1896.] Botany. 747 
tion to the great size of the anterior vertebræin the cervical region, and 
the peculiar long, slender coracoids which are ankylosed with the mnch 
reduced sternum. The figure accompanying the text shows the prob- 
able position of the scapula in relation to the coracoid, the coraco- 
scapular angle being very obtuse, as in most flightless birds; the 
humerus is proportionally small, and its pectoral crest is reduced to a 
mere tubercle. (Geol. Mag., London, June, 1896.) 
GENERAL.—According to C. D. Perrine, thirty-three distinct earth- 
quakes were felt in California during the year 1894. This does not 
include a series of over one hundred shocks in Virginia, Nev., during 
the week of November 16-22, nor heavy earthquakes and volcanic 
disturbances which occurred in the New Hebrides group of islands 
during October and November. (Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 129, 
Washington, 1895.) 
BOTANY." 
The Teaching of Elementary Botany.—That the teaching of 
elementary botany in this country is, to say the least, very poor, is a 
statement which needs no argument to prove its correctness. Much of 
the botany of the public schools is a wretched sat at doing some- 
thing which neither t pl ils understand. In some places the 
pupil is made to con the pages A a ‘text-book i in which emphasis is laid 
upon minute and meaningless anatomical details of the structure of a 
few flowering plants. Elsewhere field-work, so-called, is required of 
the pupil; but here again the chaff is carefully separated from the 
grain, and the pupil is given the chaff. Thus he is made to fill out 
. vacancies in blanks (called “ schedules”) in which the unimportant 
structural characters receive as much attention as those which are sig- 
nificant, the result being a description which neither describes nor 
separates the plant under consideration from dozens of others. The 
meaning of any structure is entirely overlooked, while the pupil is com- 
pelled to give much time and labor to unimportant details. 
There are two reasons for this condition of things: first, the little 
knowledge of the science of Botany possessed by many teachers; and 
second, the absence of any definite idea on the part of teachers of the 
culture-value of Botany in the education of the pupil. To remedy the 
first the colleges and universities are opening summer schools for 
1 Edited by Prof. ©. E. Bessey, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska. 
