518 General Notes. [ July, 
St. Louis, February, 1880, illustrated by three plates. In the 
Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, for April, Mr. F. Wolle 
gives a fourth list of fresh water algæ mostly found in the vicinity 
of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, of which at least ninety are new to 
the United States flora, and a number are described as new to 
science.——-A communication on the “influence of electricity 
upon the growth of plants,” was presented by Mr. J. M. Batchel- 
der, of Boston, to the Club. The author sowed “ pepper-grass” 
seeds on cotton floating on the surface of distilled water contained 
in two tumblers. One of the tumblers was insulated, and in it was 
placed a coiled copper wire, the other extremity of which com- 
municated with a revolving belt. Both tumblers were placed 
under the same conditions of light and heat. It was found that 
the electricity retarded both the germination of the seeds and the 
subsequent growth of the plants to a remarkable degree. At the 
conclusion of his experiments, Mr. Batchelder discovered that 
while the roots of the plants in the non-electrified water were 
growing normally, those submitted to the action of electricity 
were twisted and coiled in an intricate manner among the fibres 
of the cotton. A new species of Potamogeton (P. illinoiensis) is 
described by T. Morong, with notes on other species in the 
Botanical Gazette, for May. Inthe June number, G. Engelman 
notices the vitality of the seeds. of serotinous cones, and E. L. 
Greene publishes notes on certain silkweeds, 
ZOOLOGY. 
Tue HERRING OF THE Pacific Coast—The herring fishery is 
scarcely so important upon the coast as upon those of the Atlan- 
tic. How much of this is due to the herrings, and how much to 
the human inhabitants of the region is hard to tell. The species 
of Clupea, commonly known here as the herring, Clupea mirabilis, 
is, I believe, smaller than the Atlantic herring, and hitherto the 
cured fish has not been able to compete with the Eastern article. 
This, however, is not due to any scarcity of the fish, which occurs 
in shoals all along the coast at certain seasons, and is always 
abundant in the more northern regions. The herring found 
along the coast of the United States are said to be muoh inferior 
to those taken between Puget sound and Oonalashka. 
Some have been cured in Humboldt bay, but Humboldt her- 
ring are said to be very poor. The Alaska Fish Company have 
put some up at Oonalashka, which, having been very carefully 
cleaned and prepared, were sold to restaurants and oyster shops 
for lunch herring, and the Cutting Packing Company salt some at 
Sitka. The Indians press the whole fish for oil, and the spawn 1$ 
kept to form part of their winter supply of food 
Besides the herring, we have another Clupea, C. sagax, com- 
1 The departments of Ornithology and Mammalogy are conducted by Dr. ELLIOTT 
Cours, U. S. A. 
