826 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 412. 



with moistened ' Bon Ami.' The resulting 

 layei- is easily and quickly prepared, without 

 danger of breaking the glass, does not 

 soil the hands, and gives as satisfactory a 

 surface for recording tracings as does smoked 

 glass. In fact the tracings are often sharper 

 and better adapted for measurement than 

 those made on a smoke film. The glass sur- 

 face may be quickly and completely cleaned 

 again by a slight rubbing with a dry cloth. 



A paper by William Fox described a simple 

 geometrical construction for tracing the path 

 of a ray of light through a prism, for use in 

 explaining the behavior of a prism to an ele- 

 mentary class. 



It was decided to hold the annual meeting 

 of the society at Washington, in connection 

 with Section B of the American Association, 

 during Convocation Week. The arrangements 

 for the joint meeting were left in the hands 

 of the officers of Section B and of the Society, 

 and will be announced later. 



Ernest Meeritt, 



Secretary. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OP WASHINGTON. 



The 359th meeting was held on Saturday 

 evening, ISTovember 1. 



Frederick V. Coville spoke of the ' Dye 

 Plants of the North Carolina Mountaineers,' 

 illustrating his remarks with a series of her- 

 barium specimens of the plants used, accom- 

 panied by examples of the colors obtained 

 from them. He stated that the large use 

 formerly made of these native dyes was partly 

 due to the isolation of the mountaineers, 

 partly to their poverty, and said that while 

 there, as elsewhere, aniline dyes had come into 

 use, an effort was being made to persuade the 

 mountaineers to return to the once popular 

 vegetable dyes. In regard to the extensive 

 gathering of medicinal plants in the southern 

 mountains the speaker said that he was told 

 by Professor Mohr that this originated dur- 

 ing the Civil War, when the South was ob- 

 liged to rely for medicinal supplies largely 

 on those that could be procured from native 

 plants. 



E. W. Nelson discussed the ' Evolution of 

 Subspecies as Illustrated by Mexican Quails 



and Squirrels.' The series of quail exhibited 

 showed a practically unbroken continuity of 

 range of the genus Colinus from Florida 

 around the gulf states to the Eio Grande, 

 and thence south through eastern Mexico to 

 Tabasco and across the Isthmus of Tehuan- 

 tepec to and down the Pacific coast to the 

 border of Guatemala. The series showed, 

 in addition, that a considerable number of 

 forms which have previously been considered 

 strongly marked species are really but sub- 

 species of the well-known bob-white (Colinus 

 virginianus) of the United States. 



A series of squirrels representing Sciurus 

 aureogaster and its subspecies 8. a. frumentor 

 and S. a. hypopyrrhits was shown to illustrate 

 the manner in which two complete reversals 

 of color pattern occur in the intergrading 

 series covering the geographic range of this 

 species which inhabits the tropical gulf coast 

 region of eastern Mexico. 



H. J. Webber exhibited specimens of fruit 

 resulting from crossing the edible orange with 

 the hardy but valueless trifoliate orange. The 

 result indicated the possibility of ultimately 

 obtaining a variety of orange whose fruit 

 should be of value, while the tree would grow 

 much farther north than any existing variety. 

 F. A. Lucas. 



TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 



At the meeting of the Club on October 14 

 the scientific program consisted of informal 

 reports of summer work and observations. 



The Secretary spoke of his collections of 

 Asters, also of Euphrasia and other alpine 

 plants in the White Mountains. Discussion 

 regarding Wettstein's monograph of Eu- 

 phrasia followed. An interesting Euphrasid 

 was collected by Dr. M. A. Howe in New- 

 foundland, a year ago. 



Dr. MacDougal remarked upon the dissim- 

 ilarity of the alpine conditions of the Rockies 

 from those of the White Mountains. Tracts 

 which in July in the rains of the White 

 Mountains are covered merely with green 

 would have been blazing with flowers if in 

 the Rockies. 



Dr. Underwood spoke of the recognition 

 among farmers about Redding, Ct., of two 



