1879. } Zoology. 125 
BoranicaL News.—Botanists will be interested in the portion 
of Sir J. D. Hooker’s recent anniversary address as president of 
the Royal Society of London, which appears in Mature for Dec. 
5th. He reviews Comte Gaston de Saporta’s essay entitled 
L’Ancienne Végétation Polaire, in which the author takes the 
ground that life first appeared in the northern circumpolar area of 
the globe, and that this was the birthplace of the first and of all 
subsequent floras ; the initial conditions of terrestrial life follow- 
ing upon the emergence of the earlier stratified rocks from the 
Polar ocean. . 
Among recent botanical works are Heer’s History of Vegeta- 
tion in Switzerland, and Christ's Das Pflanzenleben in der 
Schw 
The foathaoning eleventh report of the U. S. Geological and 
Geographical Survey of the Territories, in charge of Prof. H 
_ den, will contain the reports of Sir J. D. Hooker and Prof. Asa 
Gray on the results of their botanical explorations in the western 
Territories in connection with this survey 
Trimen’s Fournal of Botany for December contains an article 
on the pro-embryo of Cae: an essay in morphology, by S. H. 
Vines. 
In the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club for November, 
Dr. Asa Gray records two remarkable forms of Trillium. Mr. 
C. G. Pringle notices some north-eastern plants; and the discov- 
ery of a truffle new to the North American flora, by Mr. W. R. 
Gerard, is recorded. 
A Catalogue of North American Ferns (north of Mexico) in 
the Davenport Herbarium of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society is to be issued by Mr. George E. Davenport, 8 Hamilton 
Place, Boston, Mass., provided that he can obtain a sufficient 
number of subscribers to meet the expense. The price will not 
exceed fifty ce 
In the Ea Gasette for December, Dr. George Vasey adds 
to and corrects the catalogue of the forest trees of the United 
States. Mr. Thomas Meehan writes concerning Cassia nicticans. 
J. R. Lowrie gives a list of the trees and plants inhabiting a 
plantation which has been protected, for a series of years, both 
from the inroads of cattle and the labor of farmers 
ZOOLOGY. ? 
TuE BREEDING HABITS oF THE EEL—A cCORRECTION.—Farther 
examinations of additional specimens of the eel, convince me that 
an error as to the sex of the eel was made in my article in the 
January NATURALIST. The motile bodies whose active move- 
ments misled me were not «kien but yolk particles, with 
an unusually marked Brownian motion he male sex has yet 
iThe wrens of Ornithology and Mammalogy are conducted by Dr. Erorr 
Coves, U 
