682 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 724 



that within a year a well-equipped ore dress- 

 ing lahoratory will be at the service of the 

 students of mining engineering. 



The widow of the Bavarian Surgeon-Gen- 

 eral Lotzbeck has given the sum of 20,000 

 Marks to endow a scholarship for medical 

 students. 



Professor John T. Hayford has accepted 

 the directorship of the new school of engi- 

 neering which Northwestern University will 

 inaugurate in 1909. He will terminate his 

 eonnection with the TJ. S. Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey, and take up his duties at Evanston in 

 the summer of 1909. 



Mr. R. E. Stone has resig-ned an instructor- 

 ship in botany at the Alabama Polytechnic 

 Institute to accept a professorship of agricul- 

 tural botany in the University of Nebraska. 



Dr. Cyrus W. Field has resigned his posi- 

 tion as assistant director of the research labo- 

 ratory of the Department of Health, New 

 York City, to accept the position of professor 

 of pathology and bacteriology in the medical 

 department of the University of Louisville. 



Dr. Arnold Jacobi, director of the Natural 

 History Museum in Dresden, has been ap- 

 pointed professor of zoology in the technical 

 high school of that city. 



Dr. Max Eeithoffer has been appointed 

 professor of electrical engineering at Vienna. 



Dr. Alexander Supan, head of the Perthes 

 Geographical Institute and editor of Peter- 

 mann's Mitteilungen, has been made professor 

 of geography at Breslau. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THE garter snakes OP NORTH AMERICA 



To THE Editor of Science: The U. S. 

 lifational Museum has recently published 

 (Bulletin 61, June 24, 1908) an important 

 and very interesting account of the garter 

 snakes of North America, by Mr. Alexander 

 G. Euthven. On reading the discussion of 

 the variability in color and scutellation, I was 

 struck by the absence of any reference to 

 Sperry's earlier work along the same line. 

 Again on reading the account of hutleri, I 



was surprised to find no reference to Whit- 

 taker's very detailed study of the connection 

 between hutleri and hrachy stoma. These 

 omissions led me to examine Mr. Euthven's 

 bibliography, with the rather surprising result 

 of finding the three following papers lacking: 

 E. N. Notestein, 1906. The Ophidia of Mich- 

 igan with an Analytical Key. Seventh Eep. 

 Mich. Acad. Sei., pp. 111-125. 

 W. L. Sperry, 1905. Variation in the Com- 

 mon Garter-Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis). 

 Eifth Eep. Mich. Acad. Sci., pp. 175-179. 

 C. C. Whittaker, 1906. The Status of Eu- 

 tsenia brachystoma. Seventh Eep. Mich. 

 Acad. Sci., pp. 88-92. 



Now, of course, it is very possible that I 

 have entirely misunderstood the scope of Mr. 

 Euthven's bibliography, and that he only in- 

 tends to include papers to which he refers in 

 his text. He certainly knew of these three 

 papers, as he has been a member of the Mich- 

 igan Academy of Science since the spring of 

 1904.— 



But if his bibliography is complete so far as 

 his own text-references go, I still do not under- 

 stand why no reference is made to Sperry's 

 and Whittaker's papers. So far as I know, 

 Sperry's paper was the first discussion of 

 variability in a garter snake, based on a large 

 amount of material from a single locality. 

 Some of the conclusions are of such impor- 

 tance that they ought to have been discussed 

 by Mr. Euthven. Concerning tutleri, Mr. 

 Euthven says he has " already expressed the 

 opinion " that Cope's specimen of " irachy- 

 stoma" is identical with hutleri. As Mr. 

 Euthven's opinion was not published until 

 March, 1906, and Whittaker's elaborate dis- 

 cussion of the point was presented to the 

 Michigan Academy, at Ann Arbor, in March, 

 1905, it would seem as though some mention 

 of Whittaker's conclusions ought to have been 

 made by Mr. Euthven. 



Very possibly it may be said that neither 

 Sperry's nor Whittaker's paper was of suffi- 

 cient importance to warrant notice, but to 

 this I can not agree, and the purpose of this 

 communication is to call attention to what 

 seems to me an unfair neglect of earlier 

 workers. Hubert Lyman Clark 



