` 
76 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIII. 
tracheal and bronchial rings — arise from the seventh visceral (fifth 
branchial) arch, and that the laryngeal muscles arise from the mus: 
culature of the same arch. In the same number of the journal, 
Hochstetter continues his researches on the blood vessels, this time 
discussing the arteries of the alimentary canal. Bolk describes an 
abnormal condition in the shorter head of the biceps femoris muscle 
of the orang, and discusses its bearings upon the morphology of 
this muscle. Maurer describes the vacuolization of the epidermis of 
the anura at the time of metamorphosis, while Gegenbaur has some 
remarks upon anatomical nomenclature, urging the retention of per- 
sonal names as a guide to the history of the subject, as well as con- 
sidering the terminations -ideus or -oides. 
BOTANY. 
A New Text-book on Fossil Plants.'— Of late years an increas- 
ing interest in the study of plant-fossils has been developed among 
botanists, especially with reference to the bearing of these fossil 
remains upon the origin of existing plants. 
The great importance of a thorough knowledge of fossil plants in 
the study of the evolution of plant forms is sufficiently obvious; but 
unfortunately, much of the descriptive work upon fossil plants has 
_ been done by men who were not botanists, and whose knowledge 
of living plants was of the slightest. This fact has helped to dis- 
credit much of the work in paleobotany, and a great deal of really 
important work has not, perhaps, received the attention it deserved. 
There is at present almost hopeless confusion in the nomenclature of 
fossil plants, names having frequently been given to unrecognizable 
fragments of more than dubious autonomy, and often enough shown 
later not to be plant remains at all. It is most encouraging then 
when we find trained botanists entering the field; men who are really 
competent to interpret the specimens with which they have to deal, 
and not so much interested in adding to the already overgrown list 
of doubtful fragments as in doing something to throw light upon the 
real affinities of the forms already described. 
Professor Seward’s thorough training, both as botanist and geolo- 
gist, has prepared him admirably for the task he has set himself, and 
it must be admitted that he has acquitted himself in a most satis- 
1 Seward, A. C., M.A., F.R.S; Fossil Plants, vol. i. T University 
Press, 1898. 
