882 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 102. 



glass, but from the back of a bronco with ideas 

 and ways of his own. The first chapter charm- 

 ingly describes the valley in which the observa- 

 tions were made, and the bronco who shared 

 the studies. The second, under the name of 

 ' The Little Lover ' tells the captivating tale of 

 a pair of Western House Wrens, from the build- 

 ing of the nest to the departure of the little 

 brood. The third introduces us to a bewitch- 

 ing bit of featherhood — the Blue-Gray Gnat- 

 catcher, and rehearses the tragedy that befell the 

 nest. And so it goes on, presenting to us in 

 every chapter a fresh group of birds, in new and 

 always interesting situations. At one time 

 there is a pair of orphaned Woodpeckers to 

 bring up by hand, and at another the vicissi- 

 tudes of home- making in the Bush-Tit family, 

 cousins of our Chickadee and ' little gray balls 

 with long tails,' a§. the author calls them. On 

 one page we read o the ups and down in life 

 of a pair of Vireos, on another the efforts of the 

 author to assist the Titmice in nest-building. 

 Rattlesnakes and Burrowing Owls, Jackrabbits 

 and Coyotes appear here and there, and in fact 

 the local color is so strong that the reader is 

 fairly transported to that land of sunshine. 



The whole book is delightfully written and 

 most fascinating in interest, and the reader has 

 the added pleasure of knowing that every state- 

 ment is to be depended upon ; there is no dress- 

 ing-up of incidents or intensifying of situations 

 for purposes of sensationalism. It is an honest 

 and faithful chronicle of the delights of bird 

 study without a gun, in a region unfamiliar to 

 most of us, and it is a most valuable book to 

 place in the hands of a young person, boy or 

 girl. It is well illustrated with cuts that really 

 illustrate, not only characteristic drawings of 

 the birds themselves, but photographs of the 

 valley with the trees and bushes in which they 

 dwell. Olive Thoene Miller. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 206TH 

 MEETING, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 1ST. 



Mr. Frederick V. Coville exhibited a 

 sinew-backed Modoc bow, made of the Western 

 yew, saying that, although the wood was for- 

 merly in considerable demand among the In- 



dians, he was not aware that it was used for any 

 economical purpose. 



Mr. Theo. Holm showed some old books in 

 which the first attempts were made to demon- 

 strate the presence of two sexes in flowers, viz. , 

 De la Croix's ' Le marriage des fleurs (Paris, 

 1727);' Vaillant: ' Sermo de structura florum 

 (Leyden, 1728),' and Sprengel's illustrious 

 work, ' Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur 

 (1793).' The title page of De la Croix's work 

 showed a most curious representation of the 

 sheep plant (now known as Baoulia mamil- 

 laris), of which the speaker exhibited a photo- 

 graphic reproduction from nature, published in 

 Goebel's ' Pflanzenbiologische Schilderungen.' 

 Mr. Holm then explained the Latin suffix, 

 'aster, astra, astrum.' Certain authors have 

 recently made new names, composed of indi- 

 vidual names in connection with this suflBx, 

 erroneously supposing ' aster,' as thus used, to 

 mean a star. Pliny and other ancient authors, 

 besides some of much later date, used the suffix 

 only to signify a genus which looks like another 

 one, but which is of inferior quality, aspect, 

 odor, taste, etc. Pliny says, for instance, that 

 the olive tree (Olea) when growing wild is an 

 Oleastrum : "In deteriora mutantur, ex olea 

 in oleastrum." 3fentastrum, Lilliastrum, etc., 

 are additional examples. 



Mr. Gilbert H. Hicks presented a paper on 

 the ' Mildews ' (Erysiphese) of Michigan, as a con- 

 tribution to the geographical distribution of 

 fungi. Thirty-one species of this family were 

 accredited to Michigan, as follows : Sphsero- 

 theca, 7 ; Erysiphe, 5 ; Uncinula, 6 ; Phyllactinia, 

 1 ; Podosphsera, 2 ; Microsphsera, 10. One new 

 species, a Sphaerotheca, was described and illus- 

 trated with specimens and photographs. 



Under the title of The Inflorescence of the Jun- 

 cacese Mr. Frederick V. Coville gave a resume of 

 the present knowledge of the subject, showing 

 that two distinct types of inflorescence occur in 

 the family, one made up of terminal flowers, 

 forming a cymose inflorescence, the other made 

 up of lateral flowers, forming a paniculate inflor- 

 escence. Both types pass into a variety of minor 

 forms. 



Mr. Theo. Holm read a paper on the Alpine 

 flora of Pikers Peak and Gray^s Peak, Colorado. 

 He exhibited specimens collected at an altitude 



