736 General Notes. [ September, 
or the other. C. B. Clarke’s paper in the July Yournal of Bot- 
any, ‘‘ Notes on Commelinacez,” is very interesting as containing 
a summary of the order as it is to appear in the forthcoming vol- 
ume of De Candolle’s “ Monographies.” In the same journal, J. G. 
Baker catalogues the ferns collected by Kalbreyer in New Gran- 
ada, and describes twenty-one new species. J. B. Ellis, in the 
July Zorrey Bulletin, describes eleven new species of Fungi from 
Utah, collected by M. E. Jones. A notice of the Muhlenberg 
Herbarium, now in possession of the American Philosophical So- 
ciety in Philadelphia, and a continuation of the List of the State 
and local floras of the United States, occur in the same number 
of the Bulletin. -Dr. Rothrock’s paper on ‘“ Home and foreign 
methods of teaching Botany,” in the July Botanical Gazette, 18 
one which should be read by every teacher of botany in the 
country. It contains a strong plea for the study of plants rather 
than books. n the same number Dr. Engelmann describes 
several new species of plants, among them a suffrutescent Portu- 
laca. C. H. Peck also describes some new Fungi from Utah. . 
C. F. Wheeler and E. F. Smith, of Hubbardston, Mich.; 
have just issued a “Catalogue of the Pheznogamous and vasculat 
Cryptogamous plants of Michigan.” It contains entries of 1634 
species, of which 1559 are flowering plants. Valuable notes 
are appended to many of the species, and a good map of te 
State is added. The authors offer a limited number of copies 
tions to economic botany, has just added another, “The grow” 
ing of Indian Corn,” a pamphlet of fifty pages, extracted from 
the ante report of the Massachusetts State Board of Ag- 
riculture, . 
ZOOLOGY. 
A SHOWER oF CycLops QUADRICORNIS.—I have just received — 
(June 12) from C. L. Garretson, of Salem, Henry county, lo 
. asmall vial containing about half a teaspoonful of water, accom: 
panied by a note in which he says, “On the night of June i 
1881, there was a heavy rain-fall, and on the morning of the oth 
Pp ES: ; € 
only thing peculiar about them, is, that the body is full of bright 
red corpuscles, which accounts for their imparting 4 red appear 
ance to the water containing them. A specimen of the same 
creature taken from a jar of water that has been standing 11 sit 
office for several weeks, contains a few of these corpuscles, DU 
not a hundredth part as many as are in the bodies of the rain 
a 
ee 
