52 
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT. 
Mr. F.S. Earle, Assistant Curator, has gone to Santiago, Cuba, 
to join Professor Underwood for about a month, for the purpose 
of exploring eastern Cuba and making collections for the Garden, 
His special object on this trip is the continuation of his studies 
on the fungi of the West Indies ; a report of his observations in 
the Island of Jamaica last autumn, was published in the January 
jssue of this JourNAL, and he has given considerable time since 
his return from Jamaica to studies of the specimens secured there. 
Mr. A. A. Heller, who has recently spent about two months in 
Porto Rico, has returned with a considerable collection of specimens 
secured in the vicinity of Ponce, a set of which will be placed in 
the herbarium, and will supplement previous collections made by 
r. Heller, Professor Underwood, Mr. Wilson and others on 
that island. Mr. Earle is now adage the fungi of this last 
collection by Mr. Heller. 
t was recorded in the February Journat that Mr. Percy 
Wilson, Museum Aid, had started on an exploration of Hon- 
duras; Mr. Wilson has already commenced to send collections, 
two large boxes of living orchids and bromeliads, and one box 
of herbarium and museum specimens having recently been re- 
ceived in good order. 
Dr. D. T. MacDougal, Director of the Laboratories, spent the 
month of February in company with Mr. F. V. Coville, Chief 
Botanist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, in Arizona, 
northern Mexico and southern California, on behalf of the Car- 
negie Institution of Washington, for the purpose of determining 
the most desirable site for the new desert botanical laboratory 
of that institution, the establishment of which was recorded in 
the January number of this Journat. Dr, MacDougal will 
subsequently present a report of his observations on this trip ; he 
secured a considerable number of cactuses and other succulent 
plants for the Garden during his absence. 
Dr. N. L. Britton, Director-in-Chief, Mrs. N. L. Britton and 
Mr. John Shafer, Curator of the Herbarium of the Carnegie Mu- 
seum of Pittsburg, started for a visit to the western portion of 
