lyo AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



The strangest freaks in all of Nature's family are the insects. 

 Last summer we saw myriads of moths, butterflies, beetles, gnats 

 and countless other insects. Today as I walked through the woods 

 the only insect I saw was a mosquito driven from its winter home 

 in a hollow tree and walking stiffly about on the snow. Some 

 of the others which last summer filled night and day with their 

 incessant humming are also hidden away in hollow logs, under 

 bark, in the caves, among the dead leaves — anywhere that will 

 furnish sufficient room for a hiding place. They may be frozen 

 stiff now but when the spring sun sends its reviving warmth into 

 their retreats, life will flow through their bodies and they will 

 be active once more. However, you might examine the whole 

 world with a microscope and you would not find a single animal 

 resembling some of those which were so abundant last summer. 

 Has the whole race been killed? And is it to be numbered with 

 those that have disappeared in the long gone geological ages? 

 Wait and see. Nature is not so careless with her children. If 

 the adult members of a species can not stand the rigors of winter, 

 then other means for preserving the race must be provided. vSome- 

 where, hidden away safely in a protected nook are some tiny eggs, 

 the sole representatives of their species and when warm weather 

 comes again these eggs will hatch and the bugs and butterflies, 

 the caterpillars and moths, and the gnats and wasps will be as 

 abundant as in former years. 



CRITICAL NOTES ON NEW AND OLD GENERA OF 

 PLANTS.— I. 



BY J. A. NIEUWLAND. 



1 



GONOPYORUM A HOMONYM. 



The name Gonopyrum F. and M. (1840)' is a homonym as 

 there was an older Gonopyros Raf.,^ (1828). The latter name 

 differs from the other only in gender form of the word, and there- 

 fore reduces the other to synonymy according to the code rules. 



1 Fischer and Meyer ex C. A. Meyer in Mem. Acad. Petersb. Ser. 

 VI.. VI., p. 144. (1840). 



2 Rafinesque C. S. Med. Fl. I., p. 155, (1S2S). 



3 Michaux, A., Fl. Bor. Am. II., p. 240, (1803). 



