1044 The American Naturalist. [December, 
brief mention. Born in Cazenovia, N. Y.; May 22, 1836; educated 
in the Oneida County Seminary, and the Michigan Agricultural College 
(B. Sc., 1861 and M. Sc., 1864). After short periods of service in the 
engineering corps of the United States Army, and the public schools of 
Michigan he became professor of botany in the Michigan Agricultural 
College (1868 to 1868). After six years of service he was called to the 
chair of botany in Cornell University (1868), where he remained for 
twenty-eight years when on account of failing health he was made 
professor emeritus (1896). In these years of work Professor Prentiss 
was emphatically a teacher. The building and equipment of his depart- 
ment, and the training of men who went out to be professors in many 
colleges, left little time for investigations and the preparation of papers. 
He chose to impress his thoughts upon men rather than upon paper, 
and he will be remembered not as a writer, but as a teacher. His life 
shows how much more effective our work is when we teach men directly 
by our spoken words rather than through our printed papers.—C. E. B, 
The Nomenclature of Mycetozoa.—Professor Mac Bride has 
been studying the question of nomenclature among these organisms 
(plants he calls them, and, therefore his results are noticed here) and 
finds great difficulty in applying the “ priority rule” to the solution of 
the problem. He calls attention to the well-known fact that the earlier 
botanists did not understand the nature of Mycetozoa and that their 
descriptions and even their figures in many cases are unintelligible. 
Rostafinski a little more than twenty years ago gave us the first rational 
account of the group, and for the first time gave us descriptions by 
means of which we may know certainly what he had in hand when he 
applied a particular name. His nomenclature is, therefore, to a large 
extent the earliest which is authentic. Practically all earlier descript- 
ions are unrecognizable, and therefore, Rostafinski had to take up the 
work de novo. Professor Mac Bride says: “ The fact is that when Ros- 
tafinski gives credit to his predecessors it is for the most part purely a 
work of courtesy and grace; there is nothing in the work itself to com- 
mand such consideration.” He therefore concludes that “ the man 
who in his search for priority ascends beyond Rostafinski, does 1$ at 
-the risk of endless confusion and uncertainty in the great majority of 
cases” and that for these the initial date must be that of his great woti, 
“Sluzowce Monografia” in 1875.—Cuarves E. Bessey. 
The Flora of Wyoming.—Professor Aven Nelson of w 
versity of Wyoming recently issued a valuable “ First Report on Be 
Flora of Wyoming,” based upon field work in 1892 (by Professor — 
