4 Notes and Comments. 
attention. There are, for example, the strange instincts and 
actions of the young cuckoo in the nest. In the cuckoo’s 
respectable days it cannot have been the little demon it now 
is. It cannot have been in the habit of turning its brothers 
and sisters and eggs out of the nest. So it probably had not 
then the convenient hollow in its back for holding the eggs. 
And yet these habits, instincts and structure seem absolutely 
essential to the well-being of the young Cuckoo. Only by 
turning everything else out of the nest can it obtain sufficient 
nourishment for itself. And yet the first cuckoo hatched in a 
Titlark’s nest cannot be supposed to have had these characters. 
It would get no advantage in the strange nest, and would 
probably be starved. 
THE PRESENT POSITION OF BOTANICAL SURVEY. 
Botanists will find in the recent issues of the Tvansactions 
of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, several papers of more 
than usual interest. In Vol. 23, part II, pp. 53-59, Dr. Wm. G. 
Smith gives a useful summary of the present position of 
Botanical Survey in Britain. Plant-geography seeks to an- 
swer three questions (1) What plants occur in the world ; 
(2) Where they occur ; (3) Why they occur in one part and not 
in another. The data required to answer the first two questions 
result in Floristic plant-geography, the best examples of which 
are the excellent monographs in Engler and Drude’s ‘ Vegeta- 
tion der Erde.’ The outcome of the third enquiry is Physio- 
logical Plant-geography as exemplified in A. F. W. Schimper’s 
‘ Plant-Geography.’ Warming emphasises the relation of 
plant form to environment and considers that similar conditions 
of environment produce similar plant-form. The ideal bot- 
anical survey of a district or country should take account of 
all these points of view of plant-geography—fioristic, distribu- 
tional and ecological—and in all directions something has been 
done, but much remains yet to be done. 
PUBLICATIONS. 
The Survey memoirs published in Britain show that the 
work resolves itself into four processes :—(1) Selection of an 
area, preferably one little influenced by man. (2) Analysis. 
of vegetation into its units and the recording of these on 
6-inch Survey Maps. (3) Investigations on the influence of 
climatic, topographic, edaphic, and biological factors and 
their influence on the distribution of the various plant com- 
munities. (4) Examination of analysis from a synthetic stand- 
point. This involves the consideration of the origin and 
status of the plant communities. Sufficient progress has al- 
ready been made to warrant broad conclusions being drawn 
from such investigations, e.g., the view that ‘ succession ’ plays 
an important part in the present distribution of vegetation 
Naturalist, 
