1010 The American Naturalist. [November, 
color, bay, or chestnut, and yet these names and many others call up 
quite different conceptions in different minds, and, where much de- 
pends on the accurate description of colors, are sure to mislead, unless 
referred to some exact color scale or well known object or substance of 
invariable color. In this particular scale, for example, ater does not 
represent the usual conception of a lusterless coal black, but is a lighter 
color between plumbeous and slate; Jatericius is not the color of any 
bricks commonly found in this country, but rather what the writer 
would designate a light chocolate; badius is scarcely the color of a 
bay horse; and incarnatus is certainly not the lively color of the lips. 
These matters, however, are trifles provided the colors of the scale are 
made from pigments that will be permanent and provided those who 
use it as a guide remember that it represents in many cases not the 
universal concept of particular colors but only the author’s, and 
specify accordingly, e. g., “ violaceus Sacc., No. 47.” Itis to be re- 
gretted that directions for reproducing these colors are not given. To 
see how widely color concepts vary, even among distinguished natu- 
ralists let the reader compare Saccardo’s hazel (7), isabella (8), chest- 
nut (10), scarlet (15), cream-color (27), emerald green (36) glaucous 
green (38), violet (47), and lilac (48) with Ridgway’s numbers, IV 12, 
IIL 28, EV 9, VIL 11, VI 20, X 16, X 17, VIII 10, and VII 19 which 
bear the same names but are by no means the same colors. Evidently 
the perfect color scale is yet to be put upon paper, and owing to de- 
fects in pigments is not likely to appear soon. Meanwhile we may be 
thankful for those we have, using them as intelligently as possible, and 
never forgetting to specify, in cases where color is important, the par- 
ticular scale in which a similar color may be seen. Saccardo’s scale 
has a special value to mycologists, since it affords the users of that im- 
mense and indispensable work, the Sylloge Fungorum, a ready means 
of determining in a thousand and one descriptions exactly what color 
is meant, provided, of course, the author has used the terminology of 
this scale consistently throughout.—Erwin F. SMITH. 
Kroeber’s Transpiration Experiments.—It will be remem- 
bered that Miiller-Thurgau believed he had demonstrated the amount 
of transpiration-water to be different in different varieties of vines and 
orchard trees, and that this fact could be turned to practical use by 
horticulturalists who, in dry soils or climates; should plant varieties, 
making small demands on transpiration, and in moist ones those tran- 
spiring abundantly. Very recently Mr. E. Kréber, assistant in the 
plant-physiological experiment station of the Kénigliches Lehranstalt 
