1034 The American Naturalist. [December, 
calculated to placate his opponents. But whatever may be thought of 
some of his suggestions, we can have little sympathy with those who, 
as Pfitzer seems inclined to do, charge him with wanton alterations or 
selfish motives. On the contrary, there is every reason to accept his 
statement that he was led into the work of reforming nomenclature in 
the course of the investigation of his collections, a natural thing when 
. dealing with plants collected in every quarter of the globe, which 
would bring out the defects of our present nomenclature in a most 
striking manner. After all his work has but served to bring vividly 
before us what all were dimly conscious of before. Every man for 
himself was the principal rule of nomenclature in practice. We must 
at least admire Dr. Kuntze's persistence in endeavoring to bring about 
uniformity and a better state of things. 
Roscor Pounp. 
Notes on the Trees of Northern Nebraska.—These notes ap- 
ply to the region embraced in Antelope, Holt, Boyd, Rock, Brown, 
Keya Paha, Cherry, Sheridan, Dawes, and Sioux Counties. In the 
last three my observations have been much more limited, and, I doubt 
not, need extension and revision. They are simply good as far as 
' the 
The country is composed of sandhills interspersed with small lakes, 
ponds and streams, hay-flats in the moister valleys, and dry valleys 
between the rows of sandhills, with stretches of dry, firm table-lands, 
usually abruptly separated from the sandhill portions by a deep cañon 
stream. With few exceptions, the trees are confined to these cañons, 
which branch out into the hill-sides in long reaches, some dry, others 
worn by unfailing spring brooks or “creeks,” as they are generally 
called. 
There is good reason to believe that this treeless region was not 
always thus. On the tops of some of the sandhills have been found 
decaying trunks of Pine and Red Cedar buried deep in sand, bearing 
witness to a different condition of moisture in years gone by. In com- 
mon with most observers, I think, I attribute the change to the de- 
structive prairie fires that have swept over this region from time imme- 
morial. They form one of the chief obstacles, to-day, to the regenera- 
tion of the land. The deep cafions are lined, when dry, from summit 
to base, with Pinus ponderosa scopulorum Engelm. A few scattering 
specimens are found extending several hundred feet upon the neighbor- 
ing table. When the base of the cañon is wet, the Pine is found only 
above the line of moisture. It plants its feet in the gray magnesian; 
a Se T NE 
