428 The Botanical Gazette. [November, _ 
BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
Natural history specimens in mails for foreign countries.—The fol- 
lowing notice has lately been distributed to postmasters: The United 
States Post Office Department having submitted a proposition to so 
amend the universal postal convention of Vienna as to admit pack- 
ages containing natural history specimens to the mails exchanged be- 
tween countries of the postal union at the same postage rate and 
under the same conditions as apply to packages containing “samples 
of merchandise” in said mails, and said proposition having upon its 
submission to a vote of the countries composing the Universal Postal 
Union been rejected; the notice is hereby given that packages con 
taining natural history specimens are not, transmissible by mail to any 
country of the postal union (except Canada) except as ‘letters upon 
which postage at the rate of five cents per half-ounce has been prepaid 
EOE es 
The foregoing provisions do not apply to packages of natural history 
specimens addressed for delivery in Canada, the transmission of which 
is governed by the United States postal laws and regulations; nor sa 
similar packages sent by “parcels post” to the countries named on 
page 930 of the United States Oficial Postal Guide for January, 1893, 
[These are: Bahamas, Barbadoes, Colombia, Costa Rice, Danish West 
Indies, Hawaiian Kingdom, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Mexico, 
Salvador, British Guiana, and Windward Is. | 
Postmasters will cause due notice of the foreg 
their offices. 
By direction of the Postmaster-General, N. M. BROOKS, 
ent of Foreign Maits. 
oing to be taken at 
EDITORIAL. ae 
of American botanists pie 
n the purpose Wa 
THE INCREASINGLY close organization : 
significant fact. In the beginning of their associatio alae 
chiefly to cultivate personal acquaintance and to catch the pe ai 
that comes from an interchange of views. This has pone “ 
‘ , roughly 
the great body of the working botanists of this country are tho a 
dissipated in the maintenance of differen 3d 
adopt the co-operative plan of work, and with this 1¢ea 
