1890.] Botany. 79 
our earlier botanists have not been properly comprehended in the 
light of our fuller knowledge. The examination has proved that many 
of our catalogued species are fictitious, and that considerable changes 
in nomenclature must be made. However such radical changes are 
to be regretted, they are nevertheless unavoidable if priority of publi- 
cation is to be considered ; and there is the surety that in the future 
the changes must be very few. The very oldest types have been seen 
so far as they are known to exist, and almost every name which has 
been applied to North American species is accounted for and under- 
stood. It is, therefore, evident that any further changes in the names 
of our species must be almost entirely such as rest upon judgments of 
the systematic merits of accepted species and varieties.’’ 
Professor Bailey visited or had access to twenty-six important col- 
lections of carexes, twenty-one of which are in European herbaria. In 
his paper he upholds the use of the oldest published name or combi- 
nation in every instance. He has given varietal names ‘‘ only to those 
forms which assume a considerable degree of permanence under various 
conditions, and the combining of which would lead to confusion in 
the knowledge of the species.” He has no sympathy ‘“ with that 
ultra refinement of classification which gives names to specimens rather 
than to species and their larger variations. Such refinements serve no 
useful purpose, and do not merit the name of science. 
Eighty-four species are critically noticed in the paper, and the 
synonymy carefully determined. The notes under each species are of 
the greatest value to the student of this difficult genus, and will have 
to be carefully studied by every one who wishes to know what are the 
latest views as to the relationship of the many puzzling species.— 
CHARLES E. BESSEY. 
ZOOLOGY. 
The Zoological Position of Palawan.—Mr. A. H. Everett, 
in a paper before the Zodlogical Society of London, contends that 
Palawan and the other islands intervening between Borneo and Min- 
doro form an integral part of the Bornean group, and do not belong to 
the Philippine group with which they are usually associated. His 
grounds are that they are connected with Borneo by a shallow sub- 
merged bank, and are separated from the Philippines by water over 
500 feet in depth; the fauna also shows a marked preponderance of 
