1900 | CURRENT LITERATURE 75 
chapter gives a description of the habit, habitat and life history of the group, 
and a discussion of the nomenclature. Directions are given for collecting 
and preserving specimens. 
The zxthalioid forms are regarded as the most primitive, while the isolated 
sporangium with its capillitium is the highest expression of myxomycetous 
fructification, reached by successive differentiations from the simple plas- 
modium. The artificial keys follow this sequence. As in the previous 
monograph, the keys are clear and the descriptions are accompanied by a 
fullsynonymy. The plates are well drawn and should readily enable the student 
to recognize in actual preparations the structures which the figures are intended 
to illustrate—CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN. 
IN examining garden soils near Cambridge University (England) Dr. W. 
C. Sturgis isolated and studied a large soil bacillus of the type of De Bary’s 
B. Megatherium. Of its peculiar life history and morphology he gives an 
extended account in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London B. 191:147-169. Jd. 
I4-16. 1899. 
LIEFERUNGEN 4 and 5, completing the second edition of the Zora of the 
northeast German Lowlands, have been published.” 
Nothing need be added to the notice of the earlier parts.*% The general 
form and the details of typography are admirable for a field manual. It was 
announced that the price for the complete work would be raised above the 
subscription price of 4716.50, already high. C. R 
NOTES FOR STUDENTS. 
IN THE Transactions of the Royal Society of London (B. 190: 531-621) 
Mr, Francis Darwin. has published the results of interesting investigations on 
the behavior of stomata. He departs somewhat from the methods of previous 
investigators, which he does not consider very reliable, and uses the hygro- 
scope method suggested by him some years ago. He has improved upon 
the stipa hygroscope, using now hygroscopes made of horn shavings and 
Strips of the dried epidermis of Yucca alozfolia, so attached to a bit of card- 
board bearing graduations that the degree of curvature induced by the mois- 
ture from open stomata can be read. The horn hygroscope is quite reliable 
and has the advantage of showing in a few seconds whether the stomata are 
open or closed, while the Yucca hygroscope can be used to study accumu- 
lating moisture. His results frequently differ from those of previous investi- 
ators, 
* ASCHERSON, P., and GRA&BNER, P.: Flora des Nordostdeutschen Flachlandes 
(ausser Ostpreussen). Zweite Auflage. Lieferungen 4, 5. I2mo. pp. 481-875. 
Berlin: Gebriider Borntraeger 1898. 47 7.80 
* Bot. Gaz. 26: 363. 1898. 
