﻿THE INDEXING OF PERIODICALS, 271 



Trisetum flavescens Beauv. 85. Common. 



Catabrosa aquatica Beauv. 35. Wye banks, and reetts near the 



Melica nutans L. 84. Limestone cliffs and woods, common. 

 Recorded by Reader, Journ. Bot. 1886, 370. 

 Boa pratensis L. 35. Common. 



Gh/ceria want Una Wahl. 35. Waste ground, Chepstow; Ley. 

 Severn-shore, Matherne.— (?. distans Wahl. 35. Wye bank, Chep- 

 stow. 



Bromus erectus Huds. 35. Meadow, St. Arvans. 



Lastraa amula Brackenridge. 84. Near Chepstow. 



Osmwida regalis L. 34. Boggy thickets, West Gloucestershire 

 side of Wye above Tintern. Rapidly becoming eradicated. 



Botrychium Lunaria Sw. 35. In small quantity in a meadow 

 near Mounton. First found by B. S. Hutton, 1894. 



Equisetum pcdustre L. 35. Trelleck Bog, and near Tintern. 



Lycopodium clavatum L. 34. Reader, Bee. Club Rep. 1881-82. 

 85. Wentwood, and between Tintern and Bigsweir. 



Chara vulgaris L. 35. Between Chepstow and Itton; ditches 



Nitella opaca Agardh. 84. Pond on Tidenham Chase. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

 VI.— The Indexing of Periodicals. 



A periodical that is badly indexed is thereby deprived of at 

 least half its usefulness — probably more. This being so, it is 

 strange that so much carelessness and incapacity are displayed in 

 the making of indexes. I desire to call attention to some ex- 

 amples of bad indexes, in the hope that something like uniformity 

 may be introduced : and I propose to confine myself to periodicals 

 published in tbis country. 



The daily use of indexes for many years has convinced me that 

 the most convenient mode is to combine everything in one alphabet 

 — a plan adopted in this Journal from its commencement, and in 

 the later volumes of the Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany). It 

 is difficult to see why so simple a method, the advantages of which 

 are obvious, is not universally adopted. 



Indexes may err by omission and commission : by exclusion 

 and inclusion. The latter failing is less common, but hardly less 

 irritating : it takes the form of enumerating every casual reference 

 to a subject, and is exemplified in the indexes to the new series of 

 the Phytologist, and to Mr. Francis George Heath's works. The 

 otherwise excellent index to the Linnean Society's Journal (xxix. 

 1891-3) is, I think, tainted with this failing :— Mr. F. N. Williams's 

 monograph of Dianthus is too elaborately indexed, preLinnean 

 names are entered, the reduction of synonyms is given at length, 

 and their place of publication is cited: e.g., " ambiguus Safisb, 



