1892.] Botany. 861 
VI. PUBLICATION OF SPECIES. 
Publication of a species consists only (1) in the distribution of a 
printed description of the species named; (2) in the publishing of a 
binomial, with reference to a previously published species as a type. 
VII. SIMILAR GENERIC NAMES. 
Similar generic names are not to be rejected on account of slight 
differences, except in the spelling of the same word; for example, 
Apios and Apium are to be retained, but of Epidendrum and Epiden- 
dron, Asterocarpus and Astrocarpus, the latter is to be rejected. 
VIII. CITATION or AUTHORITIES. 
In the case of a species which has been transferred from one genus, 
to another the original author must always be cited in parenthesis, fol- 
lowed by the author of the new binomial. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Fortuitous Variation.—In a paper just published, read before 
the Biological Society of Washington, on “Some Interrelations of 
Plants and Insects,” in which Professor C. V. Riley deals with the 
subjects of Yucca pollination and fig caprification, he generalizes from 
the facts recorded as follows: 
“The peculiarities which I have endeavored to present to you are 
full of suggestion, particularly for those who are in the habit of look- 
ing beyond the mere facts of observation in endeavors to find some 
rational explanation of them ; who, in other words, see in everything 
they observe significances and harmonies not generally understood. 
The facts indicate clearly, it seems to me, how the peculiar structures 
of the female Pronuba have been evolved by gradual adaptation to 
the particular functions which we now find her performing. With 
the growing adaptation to Pronuba’s help, the Yucca flower has lost, 
to a great extent, the activity of its septal glands; yet coincident with it 
we find an increase in the secreting power of the stigma. This increase 
of the stigmatic fluid has undoubtedly had much to do with originally 
attracting the moth thereto, while the pollenizing instinct doubtless 
became more and more fixed in proportion as the insect lost the power 
or desire of feeding. With the mind’s eye I can look back into the 
past and picture the gradual steps by which the Prodoxids to which I 
have alluded have differentiated along lines which have resulted in 
