110 
pistillate aments are nearly sessile, oblong, up to 3 cm. long; the 
bracts are pubescent, marginally ciliate, divided about to the 
middle into three equal lobes which diverge rather widely, the 
mature bràcts reaching usually about 1 cm. long by 1 cm. wide 
and the angle formed at the base of the bract by the almost 
straight sides being practically a right angle; and the nut is 
narrowly obovate and slightly wider than the wing. In the 
rather constantly subcordate base of the leaves and in the more 
widely diverging lobes of the fruiting scales the Ashtabula speci- 
mens suggest a tendency towards the Betula alleghanensis of 
Britton, and it is not improbable that more typical specimens of 
this latter Betula might be found in the Ashtabula corner of Ohio. 
CARNEGIE MUSEUM, 
November 30, тоїї 
SOME MODERN TRENDS IN ECOLOGY 
By NORMAN TAYLOR 
When Ernst Haeckel, in 1866, first used the term ecology, it 
is safe to say that he little realized how the word would ulti- 
mately be construed to cover a very different set of biological 
factors from those described by him. Not only has the word 
ecology had a somewhat checkered career, having to stand as the 
outward and visible sign of many phases of biological activity, 
but it seems quite likely that a rather large section of that 
science which deals with organisms in their relation to environ- 
ment has wrongfully appropriated this much used and sadly mis- 
understood word. 
Let us hastily review the use of it by the chief exponents of 
what is just now a very important feature of botanical literature. 
While it has been stated that Haeckel first coined the term, the 
principles underlying the concept of ecology are very ancient. 
Without unearthing the more or less apocryphal progenitors of 
the idea, one distinguished figure of the last century stands out 
with whom we must reckon. Writing in 1836 Meyen has this to 
say: “The station (ecology) of plants denotes the relation in 
which the plants stand to the situation in which they always 
