196 Scientific Intelligence. 



edition. The treatise was recognized from the outset as opening 

 up fresh fields of research on the borders between three allied 

 departments of Botany. The relations which exist between 

 form, function, and origin are sometimes exceedingly obscure, 

 and this obscurity was deepened in many instances by the neglect 

 of some gross morphologists to investigate the minute anatomy 

 of the organs in question. To Sehwendener and Haberlandt is 

 due a large part of the credit for stimulating observers to enter 

 upon this middle ground in the right way. The present volume 

 by Haberlandt is in many respects a great improvement upon the 

 previous editions, since it enters more boldly upon the field of 

 cecology and brings up some of the very attractive questions in 

 the domain of what we may term applied physiology. It is 

 truly surprising to notice the small number of changes in the 

 statement of facts which the author has been compelled to make 

 in the period of twenty-five years. The extreme caution which 

 characterized the early edition has borne good fruit in the later 

 ones, since there have been practically no mistakes to recall. 

 The treatise in its enlarged form is of great value to morpho- 

 logists, anatomists, and oecologists, and, in a general way, to 

 systematists, as well. 



The publisher has wisely reprinted as a separate, the pages 

 devoted to the irritable organs of plants, since the subject 'of 

 sensitiveness is attracting at the present time a good deal of 

 attention. A few physiologists will not agree with some of 

 Haberlandt's conclusions, but even they must admit his fairness 

 and clearness. g. l. g. 



III. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. Rejiort of the Secretary of the Smithsoyiian Institution, 

 Dr. Chaeles D. Walcott, for the year ending June 30, 1909. 

 Pp. 95. — The annual report of the Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution for the year ending June, 1909, has recently appeared. 

 It gives the usual interesting summary in regard to the activity 

 of the Institution in its varied functions. Dr. Walcott draws 

 attention to the fact that in the estimates for the present year 

 there is an increase of Si 0,000 for the Bureau of Ethnology, to 

 be used in connection with researches among the tribes of the 

 Middle West and also in Hawaii and Samoa. A larger appropria- 

 tion is also called for to carry on the work of the Astrophysical 

 Observatory, for the Zoological Park, and particularly for the new 

 building of the National Museum, which is now nearing comple- 

 tion. In regard to the latter it is stated that the entire stone 

 work of the outer walls is completed, as also the roofs and 

 skylights, and much progress has been made in the interior, 



that it was expected that some of the halls and work-rooms 

 would be ready for use early in the autumn (1909). The Inter- 

 national Tuberculosis Congress, in the autumn of 1908, utilized 



