exploration in the country, enumerating also the collec- 
tions examined for the purposes of the work. From this it appears 
that the Survey-staff have been collecting for the last ten years, but 
that the examination of the Rocky-Mountain region and of British 
Columbia is still very imperfect. When we remember that the area 
of the Dominion is estimated at over three and a half million square 
miles, or little less than that of Europe, we cannot expect it to be as 
yet at all completely known to the botanist, as is perhaps evident 
from Mr. Macoun’s Catalogue, which enumerates 907 species of 
Polypetale under 243 genera, as against 616 species in the 193 
genera of the same group in our British flora, according to the 
‘ London Catalogue.’ One useful detail in Mr. Macoun’s work is that 
both the genera and the species are numbered continuously through- 
out, thus facilitating the above comparison, which gives the possibly 
significant result of an average of 3°73 species to every genus in the 
continental, as against 3°18 in the insular flora. It must, however, 
be noticed that Mr. Macoun has included in his numbering not only 
“introduced plants,” ‘“‘ garden escapes,” and those ‘* spontaneous 
in gardens,” but also planted trees, such as the horse-chestnut and 
Tilia europea, and even species “likely to be found”! ‘There are 
at least a hundred of these in the present part, and their inclusion 
without typographical distinction seems perfectly unjustifiable, 
though the indication of the western migration of such plants as 
Papaver somniferum and P. Rheas, Chelidonium, Armoracia, Cap- 
sella, Thlaspi arvense, and the Brassicas is undoubtedly of interest. 
It is remarkable that the list includes so many migrants from the 
east and but very few from the south. There are, of course, many 
names and authorities for names that might be called in question 
according to the law of priority; but this is no new fault in 
recent systematic works; blemishes perhaps of a more practical 
bearing and more readily remediable, however, are, first, that no 
apparent distinction is made between bond fide local names, as 
May-flower, Yellow Puccoon, and White Cohosh, and mere “ book-” 
names, such as Virgin’s-Bower, Awl-wort, or Thyme-leaved Pin- 
weed; and, secondly, that the localities are stated continuously, with 
no obvious grouping under provinces or natural divisions. In a 
catalogue it may have been inevitable to insert under the genus: 
Astragalus two unnamed species without descriptions, which can 
only be referred to by their numbers or localities ; but it is a course 
open to considerable objection. When all is said, however, these 
are but slight faults in a generally excellent piece of work, and the 
