534 The American Naturalist. (Sala 
student had little difficulty in remembering the curious fact that while 
botanists have as great a need as the zoologists for group-terms, they 
have thrown away “ Family” by making “ Order” synonymous with 
it and then using both terms for the same groups. When, however, 
he faces the fact that in zoology the sequence is Class, Order and 
Family, and in botany Class, Family and Order, he may well become 
indignant at the want of agreement between the workers in these nearly 
related fields of science——CHARLEs E. Brssry. 
Botanical Notelets.—Frank Vincent’s “Plant World” is a 
pleasantly written book in Appleton’s Home Reading Books. It con- 
sists of selections, prose and poetic, relating to plants. In general these 
selections are judiciously made, but there is one at least written by I. 
Platt in “ The World’s Encyclopedia of Wonders and Curiosities” 
which should at once be suppressed by the publishers. How Dr. Har- 
ris, the editor of the series, could have allowed such arrant nonsense to 
go into this otherwise excellent book is quite inexplicable. 
Of some botanical interest is the pretty little book, “ The Dahlia,” 
edited by William Cuthbertson, and published by Macmillan & Co. 
While primarily intended for gardeners and florists, there is not a lit- 
tle of value in it for the scientific botanist who is interested in the ques- 
tion of the pliability of plants under man’s hand. 
J. B. Leiberg’s report of his botanical survey of the Coeur d’Alene 
Mountains, Idaho, in the summer of 1895 (Contrib. U. S. Natl. Herb., 
Vol. V, No.1), brings to light many interesting facts about a relatively 
little known region. It contains many suggestions as to the policy 0 
forest preservation in which so many scientific men are now interested. 
It is interesting to note that in spite of the fact that this report has a 
marked economic flavor, all measurements are metric throughout. 
Certainly if the United States Department of Agriculture can safely 
use the metric measurements in a builetin dealing with topography, 
drainage, climate, mineral deposits, agricultural capacity, agricultural 
products, grazing lands, native food plants, utilization of water supply, 
forest resources, forest destruction, forest preservation, etc., botanists 
need no longer fear to make use of such measurements in their books, 
even of the most popular character. 
The last number of Pringsheim’s Jahrbiicher fir wissenschaftliche 
Botanik (Bd. XXX, 2 and 3), now edited by Pfeffer and Strasburger, 
is remarkable for the richness of its contents, the whole being devoted 
to cytological studies from the Botanical Institute of Bonn. After an 
introductory note by Strasburger there are papers on the karyokin- 
