582 General Notes. [ September, 
west of the 105th degree of west longitude, and south of the goth 
parallel. In the Botanical Gazette for July, Mary C. Reynolds 
notices at length certain Floridian ferns. E. T. Smith notices a 
new form of Trillium grandiflorum from Michigan. A writer 
over the initials C. R. B. calls attention to the neglected botany 
of West Virginia. Fritz Müller questions, in Nature, whether ~ 
many of the varieties of bananas have not been produced by bud- 
variation, In the Mzttheilungen of the Natural History Society 
of Bern, Herr Frankhauser contributes a paper on the most 
important conditions of shape in the leaf of phanerogamic plants, 
and a second one on the principal laws of growth in Floridee, 
and Dr. Pertz notices some luminous bacteria. In an important 
memoir on the ovule of plants, Prof. Warming discusses the early 
development of the leaf or “ ovular mamelon,” the genesis of the 
nucleus and the formation of the integuments of the mamelon. 
According to a reviewer in Nature he demonstrates that the 
theory of Brogniart as to the morphological significance of the 
ovule is the true and solely admissible one, and he reasons very 
conclusively against the views of Bronn, Eichler and Strasburger, 
who would regard the ovule as a bud, while in reality, as he says, 
“the ovule is the homologue of a sporangium.” r. Le Let 
quereux contributes an article on Cordaites bearing fruit (with a 
plate) to the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 
ZOOLOGY.! 
Dogs THE Fox SNAKE “Mimic” THE RATTLESNAKE? — On 
May 24th a fact came under my observation which until then 
was unknown to me; it may, however, not be new to other 
readers of the NATURALIST. 
_4The departments of Ornithology and Mammalogy are conducted by Dr. ELLIOTT 
Cove, USA- tad aed 
