438 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MAY 
organization of the Central Committee for the Survey and Study of British 
Vegetation, more popularly known as the British Vegetation Committee. 
This organization secured the effective cooperation of British ecologists, and 
among other things has to its credit the organization of the International Phyto- 
geographic Excursion of 1911 and the publication of Types of British vege- 
tation. In 1912 there was formally organized the British Ecological Society, 
which has become the successor of the British Vegetation Committee. One 
of the chief tasks of this new society is the publication of a journal. ‘The first 
thought was to have this new journal be little more than an organ of the 
British ecologists. But a broader view prevailed, and we now have an inter- 
national journal devoted to ecology, the first of its kind; from the first, number 
the quality of the journal has been such as to give it cant with the foremost 
botanical periodicals. 
The scope of the new ecological journal is such as to make an effective 
appeal to ecologists of other lands quite as much as to those of the British Isles. 
To facilitate use by both general and local readers, articles and reviews of 
general nature are kept distinct from those of more local significance. To 
the writer the “high-water mark” of the new journal seems to be reached by 
its reviews. It is doubtful if the reviews in any other botanical journal equal 
in efficiency those of the new Journal of Ecology. They. are models as to 
thoroughness and accuracy, in many cases making it really unnecessary to 
consult the original papers except to secure details. It is unusual and highly 
illuminating to have published in many of the reviews the more significant 
Sores of the original papers. The only adverse criticism that the writer 
make is that the reviews generally are unsigned. It goes without saying 
Me the new journal is absolutely necessary for the working ecologist. The 
British ecologists may well congratulate themselves upon their accomplish- 
ments during the last decade. In 1904 their work was scattered and mostly 
of local significance; today they are oy cepecercend the leaders in cooperative 
ecological activity——H. C. Cowie 
American Journal of Botany.—The first number of this new journal has 
ared, and needs no explanation to American botanists. It is the official 
pablicalion of the Botanical Society of America, and is published by the 
the increase of means of publication has not kept pace with production. “ The 
result has been that our established botanical journals in America are ovet- 
stocked with manuscripts waiting their turn, our colleges and universities 
are making outlets for their own production, and foreign journals have their 
courtesy and capacity taxed by the offers of American contributors. All 
three of the conditions just named are undesirable: an author does not like to 
wait a year or more for the publication of his paper, the multiplication of small 
periodicals by colleges and universities is a vexation to research, and it is neither 
